Ethan Blue - Doing Time in the Depression: Everyday Life in Texas and California Prisons

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Doing Time in
the Depression

AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
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Asian American Womens
Public Culture, 19301960
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Newark:
A History of Race, Rights,
and Riots in America
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Doing Time in the Depression:
Everyday Life in Texas and
California Prisons
Ethan Blue

Everyday Life in Texas

and California Prisons

Ethan Blue

NYU Press gratefully acknowledges

the generous support of The Australian Academy of the Humanities

in making the publication of the book possible.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

www.nyupress.org

2012 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet Websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.

Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs

that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blue, Ethan.

Doing time in the depression : everyday life in

Texas and California prisons / Ethan Blue.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780814709405 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 9780814709412 (ebook)

ISBN 9780814723166 (ebook)

1. PrisonersCaliforniaHistory. 2. PrisonsCalifornia

Social conditions. 3. Prison administrationCaliforniaHistory.

4. PrisonersTexasHistory. 5. PrisonsTexasSocial conditions.

6. Prison administrationTexasHistory. I. Title.

HV9475.C2B58 2012

365.976409043dc23 2011033399

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,

and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials

to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2 Work in the Walled City:
Labor and Discipline in Californias Prisons

3 From Can See to Cant:
Agricultural Labor and Industrial Reform
on Texas Penal Plantations

4 Shifting Markets of Power:
Building Tenders, Con Bosses, Queens, and Guards

5 Thirty Minutes behind the Walls:
Prison Radio and the Popular Culture of Punishment

From Austin to Sacramento and Charlottesville to Perth, Ive accumulated many debts over the course of writing this book. Advisors, colleagues, friends, students, and family all gave generously of their time and advice, and even if I havent been shrewd enough to accept it all, I am grateful. I am more grateful still for the community the discussions helped make: advisors became friends; students taught me much; family became advisors; colleagues became family. Many thanks to you all.

The University of Texas provided a warmsweltering, evenplace for graduate study. Many of the conversations I had there, in seminars and libraries, coffee shops and bars, developed the ideas that come through in the pages that follow. Neil Foley, Gunther Peck, and Robert Olwell proved a formidable trio of supervisors, whose comments expanded my thought while tightening my analysis. David Montejano, Carolyn Eastman, Kevin Kenny, Willy Forbath, David Oshinksy, James Sidbury, Harry Cleaver, Luis Alvarez, Manuel Callahan, Patrick Timmons, Alan Eladio Gmez, Ryan Carey, Steven Galpern, John Troutman, Rebecca Montes, Stephen Berrey, Norwood Andrews, and Kenneth Aslakson deserve warm thanks. The Advanced Seminar for Borderlands Research provided a model of collaborative learning and engaged research that Ive carried with me ever since.

Reginald Butler, Tico Braun, Edward Ayers, and George Mentore inspired me as an undergraduate, but this inspiration paled in comparison to the scholarly challenges they would later provide. A predoctoral research fellowship at the University of Virginias Carter G. Woodson Institute for African and African American Studies gave intellectual companionship and vital financial support: deep thanks to Reginald Butler, Scot French, Corey Walker, Deborah McDowell, Scott Saul, Wende Marshall, Hanan Sabea, Davarian Baldwin, Cheryl Hicks, Grace Hale, Eric Lott, Sandy Alexandre, Mieka Brand, and most especially to Tyrone Simpson, Jesse Shipley, and Candice Lowe.

Colleagues at the University of Western Australia have also been generous in their support for this disoriented and sunburned new arrival. Charlie Fox, Mark Edele, Rob Stuart, Susie Protschky, Richard Bosworth, Giuseppe Finaldi, Andrea Gaynor, David Barrie, Sue Broomhall, Jenny Gregory, Esta Ungar, Philippa Maddern, Norman Etherington, Jeremy Martens, Blaze Kwaymullina, David Savat, Alistair Paterson, Michael Levine, Philip Mead, Gareth Griffiths, Shalmalee Palekar, Brenda Walker, Bill Taylor, and Clarissa Ball enriched the book in many ways. Others further afield in Perth, the antipodes, and elsewhere, helped immeasurably. Many thanks to Andrew Webster, Theodore Hamm, Carolyn Strange, Frances Clarke, Clare Corbould, Janaka Biyanwila, Karen Soldatic, Mary Bosworth, Arnoldo de Len, and Paul Tallion. Rhys Isaacs pointed and wry feedback was the kind that only he could provide. Special thanks to Shane White and Richard Bosworth, whose detailed comments on the full manuscript sharpened the analysis. Brooke Lamperd and George Robertson provided wonderful research assistance. So did Kevin Shupe.

Im also grateful to the fellow travelers Ive met at conferences and elsewhere. Thanks to Ruthie Gilmore, Rose Braz, Christian Parenti, Eileen Boris, Volker Janssen, Samuel Roberts, and to Stephen R. Mahoney for an early push in the right direction. Laura Saegert and John Anderson were tremendous guides to the Texas State Archives. Lucy Barber and Jeff Crawford were of special help at the California State Archives, and Marin County Free Librarians Laurie Thompson and Carol Uhrmacher continue to earn my gratitude. A University of Western Australia Research Grant, and an American Historical Association LittletonGriswold Research Grant enabled time in those archives. Eric Zinner, Ciara McLaughlin, and the readers at NYU Press also offered sage advice that helped make the book a reality, and an Australian Academy of the Humanities publication subsidy made the book better. Alex Lichtenstein gave incisive comments on one of the first conference papers I ever gave, and his detailed notes on this manuscript were equally astute.