Slavery by Another Name (86 page)

23. 1900 Census, Jefferson County, Precinct 29.

24. Fuller, p. 331.

25. Wall Street Journal, May 16, 1905.

26. Annual Report, U.S. Steel Corp., Dec. 31, 1907; C. A. Abernathy, “The Birth of

Calcis: Founding of Calcis, Turner Brothers, Justice Store, and Our ‘Historical’

House: The Community, Its Historical Importance, and Our Family Ties to It,” copy

of unpublished typescript, Nov. 1, 1992, in possession of author.

27. Fuller, pp. 148–52; Lewis, Sloss Furnaces, p. 290.

28. Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Dynasty and the Rise of

Modern Finance (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), pp. 124–28; Edmund

Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Modern Library, 2002), pp. 497–99; Lewis, Sloss

Furnaces, pp. 288–93; Fuller, pp. 153–54.

29. Agreement entered into by J. Craig Smith, President of the Board of Convict

Inspectors of the State of Alabama and Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company,

Nov. 26, 1907, copy in possession of author.

CHAPTER XI I: THE ARREST OF GREEN COTTENHAM

1. Analysis by the author of charges and sentencings in central and southern

Alabama, 1900–1910.

2. Report of Persons Sentenced to Hard Labor for Shelby County, March 1908,

SCHS.

3. Ibid.

4. Criminal Court Records, Bibb County and Shelby County, Ala.

5. Report of Shelby County Grand Jury, Spring Term, 1908, published in Shelby

County People's Advocate, April 23, 1908.

6. Photographs on file, SCHS.

7. 1900 Census.

8. References appear frequently in archival material of women sexually abused by

police o cials and, in the case of female prisoners, other convicts. For the most

complete treatment of the conditions of female prisoners, see Mary Ellen Curtin,

Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865–1900 (Charlottesville: University

Press of Virginia, 2000), pp. 113–29.

9. Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 269, citing Statement of Pardons, Paroles

and Commutations Granted by Cole L. Blease, 1913 (Columbia, S.C.: 1914).

CHAPTER XIV: ANATOMY OF A SLAVE MINE

1. Shelby M. Harrison, “A Cash-Nexus for Crime”; “The Human Side of Large

Outputs, Steel and Steel Workers in Six American States, Part IV, Birmingham

District: Labor Conservation,” both in The Survey, Jan. 6, 1912, pp. 1526–47.

2. Ramsey to G. B. McCormack, General Manager, on Pratt Division, Feb. 13, 1896,

Erskine Ramsey Papers, File 1.1.1D, BPLA.

3. TCI company photographs, in possession of author.

4. Miles College: The First Hundred Years (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2005), pp.

15–18.

5. Birmingham Age-Herald, Feb. 21, 1908.

6. “County Convict Contracts,” internal memorandum of Tennessee Coal, Iron &

Railroad Co., Aug. 28, 1908, copy in possession of author.

7. Quadrennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, Sept. 1, 1910 to Aug.

31, 1914 (Montgomery: 1914), ADAH.

8. “Statement of State and County Convicts at Pratt Mines Division as of Month of

August, 1908,” U.S. Steel Corp., copy in possession of author.

9. Sheriff's Prisoners Register (1908), Shelby County, SCHS.

10. Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. photograph, labeled “Muscoda Ore Mines,

Hospital in Use in 1901 and 1902,” in possession of author.

11. John N. Reynolds, Twin Hells (Chicago: M. A. Donahue & Co., 1890), pp. 86–

87.

12. Alvaran Snow Allen, “The Story of a Lie: By Convict No. 2939, Himself 15 Years

in Prison,” pamphlet printed by Mission Printing Company, Tulsa, c. 1926, in

possession of author.

13. Harvey R. Hougen, “The Impact of Politics and Prison Industry on the General

Management of the Kansas State Penitentiary, 1883–1909,” 1977, citing Carl

“Cork” Arnold, A Life Prisoner, 1906.

14. Allen, “Story of a Lie.”

15. Ibid.; Reynolds, p. 94.

16. Interview by the author of Willie Clark, 2001, 2002, 2003.

17. “Registry of Convict Deaths,” Quadrennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of

Convicts, September 1, 1906, to August 31, 1910 (Montgomery: Brown Printing,

1910), ADAH.

18. Brian Kelly, Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coal elds, 1908–21

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), pp. 1–8.

19. Atlanta Constitution, Aug. 6, 1908, p. 2.

20. Death Certificate—County Convict: Green Cunningham [sic], Aug. 15, 1908.

1. Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1908, p. 1; July 15, 1908.

2. “The Lynching Century: African Americans Who Died in Racial Violence in the

United States, 1865–1965,” Tuskegee Institute Lynching Inventory,

www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Base/8507/NLists.htm; Atlanta Constitution, July

16, 1908.

3. Atlanta Constitution, July 29, 1908, p. 5.

4. Ibid., July 30, 1908, p. 1.

5. Ibid., Aug. 2, 1908.

6. New York Times, Aug. 16, 1908, p. 1.

7. Brian Kelly, Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908–21 (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2001), pp. 23–24.

8. Ibid.

9. Birmingham Age-Herald, Nov. 11, 1908, p. 1.

10. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1908, p. 5.

11. Quadrennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1, 1906,

to August 31, 1910 (Montgomery: Brown Printing, 1910), ADAH.

12. Je erson County Coroner's Record, Preliminary Investigation Reports, Record

of B. L. Brasher, Coroner; O ce of Coroner/Medical Examiner, Je erson County,

Ala.

13. Sentenced to life for first-degree murder, his first criminal charge.

14. Ethel Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (Birmingham: Chamber of

Commerce, 1910), pp. 493–95; James Saxon Childers, Erskine Ramsey: His Life and

Achievements (New York: Cartwright & Ewing, 1942), pp. 160–65, 264.

15. Montgomery Advertiser, April 12, 1911.

16. Jefferson County Coroner's Record, Preliminary Investigation Reports, Jefferson

County Coroner's Office.

17. Atlanta Constitution, Aug. 7, 1908, p. 1.

18. Clayton Record, Jan. 20, 1911, p. 1.

19. Barbour County Jail Registry, undated, Sheri R. B. Teal, Barbour County

Courthouse.

20. Clayton Record, April 28, 1911, p. 1.

21. A prison inspector report from 1915 says building prior to 1913 had been

condemned.

22. Barbour County Jail Registry, 1911; Clayton Record, May 12, 1911, p. 1.

23. Jail Registry, 1911; author's analysis.

24. Jail Registry, 1911, Barbour County Courthouse.

25. Clayton Record, May 31, 1912, p. 1.

26. State Convicts Descriptive Record, 1913–1916, Vol. 8, Alabama Department of

Corrections, ADAH; Demas, p. 175; Miller, p. 488.

27. State Convicts Descriptive Record, 1913–1916, Vol. 8, Alabama Department of

Corrections, ADAH.

28. Registry of Convict Deaths.

29. Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Elbert M. Gary: The Story of Steel (New York: D.

Appleton, 1925), pp. 310–11.

30. Transcript of Public Investigation into A airs and Conduct of the Convict

Department, March 1913, Vol. 2, Alabama Department of Corrections, ADAH,

testimony of Walker Percy, pp. 690–91.

31. Ibid., pp. 693–98.

32. Internal U.S. Steel legal memo, May 1913, in possession of author.

33. Transcript: Public Investigation, testimony of E. H. Coxe, pp. 675–77.

34. Ibid., Coxe to Oakley, Sept. 25, 1911.

35. “Report of Persons Sentenced to Hard Labor for Shelby County,” December

1913, SCHS.

CHAPTER XVI: ATLANTA, THE SOUTH’S FINEST CITY

1. Twentieth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1905: Convict Labor

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1906), p. 206.

2. Atlanta Constitution, July 11, 1908, p. 1.

3. Ibid., July 23, 1908.

4. Proceedings: Joint Committee, Daniel Long testimony, pp. 501–5, GDAH.

5. Proceedings: Joint Committee, Susan Long testimony, pp. 506–9, GDAH.

6. Proceedings: Joint Committee, R. A. Keith testimony, pp. 162–87, GDAH.

7. Proceedings: Joint Committee,Will Wynne testimony, pp. 1582–91, GDAH.

8. James W. English Personality File, AHC; also, Clement A. Evans, Confederate

Military History (Atlanta: 1899), 4: 635–38.

9. Memoirs of Georgia (Atlanta: Southern Historical Association, 1895), Vol. 1, Ch.

4, pp. 766–69.

10. Proceedings: Joint Committee, James W. English testimony, pp. 1209–40,

GDAH; Annual Statement of Brickyard Account, June 1, 1906, to May 31, 1907,

Chattahoochee Brick Company File, AHG.

11. Proceedings: Joint Committee, Arthur Moore testimony, no page number, July

23, 1908; Ed Strickland testimony, p. 479, GDAH.

12. Proceedings: Joint Committee, J. A. Cochran testimony, pp. 64–105, GDAH.

13. Ibid.; Atlanta Constitution, July 24, 1908, p. 1.

14. Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of

Convict Labor in the New South (London: Verso, 1996), p. 122.

15. Joel Hurt to J. W. Callahan, Dec. 24, 1904, and Dec. 29, 1904, GDAH.

16. J. W. Callahan to Hurt, Jan. 6, 1905, GDAH.

17. Hurt to Callahan, Jan. 5, 1905, GDAH.

18. Proceedings: Joint Committee, Joel Hurt testimony, pp. 418–48.

19. Proceedings: Joint Committee, Jake Moore testimony, Aug. 4, 1908, GDAH.

20. Proceedings: Joint Committee, George Hurt testimony, pp. 724–42, GDAH.

21. Ibid.

22. Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1908.

23. Ibid., Aug. 3, 4, 5, 1908.

24. Annual Statement of Brickyard Account, June 1, 1909, to May 31, 1910,

Chattahoochee Brick Company File, AHC.

25. Matthew J. Mancini, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American

South, 1866–1928 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), p. 221.

26. H. Gibson to E. J. Parsons, May 7, 1906; Thomas Jones to Attorney General,

May 11, 1906; E. J. Parsons to Attorney General, June 18, 1906, Peonage Files,

RG60, NA.

27. Gibson to Parsons, May 7, 1906, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

28. Parsons to Attorney General, May 11, 1906, File 50-87, Peonage Files, RG60,

NA.

29. Parsons to Attorney General, June 18, 1906, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

30. Johnson to Department of Justice, March 30, 1907, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

31. Parsons to Attorney General, Sept. 18, 1907, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

32. Jones to Parsons, Dec. 24, 1907; “Law Abiding Citizen” to Jones, Dec. 19, 1907;

Parsons to Attorney General, Dec. 26, 1907, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

33. W. Armbrecht to Attorney General, Dec. 22, 1908, File 50-92, Peonage Files,

RG60, NA.

34. Armbrecht to Attorney General, January 1909, RG60, NA.

35. “Statement of All Peonage Cases Since May 1, 1902,” J. W. Dimmick to M. H.

Smith, March 3, 1909, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

36. Attorney General to Herman Perkins, undated note, Sept. 1923, 50-1-6, File

5280-03-02, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

37. “Copy of Report of the September 1911 Grand Jury of the Criminal Court of

Je erson County: Justice of the Peace”; Oliver Street to Attorney General, Jan. 24,

1912, File 50-112, RG60, NA.

38. Woodrow Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829–1889 (New York: Longmans,

Green, 1893), pp. 124, 125, 268, 273; Lawrence J. Friedman, The White Savage:

Racial Fantasies in the Postbellum South (Englewood Cli s, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,

1970); Arthur Link, Wilson: The Road to the White House (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1947); James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs— the

Election That Changed the Country (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

39. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 129, Negroes in the United States (Washington,

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1915), pp. 7, 36–39.

40. Bureau of the Census, Plantation Farming in the United States (Washington,

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1916), pp. 36, 37.

41. William L. O’Neill, ed., Echoes of Revolt: The Masses, 1911–1917 (Chicago:

Quadrangle, 1966), p. 232.

42. Quadrennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1, 1910,

to August 31, 1914 (Montgomery, Ala., 1914), p. 180, ADAH.

43. Hastings H. Hart, Social Problems of Alabama: A Study of the Social Institutions

and Agencies of the State of Alabama as Related to Its War Activities (Montgomery:

Russell Sage Foundation, 1918).

44. See Pete Daniel, The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901–1969

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), pp. 110–31, citing trial transcript,

Georgia v. John S. Williams, Newton Superior Court, March term, 1921. For the

de nitive treatment of the Williams case, see Gregory A. Freeman, Lay This Body

Down: The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves (Chicago: Chicago Review

Press, 1999); 1920 Census, Jasper County, Ga.

45. Ibid.

46. Thomas D. Sanford to Attorney General, April 11, 1921, 50-80-5, Peonage Files,

RG60, NA.

47. Joseph John to Attorney General, July 28, 1924, 50-30-1, Peonage Files, RG60,