American Lives

The four wardens (left to right): James A Johnston (1934-1948); Edwin B Swope (1948-1955); Paul T Madigan (1955-1961); and Olin G Blackwell (1961-1963).

Administrative office with south-eastern view. Seen from the window are the ruins of the warden's house, San Francisco Bay, and the Bay Bridge (not to be confused with the Golden Gate Bridge, of course).

Exhibit installation in the administrative office area depicting a correctional officer. From the loneliness of sitting in an elevated tower all night, peering out into the darkness, to being surrounded by hundreds of inmates in the recreation yard, the guards had a variety of assignments and work schedules, into which they were rotated four times a year.

Regular guard duties might include tapping cell bars with a mallet to see if they had been cut, counting inmates in the cellhouse once an hour during the night, searching dirty laundry for contraband, or standing in a gun gallery, observing inmates who were watching a movie on special occasions (public holidays).

A recreation of the administrative offices area, perhaps a staff lounge. The base of the lighthouse is visible outside the window, as is part of the warden's house ruin.

Entrance to Cellblock A, known as 'Michigan Boulevard', leading from the administrative offices area. Alcatraz cellhouse had a corridor-naming system which used major American streets and landmarks.

Michigan Avenue was the corridor to the side of Block A. Broadway was the central corridor in which the inmates would assemble as they massed through Times Square (an area with a clock on the wall), before entering the dining hall for their meals. Broadway separated Block B and Block C, and prisoners who were kept along it had the least privacy in the prison.

The corridor between Block C and the library was called Park Avenue. The corridor in Block D was named Sunset Strip. Gun galleries lay at the end of each block, including the west and east gun galleries.

This is the aforementioned Cellblock A, otherwise known as 'Michigan Avenue'.

A cell in Cellblock A. The old military prison cells in Block A used a lock and key to open and close each door, with a mechanical lever to secure the entire block. To let one inmate out of his cell, you had to partially unlock all the cells on that tier of Block A.

One of the improvements made to the cellhouse when Alcatraz opened as a federal penitentiary was the installation of new cell fronts in the two cellblocks they planned to use to house prisoners.

The new cell fronts had special 'tool proof' steel bars and used a mechanical system of levers and pulleys to open and close the cell doors, either individually or all at once.

Shown here are details of the cell recreation exhibit in Cellblock A.

The 'Special Treatment Unit' (STU), Cellblock D, also known as 'Segregation'.

Block D gained notoriety as a 'Treatment block' for some of the worst inmates, with varying degrees of punishment, including 'Isolation', 'Solitary', and 'Strip'. Prisoners usually spent anywhere from three to nineteen days in solitary.

Prisoners held here would be given their meals in their cells, were not permitted to work, and could only shower twice a week. Convicted murderer Robert Stroud, known as 'The Birdman of Alcatraz', inhabited Cell 42 in Block D for six years.

A cell in the STU. The first five of these 'Special Treatment Unit' dark cells came furnished with sinks, beds (a mattress given to the inmate at night, then taken out in the morning), and toilets.

The sixth cell, the 'strip cell', down at the end had none of these furnishings - only a hole in the floor which could be flushed by the guard. This cell was usually used for inmates who were so out of control that they would destroy the plumbing fixtures in their cells.

Recognising the privations of this 'Special Treatment Unit', prison regulations limited the duration of an inmate's stay in one of these 'dark cells'.

On 11 June 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin attempted to escape using careful planning. Behind their cells in Block B was a three foot-wide (0.91m) unguarded utility corridor.

The prisoners chiseled away at the salt-damaged concrete from around an air vent which lead into this corridor, using tools such as a metal spoon soldered with silver from a dime, and an electric drill improvised from a stolen vacuum cleaner motor. The noise was disguised by accordions played during music hour, and progress was concealed by false walls which, in the dark recesses of the cells, fooled the guards.

This is the service corridor behind the cell wall shown in the previous photo, which was used for the June 1962 escape. According to the prison's correctional officers, once a convict arrived on the Alcatraz wharf, his first thoughts were of how to leave.

During its twenty-nine years of operation, the penitentiary claimed that no prisoner successfully escaped. A total of thirty-six prisoners made fourteen escape attempts, with two men trying twice: twenty-three were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, two drowned, and five are listed as 'missing and presumed drowned'.

Though presumed drowned, the five disappeared without a trace, giving rise to popular theories that they were successful in their escape attempts.

The library. From the Alcatraz library which, in the 1940 remodeling, was relocated next to Block D, across from the outside tiers of Block C.

The library shelved about 15,000 volumes, many of which were books left over from the military prison library. Books about sex, violence, or crime were not available. Most inmates read an average of seven or eight books a month.

For most of the penitentiary years, the library was run by the chaplain, who selected the books for the library, so the selection was sure to be wholesome literature. Alcatraz also had a variety of basic legal reference books available to inmates.

In later years, a separate law library, of sorts, was created in Block A for inmates to use.

In the visitation area at Alcatraz cellhouse, inmates and their visitors could see one another through thick plate glass and speak over a telephone for forty-five minutes at a time.

Conversions were not private, however, as prison officials could listen in to be sure that taboo subjects such as prison regulations, criminal activities, and life on the inside were not discussed.

Visitation rights were one of the prized privileges earned by inmates for good behavior.

The mess hall or dining hall: mean, hungry men with knives. Three times a day the inmates gathered for meals, sitting at tables with forks and spoons - and even steak knives when the menu called for them.

Alcatraz inmates may have been able to stay away from encounters with enemies in the cellhouse and at work, but in the mess hall they were vulnerable, so security in the Alcatraz mess hall was serious.

Inside the hall, in addition to unarmed guards on patrol, there were several tear gas canisters mounted on the ceiling; outside the mess hall, armed officers on a catwalk peered in. The armed guard in the west end gun gallery also monitored the mess hall during meals.

Dining hall protocol was a scripted process with movement within the room regulated by the use of a whistle.

Dining Hall floor detail.

Dining hall menu board. The quality was reputed to be the best in the prison system. Officials claimed they spent more money on food per inmate than other prisons did, and there was plenty to eat for everybody.

The Alcatraz guards ate the same food in their dining room. Warden Johnston, who oversaw the facility from 1933 to 1948, understood that he would be housing some of the most dangerous men in America. Since many prison riots had historically been started because of the quality (or lack thereof) in prison food, he wanted to make the Alcatraz cafeteria one of the best in the prison system. That he did. The menu was diverse, and prisoners dined on salads, fresh fruit, tasty entrees, and desserts.

The kitchen. Nearly all the cooking and serving was performed by inmates under the supervision of civilian stewards, who were in charge.

According to inmates who worked in the kitchen, the stewards mostly supervised and did paperwork locked inside the glass walls of the small office, seen here, while inmates with weapons – sharpened meat cleavers and butcher knives - did almost all of the food preparation and service work.

The stewards kept a wary eye on all of those sharp knives, making sure the cutlery was accounted for before any inmates were released from their kitchen jobs. And as the culinary crew left work, they were often sent through a metal detector or were frisked by guards.

Tools of the trade. No weapons were allowed on the floor of the Alcatraz cellhouse, lest they be wrested away by prisoners, so guards carried whistles to summon help in case of trouble. Whistle blasts also awoke prisoners each morning, directed inmates to come to attention, start moving, and stop work.

Confiscated weapons. The average population was only about 260-275 (the prison never once reached its capacity of 336 - at any given time, Alcatraz held less than one percent of the total federal prison population).

Many prisoners actually considered the living conditions at Alcatraz (for instance, always one man to a cell) to be better than other federal prisons, and several inmates actually requested a transfer to Alcatraz.

But while USP Alcatraz was not the 'America's Devil's Island' that books and movies often portray, it was designed to be a prison system's prison. At Alcatraz, a prisoner had four rights: food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Everything else was a privilege that had to be earned.

Some privileges which a prisoner could earn included: working, corresponding with and having visits from family members, access to the prison library, and recreational activities such as painting and music. Once prison officials felt a man no longer posed a threat and could follow the rules (usually after an average of five years on Alcatraz), he could then be transferred back to another federal prison to finish his sentence and be released.