ABSTRACT

Emil Kemp worked on the stencils all of October, averaging two pages a night. By the end of the month, Kemp and J.J.C, were ready to print their first effort. Fifty inmates had donated funds for the purchase of a mimeograph machine. Unlike the Prison Mirror, the Mentor was not being launched as a commercial venture. By 1902, the inmates proclaimed the permanence of the Mentor. The Mentor was especially critical of its fellow prison publications. Most of them, like the Summary, simply reprinted articles from outside newspapers "adding to them one or two hastily written articles by home contributors," wrote Kemp. The Mentor's staff wanted to display the best of prison talents to readers. In 1904, the Mentor and its correspondence school were selected to form part of the Massachusetts Educational Exhibit in the Palace of Education at the St. Louis World Fair.