How long were chain gangs used in America?

Borrowing from eighteenth-century English penal procedures, southern states began using chain gangs before the Civil War and continued the practice for nearly a hundred years.

Georgia became the last state to outlaw this method of punishment in the late 1940s.

The decline of chain gangs was due as much to automation as to public protest: New machinery used to build roads did not require as many workers.

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