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Full Description
A fascinating personal account of life at this infamous prison during a bygone era.
Written more than eighty years ago, Fifty Years in Sing Sing is the personal account of Alfred Conyes (1852-1931), who worked as a prison guard and then keeper at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, from 1879 to 1929. This unpublished memoir, dated 1930, was found among his granddaughter's estate by his great-granddaughter Penelope Kay Jarrett. Near the end of his life, Conyes told his story to family member Alfred Van Buren Jr., relating, in detail, harrowing and humorous accounts of what prison life was like from his perspective and how prison conditions changed over the course of a half century. The book covers prison hardship, cruel punishments deemed appropriate at the time, daring and clever escapes, the advent of death by electricity, Prohibition, doughboys, and prison reform.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword by Ted Conover
Preface
Acknowledgments and Editorial Note
Foreword to the Original Manuscript by Lewis Lawes
Prelude
Destiny Carved in Stone
Clinton Prison: An Inside Portrait
Sing Sing Prison—Now and Then
Lost Souls Sewing on Soles
To Be Put to Death
Holding the Line
The High Cost of Freedom: Leaving Sing Sing, Leaving This Earth
A Promise to Be Kept
A Narrow Escape, Suicide, and Tragedy
Do Good and Make Good
Better Alive Than Dead
Notes
