The Elmira State Reformatory rises grandly from its landscaped hilltop — a sprawling Victorian complex of towers, turrets, and arched windows that looks far more like a university campus than a prison, which was precisely the point. When it opened in 1876 as the nation's first reformatory, Elmira under superintendent Zebulon Brockway rejected the "holy trinity" of silence, obedience, and labor that governed 19th-century prisons, replacing them with education, vocational training, and an indeterminate sentencing system that rewarded rehabilitation. Contemporaries called it "the college on the hill." Elmira introduced parole as a regular part of the American correctional system and became a model imitated across the country and around the world. This card was never mailed.

• Caption: Elmira, N. Y. Elmira State Reformatory.
• Publisher: Al. Horwitz Bros., Elmira, N.Y.
• Status: Unposted