Title Fire in the Big House : America's deadliest prison disaster / Mitchel P. Roth

Published Athens : Swallow Press, an imprint of Ohio University Press, [2019] ©2019

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 278 pages) : illustrations Contents Fire in the Big House -- The fairgrounds -- Columbus, Ohio -- Ohio Penitentiary -- The Big House -- The warden -- The keepers -- The convicts -- Board of inquiry -- Mutiny in White City -- The arsonists -- Aftermath -- Epilogue Summary "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 Pathé'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"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-271) and index Notes Print version record Subject Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio) -- Fire, 1930 Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio) SUBJECT Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio) fast Subject Prisons -- Fires and fire prevention -- Ohio -- Columbus Prisons -- Ohio -- History -- 20th century Fires -- Ohio -- Columbus -- History -- 20th century Fires Prisons Prisons -- Fires and fire prevention Social conditions Residential Fires. Prisons. Prisoners. History. SUBJECT Columbus (Ohio) -- Social conditions -- 20th century Subject Ohio Ohio -- Columbus Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780821446829 0821446827

Other Titles America's deadliest prison disaster

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