Newspapers from Prison

450 prison newspapers online

Cover of The Skytower News: Inmates of the Kentucky State Reformatory

On March 24, 1800, Forlorn Hope became the first newspaper published within a prison by an incarcerated person.

Some, like the Angolite and the San Quentin News, are still being published today. American Prison Newspapers¹ brings together hundreds of these periodicals from across the country into one collection that represents penal institutions of all kinds.

To bring the collections to a popular audience, three progrms were held 2020 featuring speakers with expertise on the subject: historian James McGrath Morris, author of Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars (Transaction, 2001); Kerry Myers, deputy director of the Louisiana Parole Project and former editor of The Angolite; and Yukari Iwatani Kane and Shaheen Pasha, cofounders and codirectors of the Prison Journalism Project. (Peet).²

Search in the American Prison Newspapers collection.

Titles include:

• Anarchist Black Dragon (Walla Walla, WA)

• Castle on the Cumberland (Kentucky State Penitentiary)

• What's Happening on the Yard? (Arizona State Prison)

• Wyoming State Honor Farm Newsletter (Wyoming State Honor Farm)

1. Introducing American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside. JStor Daily.

2. Peet, Lisa (August 20, 2021). Reveal Digital Collects, Digitizes American Prison Newspapers Library Journal.