California State Prison at San Quentin ephemera collection
Overview
Ephemera produced by prisoners in the print shop at California State prison at San Quentin.
Dates
- Creation: 1940-1960
Language of Materials
In English.
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.08 linear feet (1 folder)Ephemera from San Quentin Prison in California produced by inmates at the prison in the San Quentin Print Shop; the level of production is professional, employing silkscreen and creating air brushed covers. The collection includes a souvenir book, ticket, programs, and scorecards for sporting events, dinners, and its annual New Year’s show.
Biographical / Historical
The prison, the oldest in California, was built by inmates in July 1852 at Point San Quentin in Marin County (Calif.). It housed male and female inmates until 1933, the women then transferred to a women’s prison at Tehachapi. There are four cell blocks, one maximum security cell block, a Central Health Care Service Building, a medium security dorm setting, and a minimum security firehouse; the state’s only gas chamber and death row for all male condemned inmates are located at San Quentin.
The annual New Year's show at the prison was an elaborate vaudeville show including numerous performers, among them Johnny Cash, Jackie Gleason, and Maya Angelou (then a young nightclub singer in San Francisco).
Arrangement
Collection is minimally processed; this finding aid is arranged chronologically.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2020MT-37. Purchased with funds from the Frank E. Chase Bequest, 2019 September.
2020MT-38. Gift of Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., 2019 September.
Processing Information
Processed by Melanie Wisner, 2019.
Subject
- California State Prison at San Quentin (Organization)
- Title
- California State Prison at San Quentin ephemera collection, 1940-1960 (MS Thr 1992): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Date
- 2019 October 1
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou03269
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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