prison labor — Bunk History

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This Day in Labor History: December 1, 1868

On folk hero John Henry.

by Erik Loomis via Twitter on December 1, 2019

Cell block at Riker's Island

Is It Possible for New York City to Get Jail Design Right?

Rikers Island jails were supposed to be the more humane model when they were built. New York City has the same lofty goals as it plans Rikers’ replacements.

by Chelsey Sanchez via CityLab on September 12, 2019

A Lost Work by Langston Hughes Examines the Harsh Life on the Chain Gang

In 1933, the Harlem Renaissance star wrote a powerful essay about race. It has never been published in English—until now.

by Steven Hoelscher via Smithsonian on July 1, 2019

African American prison laborers.

A School District Wants to Relocate the Bodies of 95 Black Forced-Labor Prisoners

A school district owns the property where the bodies of 95 black convict-lease prisoners from Jim Crow era were buried.

by Meagan Flynn via Washington Post on October 25, 2018

Prisons for Sale, Histories Not Included

The intertwined history of mass incarceration and environmentalism in Upstate New York's prison-building boom.

by Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr. via Edge Effects on October 23, 2018

Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0

An updated prison syllabus in response to the national prison strike of 2018.

by Dan Berger, Garrett Felber, Elizabeth Hinton, Anyabwile Love, Kali Nicole Gross via Black Perspectives on September 8, 2018

One Man's Quest to Uncover the True Costs of Jim Crow

"It’s going to change how we think about Texas history and how we think about ourselves and how we built this state."

by Megan Flynn via Washington Post on July 18, 2018

Frances Thompson holding an umbrella.

Frances Thompson Survived a Race Massacre and Bravely Testified to Congress. Then She Was Slandered.

A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity.

by Chelsea Bailey via CNN on February 16, 2025

A nurse passing a cup with methadone through a glass window.

History Exposes the Flaw in RFK Jr.'s Drug Treatment Plan

Kennedy wants to create "wellness drug rehabilitation farms." But the U.S. tried it before, and it didn't work.

by Melody Glenn via Made By History on January 30, 2025

A row of beds at the Fort Worth Narcotic Farm.

“I Don’t Expect Many Escapes”

On the rise of the narcotic farm model, a radical reimagining of the nation’s approach to addiction.

by Holly M. Karibo via HNN on November 19, 2024

Governor Philip La Follette signing the old-age pension bill in Madison, Wisconsin in 1931.

The Golden Age of Wisconsin Socialism

At its peak in the 1920s and early ’30s, the Socialist Party in Wisconsin used confrontational tactics and nonsocialists alliances to make legislative advances.

by Joshua Kluever via Jacobin on September 12, 2024

Broward County sheriff Walter R. Clark.

The Peculiar World of American Sheriffs

The history of sheriffs suggests we need to pay attention to what our local sheriffs do, vote in local elections, and choose our sheriffs wisely.

by Cindy Hahamovitch via Process: A Blog for American History on August 6, 2024

Black man in jail depicted evoking American flag imagery, with the star in his eye and stripes as jail bars

Ill Fares the Land

A prison is a difficult thing to kill.

by Spencer Weinreich via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 29, 2024

The Silent Treatment: Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins

Characterised today by the noise of banging, buzzers, and the cries of inmates, solitary confinement was originally developed from Quaker ideas.

by Jane Brox via The Public Domain Review on October 25, 2023

Musical notation and a drawing of a barbed wire fence.

The Musical Legacy of a Mississippi Prison Farm

The new album “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” collects gospel songs recorded inside a notorious penitentiary.

by Hanif Abdurraqib via The New Yorker on October 2, 2023

Prisoners at Parchman Farm march to work on cotton fields

‘It’s a Charged Place’: Parchman Farm, the Mississippi Prison with a Remarkable Musical History

Inmates at this bucolic but brutal prison have long been singing the blues to sustain themselves, and a new compilation of gospel songs continues the legacy.

by Sheldon Pearce via The Guardian on September 20, 2023

Sketch of a bedroom with a double bed, a prison courtyard outside the window.

Controversy and Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?

by Molly Hagan via JSTOR Daily on February 13, 2023

Inmates playing touch football at Moberly Correctional Center in Moberly, MO, 1990.

The First Famous Football Team Behind Bars

Sing Sing's football team, The Black Sheep, ascended to fame even though its players were incarcerated. One player was so good, he signed with the Eagles.

by Joshua Finnell via JSTOR Daily on February 8, 2023

Engraving of freed slaves arriving at Union lines, New Bern, North Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipators’ Vision

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?

by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on December 1, 2022

Johnny Cash.

Far From Folsom Prison: More to Music Inside

Johnny Cash wasn't the only superstar to play in prisons. Music, initially allowed as worship, came to be seen as a rockin' tool of rehabilitation.

by Morgan Godvin via JSTOR Daily on November 29, 2022

Inventing Solitary

In 1790, Philadelphia opened the first American penitentiary, with the nation’s first solitary cells. Black people were disproportionately punished from the start.

by Samantha Melamed via Philadelphia Inquirer on June 8, 2022

Photograph of the famous Alamo, where the Battle of the Alamo was fought between the Republic of Texas and Mexico in 1836.

Texas' White Guy History Project

The 1836 Project will indoctrinate new Texans with fables about our history.

by James Dobbins via Texas Observer on May 11, 2022

A three panel image of Carrie Buck, Britney Spears, and Ann Cooper Hewitt.

Britney Spears, Carrie Buck and the Awful History of Controlling ‘Unfit’ Women

Behind Britney Spears's struggle to regain control of her fortune and her medical decisions is a long history of robbing women of basic freedoms.

by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on September 30, 2021

Prisoners and guards in Attica State Prison

Honoring Attica After Half a Century

It’s time to demand law enforcement accountability for the death of unarmed citizens not just on America’s streets but also in our prisons.

by Heather Ann Thompson via The Nation on September 13, 2021

50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Protest Brutal Conditions

If this nation hopes to achieve a justice system that is just, it must remain ever vigilant for any echo from Attica.

by Heather Ann Thompson via TIME on September 8, 2021

Guard checking pockets of American soldier prisoners

Prisoners of War

During the war in Vietnam, there was a notorious American prison on the outskirts of Saigon: a prison for American soldiers.

via Radio Diaries on August 12, 2021

John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.

by Jake Maynard via Current Affairs on July 6, 2021

The Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Carroll Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Irony of Complaints About Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Advocacy Journalism

The White press helped destroy democracy in the South. Black journalists developed an activist tradition because they had to.

by Sid Bedingfield via Made By History on June 24, 2021

Defendant Alfred Krupp von Bohlen testifies at the Krupp Case war crimes trial.

The Other Nuremberg Trials, Seventy-Five Years On

Failures in prosecuting German businesses who profited in Nazi Germany show how far Europe and America were willing to go to protect capitalism.

by Erica X. Eisen via Boston Review on March 22, 2021

A congressional staffer departs holding a visual aid following a news conference regarding the redesigned $20 bill meant to honor Harriet Tubman, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 2019.

Putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill Is Not a Sign of Progress

It's a sign of disrespect.

by Brittney C. Cooper via TIME on January 27, 2021

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