ABSTRACT
The apparent success of Zebulon Brockway's widely admired Elmira Reformatory and its many novelties including the Summary spawned many imitators. By the end of the 1890s Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, Texas, California, and possibly other states had established prison newspapers. As in Elmira, among the arsenal of reformative tools was an inmate newspaper. As with the Summary, there was considerable outside interest in the newspaper. The Charlestown prison administration was in agreement with the Summary at Elmira "that a prison paper should be intended for the prison population, and forthem almost exclusively." Thirty wardens were polled in 1909 by Isabel Barrows about the influence of the newspapers on the inmates. The first group of prison newspapers were thus a creation of the reformist spirit that invaded the legislatures and prisons of the United States following the euphoric birth of a professional cadre of prison administrators.
