Penitentiary Pugilism

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Penitentiary Pugilism On a rainy night in 1978 in Lewisburg, Union County, 1,400 men crowded into a boxing arena. In the ring they watched Clarence Miller take on the reigning 125-pound state champ, Ronald “Bartender” Barr. Of the 10 matches that Saturday, this was the only championship matchup, and the crowd was dazzled by the thrilling fight. Barr narrowly defeated Miller and was voted outstanding boxer of the...
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Sydney Ware, Eastern State Penitentiary Artist

Posted by on Dec 17, 2019 in | Comments Off on Sydney Ware, Eastern State Penitentiary Artist Built in the 1820s as part of a new type of prison system, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was founded on the belief that prisoners could be rehabilitated during incarceration through separate confinement and industrious labor. During the penitentiary’s span of operation, 1829–1971, numerous records were compiled about the inmates and maintained at the prison, including statistics on...
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Doing Time in Dauphin County, 1842-1901

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Doing Time in Dauphin County, 1842-1901 They locked up Elias Nation on April 18, 1842, giving him official first place in Dauphin County’s new prison. (For the record, Jacob Stripe was registered nearly two weeks earlier, for assault and battery, but he was out before the prison’s grand opening.) Nation was twenty­-nine years old and looked “yellow,” wrote Keeper Wil­liam Watson; he underlined that fact in his...
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