Download or read book The Rose Man of Sing Sing written by James McGrath Morris and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of the early 20th-century newspaper giant who became news after killing his wife “has the pace and detail of an engrossing historical novel” (Boston Herald). As city editor of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Evening World, Charles E. Chapin was the quintessential newsroom tyrant: he drove reporters relentlessly, setting the pace for evening press journalism with blockbuster stories from the Harry K. Thaw trial to the sinking of the Titanic. At the pinnacle of his fame in 1918, Chapin was deeply depressed and facing financial ruin. He decided to kill himself and his wife Nellie. But after shooting Nellie in her sleep, he failed to take his own life. The trial made one hell of a story for the Evening World’s competitors, and Chapin was sentenced to life in Ossining, New York’s, infamous Sing Sing Prison. In The Rose Man of Sing Sing, James McGrath Morris tracks Chapin’s journey from Chicago street reporter to celebrity New York powerbroker to infamous murderer. But Chapin’s story is not without redemption: in prison, he started a newspaper fighting for prisoner rights, wrote a best-selling autobiography, had two long-distance love affairs, and transformed barren prison plots into world-famous rose gardens. The first biography of one of the founding figures of modern American journalism, and a vibrant chronicle of the cutthroat culture of scoops and scandals, The Rose Man of Sing Sing is also a hidden history of New York at its most colorful and passionate.
Download or read book Sing Sing written by Denis Brian and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive research with original sources, Brian's narrative covers every period of the prison's checkered history, from the awful conditions of the 19th century to the relative improvements of the 20th century to today.
Download or read book Sing Sing Prison written by Guy Cheli and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A popular backdrop for numerous movies, Sing Sing, or "the Big House," has been a site of both controversy and reform. The history of Sing Sing dates back to 1825, when warden Elam Lynds brought one hundred inmates to begin construction of the prison "up the river" on the banks of the Hudson. The marble quarry that supplied the building material for the prison was located in an area that was once home to the Sint Sink, a Native American tribe whose name means "stone upon stone." Prison life was dominated by hard labor during the early years. Convicts in striped suits and shackles built the prison with their own hands. With the arrival of warden Lewis Lawes in 1920, Sing Sing became the most progressive prison of its kind. During this time, the New York Yankees traveled up to Sing Sing to play the prison's home baseball team; the prison grounds were landscaped with shrubbery and flower gardens; and the compound grew to include a chapel, mess hall, barbershop, library, and gymnasium. The electric chair was first introduced at Sing Sing in 1891. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the first civilians to be found guilty of espionage, were put to death there in 1953. Sing Sing Prison contains rare photographs from the prison archives, the Ossining Historical Society, and a private collection.
Download or read book Miracle at Sing Sing written by Ralph Blumenthal and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2005-05-15 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the riotous days of Prohibition and the Jazz Age to the brutal awakening of Pearl Harbor, one man ruled the fate of America's most dangerous criminals. He was Lewis E. Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison, the Big House up the river, who believed that no man was beyond redemption. Warden Lawes couldn't banish the electric chair (though he tried) but he knew that humanitarian care and good morale provided better security than the stoutest walls. Lawes befriended the Hollywood greats, Charlie Chaplin and Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy and Harry Warner, opening Sing Sing to the movies and exposing prisoners to the glamour of the silver screen. He brought Babe Ruth to Sing Sing, fielded a winning football team called The Black Sheep that brought gridiron glory to the circuit known as the Big Pen, and ran training shops, school classes and culture programs. Truly, Warden Lawes made Sing Sing sing. But Lawes was no pushover. He brought law to Sing Sing, a tale that comes alive in the hands of prize-winning New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal. He killed on orders from the state, consigning 303 condemned men and women to the electric chair. But he crusaded fiercely against the death penalty as useless and preached that every man deserved a second chance, even if, in the end, he faced a terrible betrayal. Lawes taught the nation that a jail was a lockup but a prison was a community. With his perfect name and flawless eye for fashion, Lawes took over as the ninth warden in eight years -- at 39, the youngest man to lead the century-old institution, then overflowing with more than a thousand hardened criminals and luckless youths. Vice was rife -- bribery, alcohol, drugs and sex. The political bosses held sway, swinging deals for favored inmates. Enemies accused him of coddling prisoners but he ridiculed the charge. No one was coddled on a food budget of 18 cents a day. Lawes lived with his wife and daughters in a Victorian mansion abutting the cellblock, where he was shaved each morning by a prison barber convicted of slashing a man's throat, the household cook was a murderer, and his youngest daughter's favorite babysitter was serving twenty-five years for kidnapping. Lawes tamed the tyrannical Charles E. Chapin who had terrorized generations of reporters as the editor of Joseph Pulitzer's Evening World before murdering his wife and winding up as Lawes's favorite horticulturist, the Rose Man of Sing Sing. Lawes championed the advent of radio and used it to inspire his prisoners and educate the public on penal reform. He wrote film scripts and radio plays and dramas and best-selling books. But in the end, his finest tribute came not from the mighty but a lowly prisoner in the yard who muttered, to no one in particular, "There was a right guy."
Download or read book Dance Hall A Novel of Sing Sing written by David Pietrusza and published by Church & Reid Books. This book was released on 2014-11-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brooklyn stickup artist, his taxi-dancing wife, a murderous newspaperman, a risk-taking warden, and a wife with a dark past converge in 1930s Sing Sing heading toward death, redemption-and Ebbets Field. *** "DANCE HALL: A NOVEL OF SING SING" unveils a grand and riveting tale of a violent and desperate past, unforgettably narrated in a gripping, often wry, fashion--recorded in tears and punctuated in--rarely innocent--blood. Dance Hall flawlessly transports readers to a seedy, volatile 1930s underworld where love and honor and redemption jostle for mere survival with greed and lust and betrayal. Dance Hall reveals the story of a Brooklyn stickup artist, his taxi-dancing Filipina spouse, a murderous newspaperman, a risk-taking warden, and a wife with a dark past converging in Sing Sing, destined for love, death, forgiveness, redemption--and Ebbets Field. Dance Hall reveals a page-turning web of perfectly-balanced back stories: of a young parish priest gone wrong and then right again, of a brutal Bowery killer with escape on his mind, a con man with the vestige of a conscience, a thuggish Garment District goon with a devout sister, a tell-all Broadway gossip columnist who can make or break you, a rat of an accomplice, a once-disgraced private detective who now surprisingly elevates a principle above a paycheck. Read Dance Hall and you live and breathe life inside cold and desperate prison halls and cells; sweaty and often violent Brooklyn dime-a-dance dance halls; threadbare tenements, back-alley speakeasies where anything you wanted badly enough was for sale; the offices of the rich and powerful and still conflicted; and of a waiting area for Sing Sing's "Death Row" called "The Dance Hall"--all while returning you to Depression days when hope reigned supreme. Because hope was all you had.
Download or read book When Texas Prison Scams Religion written by Michael G. Maness and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2023-05-22 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Texas Prison Scams Religion exposes corruption in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, especially in the abuse of religion. In many ways, this book is a literature review of 1,800-plus works that defends freedom of conscience in prison while exposing the unconstitutionality of the seminary program that “buys faith with favor” from prisoners. The state veritably ordains the prisoner a “Field Minister” that represents the offices of the Governor, TDCJ Director, and wardens throughout the prison. Therein, TDCJ lies about neutrality in a program all about Christian missions and lies again in falsely certifying elementary Bible students as counselors. Why is the director sponsoring psychopaths counseling psychopaths? In fact, TDCJ pays $314 million a year to UTMB for psychiatric care and receives not a single report of the care given, and worse, for UTMB generates no reports itself. The underbelly TDCJ’s executive culture of cover up is exposed. TDCJ has hired the lowest qualified of the applicant pool many times in the last 25 years and regularly destroys statistics on violence. TDCJ Dir. Collier led the prison to model Louisiana Warden Burl Cain, the most scandal-ridden in penal history according to a host of published news stories for 20 years. Therein, Collier led TDCJ to favor the smallest segment of religious society within Evangelical Dominionism. Texas has no business endorsing the truth of any religion over another. We close with a proposal that utilizes the 400,000,000 hours of officer contact over ten years as a definitive influence in contrast to a commissioner that spends less than 10 minutes on each decision. Maness has been lobbying Austin for 15 years to definitively access staff for his “100,000 Mothers’ 1% Certainty Parole Texas Constitutional Amendment,” which would revolutionize prison culture and save Texans millions of the dollars.
Download or read book A Gentleman and a Thief written by Dean Jobb and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catch Me If You Can meets The Great Gatsby meets Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief in this captivating Jazz Age true-crime caper about "the greatest jewel thief who ever lived" (Life Magazine), Arthur Barry, who charmed celebrities and millionaires—everyone from Rockefellers to members of the royal family—while simultaneously planning and executing the most audacious and lucrative heists of the 1920s. “A master of narrative nonfiction. In this mesmerizing tale about a Jazz Age gentlemanly thief, Jobb has found his own perfect jewel.” ―DAVID GRANN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon “An enthrallingly propulsive, unpredictably twisty biography of one of the most fascinating criminals of the 20th Century. I was hooked from the very first heist.” ―MICHAEL FINKEL, New York Times bestselling author of The Art Thief and The Stranger in the Woods A skilled con artist and one of the most successful burglars in history, Arthur Barry was adept at slipping in and out of bedrooms undetected, even when his victims slept only inches away. He became a folk hero, a gentleman bandit touted in the press as the “Prince of Thieves” and an “Aristocrat of Crime.” Think Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. In a span of seven years, Barry stole pearls, diamonds, and other precious gems worth almost $60 million today. Among his many victims were a Rockefeller, an heiress to the Woolworth Department Store fortune, an oil magnate, Wall Street bigwigs, a top executive of automotive giant General Motors, and a famous polo player. He befriended the Prince of Wales, Harry Houdini, and other luminaries. The rollicking, caper-filled rise and dramatic downfall of this master thief is a high-speed ride told in stylish prose. A Gentleman and a Thief is also a love story. Barry confessed to dozens of burglaries to protect his wife, Anna Blake (and was the prime suspect in scores of others on Long Island and across Westchester County). Sentenced to a twenty-five-year term, he staged a dramatic prison break—triggering a bloody inmates' riot—when Anna became seriously ill, so they could be together for a few more years as fugitives. Page-turning, escapist, and sparkling with insight into the allure of gemstones and our fascination with well-planned heists and the suave, clever criminals who pull them off, A Gentleman and a Thief is perfect for true crime fans who relish the exploits of con artists and high-class crooks.
Download or read book Otherwise Normal People written by Aurelia C. Scott and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful, firsthand journey inside the world of competitive rose gardening documents the cutthroat gardeners representing a broad cross-section of American rose lovers who will do anything to obsessively cultivate the perfect bloom.
Download or read book Jailhouse Journalism written by James McGrath Morris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1980s alone, some 100 periodicals were published by and for inmates of America's prisons. Unlike their peers who passed their sentences stamping out licence plates, these convicts spent their days like reporters in any community - looking for the story. Yet their own story, the lengthy history of their unique brand of journalism, remained largely unknown. In this volume James McGrath Morris seeks to address the history of this medium, the lives of the men and women who brought it to life, and the controversies that often surround it.
Download or read book Real Men Don t Sing written by Allison McCracken and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crooner Rudy Vallée's soft, intimate, and sensual vocal delivery simultaneously captivated millions of adoring fans and drew harsh criticism from those threatened by his sensitive masculinity. Although Vallée and other crooners reflected the gender fluidity of late-1920s popular culture, their challenge to the Depression era's more conservative masculine norms led cultural authorities to stigmatize them as gender and sexual deviants. In Real Men Don't Sing Allison McCracken outlines crooning's history from its origins in minstrelsy through its development as the microphone sound most associated with white recording artists, band singers, and radio stars. She charts early crooners’ rise and fall between 1925 and 1934, contrasting Rudy Vallée with Bing Crosby to demonstrate how attempts to contain crooners created and dictated standards of white masculinity for male singers. Unlike Vallée, Crosby survived the crooner backlash by adapting his voice and persona to adhere to white middle-class masculine norms. The effects of these norms are felt to this day, as critics continue to question the masculinity of youthful, romantic white male singers. Crooners, McCracken shows, not only were the first pop stars: their short-lived yet massive popularity fundamentally changed American culture.
Download or read book Doing Time in the Garden written by James Jiler and published by New Village Press. This book was released on 2006-08-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first and only comprehensive guide to in-prison and post-release horticultural training programs.
Download or read book Sing for Me written by Karen Halvorsen Schreck and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a good church girl starts singing in a jazz club and falls for the music—as well as a handsome, African-American man—she struggles to reconcile her childhood faith with her newfound passions. When a good church girl starts singing in a jazz club and falls for the music—as well as a handsome African American man—she struggles to reconcile her childhood faith with her newfound passions. Raised in the Danish Baptist Church, Rose Sorensen knows it’s wrong to sing worldly songs. But Rose still yearns for those she hears on the radio—“Cheek to Cheek,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”—and sings them when no one is around. One day, Rose’s cousin takes her to Calliope’s, a jazz club, where she discovers an exciting world she never knew existed. Here, blacks and whites mingle, brought together by their shared love of music. And though Rose worries it’s wrong—her parents already have a stable husband in mind for her—she can’t stop thinking about the African American pianist of the Chess Men, Theo Chastain. When Rose returns to the jazz club, she is offered the role of singer for the Chess Men. The job would provide money to care for her sister, Sophy, who has cerebral palsy—but at what cost? As Rose gets to know Theo, their fledgling relationship faces prejudices she never imagined. And as she struggles to balance the dream world of Calliope’s with her cold, hard reality, she also wrestles with God’s call for her life. Can she be a jazz singer? Or will her faith suffer because of her worldly ways? Set in Depression-era Chicago and rich in historical detail, Sing for Me is a beautiful, evocative story about finding real, unflinching love and embracing—at all costs—your calling.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of American Prisons written by Carl Sifakis and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the history of prisons in the United States with articles about convict labor, escapes, famous and infamous wardens, fires, notable prisoners, riots, prison society, reformers, terminology, and more.
Download or read book The National Forgotten League written by Dan Daly and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first fifty years of America’s most popular spectator sport have been strangely neglected by historians claiming to tell the “complete story” of pro football. Well, here are the early stories that “complete story” has left out. What about the awful secret carried around by Sid Luckman, the Bears’ Hall of Fame quarterback whose father was a mobster and a murderer? Or Steve Hamas, who briefly played in the NFL then turned to boxing and beat Max Schmeling, conqueror of Joe Louis? Or the two one-armed players who suited up for NFL teams in 1945? Or Steelers owner Art Rooney postponing a game in 1938 because of injuries? These are just a few of the little-known facts Dan Daly unearths in recounting the untold history of pro football in its first half century. These decades were also full of ideas and experimentation, such as the invention of the modern T formation that revolutionized offense, unlimited player substitution, and soccer-style kicking, as well as the emergence of televised pro football as prime-time entertainment. Relying on obscure sources, original interviews, old game films and statistical databases, Daly’s extensive research and engaging stories bring the NFL’s formative years—and pro football’s folk roots—to life.
Download or read book Urban Horticulture written by Tina Marie Waliczek and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-01-06 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of urbanization and technological advances, public green spaces within cities are disappearing and people are spending more time with electronic devices than with nature. Urban Horticulture explores the importance of horticulture to the lives, health, and well-being of urban populations. It includes contributions from experts in researc
Download or read book The Lady of Sing Sing written by Idanna Pucci and published by S&S/Simon Element. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “gripping social history” (Publishers Weekly), with all the passion and pathos of a classic opera, chronicles the riveting first campaign against the death penalty waged in 1895 by American pioneer activist, Cora Slocomb, Countess of Brazzà, to save the life of a twenty-year-old illiterate Italian immigrant, Maria Barbella, who killed the man who had abused her. Previously published as The Trials of Maria Barbella. In 1895, a twenty-two-year-old Italian seamstress named Maria Barbella was accused of murdering her lover, Domenico Cataldo, after he seduced her and broke his promise to marry her. Following a sensational trial filled with inept lawyers, dishonest reporters and editors, and a crooked judge repaying political favors, the illiterate immigrant became the first woman sentenced to the newly invented electric chair at Sing Sing, where she is also the first female prisoner. Behind the scenes, a corporate war raged for the monopoly of electricity pitting two giants, Edison and Westinghouse with Nikola Tesla at his side, against each other. Enter Cora Slocomb, an American-born Italian aristocrat and activist, who launched the first campaign against the death penalty to save Maria. Rallying the New York press, Cora reached out across the social divide—from the mansions of Fifth Avenue to the tenements of Little Italy. Maria’s “crime of honor” quickly becomes a cause celebre, seizing the nation’s attention. Idanna Pucci, Cora’s great-granddaughter, masterfully recounts this astonishing story by drawing on original research and documents from the US and Italy. This dramatic page-turner, interwoven with twists and unexpected turns, grapples with the tragedy of immigration, capital punishment, ethnic prejudice, criminal justice, corporate greed, violence against women, and a woman’s right to reject the role of victim. Over a century later, this story is as urgent as ever.
Download or read book Crime and Punishment in America written by David B. Wolcott and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first incident of petty theft to modern media piracy, crime and punishment have been a part of every society. However, the structure and values of a particular society shape both the incidences of crime and the punishment of criminals. When the United States became an independent nation, politicians and civilians began the process of deciding which systems of punishment were appropriate for dealing with crimea process that continues to this day. Crime and Punishment in America examines the development of crime and punishment in the United Statesfrom the criminal justice practices of American Indians and the influence of colonists to the mistreatment of slaves, as well as such current criminal issues as the response to international terrorism.
