Overview

On March 24, 1800, Forlorn Hope became the first newspaper published within a prison by an incarcerated person. In the intervening 200 years, over 500 prison newspapers have been published from U.S. prisons. American Prison Newspapers will bring together hundreds of these periodicals from across the country into one collection that will represent penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women-only institutions.

With the United States incarcerating more individuals than any other nation–over 2 million as of 2019–these publications represent a vast dimension of media history. These publications depict and report on all manner of life within the walls of prisons, from the quotidian to the upsetting. Incarcerated journalists walk a tightrope between oversight by administration–even censorship–and seeking to report accurately on their experiences inside. Some publications were produced with the sanction of institutional authorities; others were produced underground.

Development of the collection began in July 2020 and will continue through 2022, with new content added regularly. The American Prison Newspapers collection is made possible by a growing list of libraries that are providing funding to cover the publishing costs, along with institutions and individuals that are opening their archives to provide the source material for digitization. Thanks to their contributions, the collection was made fully open access as of July, 2021.

Watch featured speakers share more about the collection and about prison journalism:

Privacy

Reveal Digital will undertake diligent efforts to protect the privacy of individuals depicted in the pages of the publications in this collection, and will take steps to notify the individuals and institutions that have contributed to the publications in this collection. If you are a writer, editor, or other contributor to a publication made available as part of American Prison Newspapers and encounter personal information of any kind that should be removed from view, please write to us to request its removal:

Reveal Digital
101 Greenwich St, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10010
+ 1 212-358-6400
support.revealdigital@ithaka.org

Please include an address or any other contact information at which you can be reached, and we will respond as soon as possible.

Feel free to contact us at support.revealdigital@ithaka.org with any further questions about the availability of the newspapers in this collection.

American Prison Newspapers advisory panel

Reveal Digital is developing the American Prison Newspapers collection with the help of an advisory panel representing diverse perspectives from communities impacted by the content. We are grateful for their time and counsel.

  • Dan Berger, Associate Professor and Director of the Washington Prison History Project, University of Washington at Bothell
  • Ellen Belcher, Special Collections Librarian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
  • William Drummond, Professor of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley, adviser to the San Quentin News, and author of Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News
  • Marianne Fisher-Giorlando, Angola Museum Executive Committee member, researcher for The Angolite, and professor of Criminal Justice at Grambling State University, emerita
  • Doran Larson, Professor of Literature, Hamilton College and Director of the American Prison Writing Archive
  • Kerry Myers, Deputy Director at the Louisiana Parole Project, former editor of The Angolite
  • Ana Noriega, Assistant Director of Collections Management, Colby College
  • Robert Pollock, Program Manager, PEN America Prison Writing Program
  • Philip V. Smith, Editor, Nash News
  • Tony Wallin-Sato, Programs Coordinator for Project Rebound Humboldt State University

Content contributors

The following libraries, archives, and publishers have agreed to provide source material for scanning. Please contact us if your organization has source material that you would like to contribute to the project.

    • Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records
    • Brigham Young University
    • Bucknell University
    • Colorado State Library
    • Connecticut State Library
    • Denver Public Library
    • Florida State University
    • Idaho State University Library
    • Indiana State Library
    • Library of Michigan
    • Louisiana State University
    • Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
    • Mule Creek Post, CA; D. Babbs, editor
    • Nash News (North Carolina: Editor: Phillip V. Smith)
    • Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse at the Nebraska Library Commission
    • Oklahoma State University
    • Prison Action News
  • Private Donors: Kelsey Kauffman, Eleanor Novek
  • The Pelican; David Nygen, former editor
  • State Library of North Carolina
  • State Library of Oregon
  • Tulane University
  • University of Arkansas
  • University of California, Davis
  • University of Connecticut
  • University of Hawai’i
  • University of Illinois
  • University of Kentucky
  • University of New Mexico
  • University of Oregon
  • University of Washington Libraries
  • University of Wisconsin
  • University of Wyoming
  • West Virginia University
  • Whitman College

Funding

Academic and public libraries have provided the funding needed to cover costs associated with publishing this important collection, along with a generous $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. Seed funding for American Prison Newspapers came from members of the Diversity & Dissent Digitization Fund; libraries may support various projects by joining the Diversity & Dissent Fund.

Legal notice

American Prison Newspapers aims to create a faithful digital reproduction of the collective works as they originally appeared in print and pursuant to 17 U.S.C Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act. Please note that if content items in the American Prison Newspapers collection reference permissible terms of use, such as a Creative Commons license, users may make use of such items in accordance with the stated terms of such license as further detailed in the JSTOR Terms and Conditions of Use.