Research

Scope and Content Note

This series contains correspondence, typed and printed reports, articles, notes, and federal and state documents concerning the prison contract labor system for the manufacture of shoes and shirts in various states, the U.S. as a whole, and other countries.

The series contains: letters comparing prison labor to free labor in the shoe industry; answers to questionnaires sent to prisons outside New York State, providing information on number of convicts involved in contract labor, productivity, receipts from prison labor, and convicts' earnings; copies of contracts between manufacturers and prisons; extracts from editorials and statements by public figures; letters to unions and manufacturers urging support for legislation to end the contract prison labor system; reports and notes on contract prison labor policy in various states and individual institutions, and on proposed legislation; reports on hearings before U.S. House and Senate subcommittees, some with transcripts of testimony, concerning prison labor; bill concerning prison labor, and Congressional Record (March 4, 1912) including a debate on the bill; lectures, news clippings, and articles on prison labor in the U.S., France, and Germany, mostly opposing contract prison labor; and broadside urging people to wear union-made clothing instead of prison-made clothing.