Foul Tip: One inmate's take on Folsom Prison life in 1895

The Folsom Prison Magazine collection (BANC MSS C-H 6) gives a colorful and satirical inside look at inmate life at the prison in 1895.

Opened in 1880, Folsom Prison is California's second oldest state prison after San Quentin and one of the earliest maximum security prisons built in the United States. Inmates housed there in the 1890s would have spent most of their time in the dark, locked inside a 4x8' stone cell with a 6" eye slot in the solid boilerplate door.

Despite, and definitely inspired by, this bleak life, one inmate created a magazine of poems, cartoons, and satirical articles concerning life at the prison with subjects ranging from an inmate baseball team and domesticated rats, to a touring ballet revue title Black Crook.

One dark poem, located on page 5, reads:
With iron hand he rules the waiters,
And sleight of hand forbids,
He feeds the Cons on stewed potatoes,
And tries to mash the kids.
--M.T. Stomach


--E. Van Lith