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Fire in the Big House

Fire in the Big House

America's Deadliest Prison Disaster

by Mitchel P. Roth
Hardback
Publication Date: 08/10/2019

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On April 21, 1930--Easter Monday--some rags caught fire under the Ohio Penitentiary's dry and aging wooden roof, shortly after inmates had returned to their locked cells after supper. In less than an hour, 320 men who came from all corners of Prohibition-era America and from as far away as Russia had succumbed to fire and smoke in what remains the deadliest prison disaster in United States history.

Within 24 hours, moviegoers were watching Path 's newsreel of the fire, and in less than a week, the first iteration of the weepy ballad "Ohio Prison Fire" was released. The deaths brought urgent national and international focus to the horrifying conditions of America's prisons (at the time of the fire, the Ohio Penitentiary was at almost three times its capacity). Yet, amid darkening world politics and the first years of the Great Depression, the fire receded from public concern.

In Fire in the Big House, Mitchel P. Roth does justice to the lives of convicts and guards and puts the conflagration in the context of the rise of the Big House prison model, local and state political machinations, and American penal history and reform efforts. The result is the first comprehensive account of a tragedy whose circumstances--violent unrest, overcrowding, poorly trained and underpaid guards, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food--will be familiar to prison watchdogs today.

ISBN:
9780821423837
9780821423837
Category:
History of the Americas
Format:
Hardback
Publication Date:
08-10-2019
Language:
English
Publisher:
Ohio University Press
Country of origin:
United States
Dimensions (mm):
236x191x26mm
Weight:
0.48kg
Mitchel P. Roth

Mitchel P. Roth is professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University, Texas. His many books include An Eye for an Eye: A Global History of Crime and Punishment, also published by Reaktion Books. Roth is the 2020recipient of the Frederic Milton Thrasher Award for "Superior Accomplishments in Gang Research" from the National Gang Crime Research Center and Journal of Gang Research.

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