Description: Dated April 28, 1934, this is a photograph of the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, that shows prisoners lined up outside the prison. Construction for the limestone Ohio Penitentiary began in 1832. The dining hall at the prison could seat 1,700 men and there were 1,685 cells, the older cells measuring 3.5 feet x 7 feet and the new cells 5 feet x 8 feet. Located on Spring Street in downtown Columbus, the Columbus Penitentiary was open from 1834-1984. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC763_003
Subjects: Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio); Prisons--Ohio; Prisoners and prisons; Photography
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: The Main Building at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield. The prison, now no longer used, has served as a movie set. The concept of the prison was that labor and learning would provide a way to reform those who were sent there and give them the ability to live a productive life in normal society. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06815
Subjects: Prisons; Prisons--Ohio--Pictorial works; Richland County (Ohio)
Places: Mansfield (Ohio); Richland County (Ohio); Ohio
 

Description: An aerial view of the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield. The prison, now no longer used, has served as a movie set. The concept of the prison was that labor and learning would provide a way to reform those who were sent there and give them the ability to live a productive life in normal society. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06820
Subjects: Prisons; Prisons--Ohio--Pictorial works; Richland County (Ohio)
Places: Mansfield (Ohio); Richland County (Ohio); Ohio
 

Description: Taken on April 26, 1930, this photograph shows an aerial view of the Ohio Women's Reformatory in Marysville, Ohio. In 1911, the Ohio General Assembly authorized the establishment of a separate women’s penal institution. On September 1, 1916, the Ohio Reformatory for Women opened in Marysville with a population of 34 inmates. When Marguerite Reilley was appointed superintendent of the Reformatory in 1935, she found dirty and unkempt inmates with excessively restricted living habits. She instituted the “human being” program which provided recreation, entertainment, jobs, and vocational training for the inmates. State Archives Series 6591 AV consists of 128 black and white aerial photographs of Ohio state properties, such as hospitals, universities and colleges, parks, lakes, and reservoirs, and prisons. The photographs were taken in the spring of 1930 by the 112th Photo Section of the 37th Division Air Services. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA6591AV_B01_001
Subjects: Marysville (Ohio); Aerial photographs; Ohio Reformatory for Women; Prisons; Ohio History--State and Local Government--Corrections
Places: Marysville (Ohio); Union County (Ohio)
 

Description: This image is a view of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio. Rows of headstones mark the soldiers' graves. Visible in the left center background is a bronze figure of a Confederate soldier standing atop a stone arch. The cemetery is located in a residential neighborhood. Organized in 1861, Camp Chase initially replaced Camp Jackson, located near Columbus, as a recruitment and training center for the Union Army. The facility was named after Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln and former governor of Ohio. However, Camp Chase became a prisoner-of-war camp early in the war. The first inmates at Camp Chase were chiefly political and military prisoners from Kentucky and Western Virginia allegedly loyal to the Confederacy. Union victories at Fort Donaldson, Tennessee, on Feb. 16, 1862, and at Mississippi River Island No. 10, on April 8, 1862, brought an influx of Confederate prisoners to Camp Chase, most of whom were enlisted men and non-commissioned officers. During 1863 the prison population at Camp Chase numbered 8,000 men, its peak. Like many prisons in the north, Camp Chase was ravaged by disease; during late 1864, a smallpox epidemic resulted in many deaths. During the course of the Civil War, more than two thousand Confederate prisoners died at Camp Chase. Initially, prison officials buried dead prisoners in a Columbus city cemetery. In 1863, however, the prison established its own cemetery. Remains were reinterred in the prison cemetery after its opening. Following the war, thirty-one Confederate bodies from Camp Dennison near Cincinnati were moved to the Camp Chase cemetery. The Union military closed Camp Chase at the end of the Civil War. Efforts to mark the graves of the Confederate dead within the cemetery began by the mid-1890s. Led by William H. Knauss, a wounded Union Army veteran, this movement succeeded in bringing together both Union and Confederate veterans’ organizations to pay tribute to those interred in the cemetery. Memorial services have been held at the cemetery every year since 1896. On June 7, 1902, a monument to the Confederate dead was erected at the cemetery. In 1904, Congress allocated funds for the maintenance of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. Most of what remains of Camp Chase today includes two acres of land, consisting primarily of the Confederate cemetery. Officially, the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery contains an estimated 2,168 remains in 2,122 graves. Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery has two monuments. The first depicts a bronze figure of a Confederate Civil War soldier standing atop a granite arch, his rifle held vertically in front of him, with both hands resting on the top of the barrel. Originally the memorial consisted of a wooden arch inscribed with the word “AMERICANS,” but in 1902 the wooden arch was replaced with this 17' tall stone memorial. The second monument is a 3-foot-tall boulder underneath the stone arch. Installed in 1897, the boulder bears an inscription that reads: "2260 Confederate Soldiers of the war 1861-1865 buried in this enclosure." (This statistic disagrees with the official record.) The Camp Chase site, including the Confederate Cemetery, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06659
Subjects: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery (Columbus, Ohio); Camp Chase (Ohio); Civil War; Cemeteries--Ohio; Civil War--Prisoners and prisons; National Register of Historic Places
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: An unidentified woman being sworn in to testify at the Ohio Pen Investigation, January 1935. The investigation of the Ohio Penitentiary Fire that broke out the evening of April 21, 1930, killed 322 inmates and is regarded as the worst disaster in American prison history. Official investigation into the penitentiary tragedy was started the following morning by the attorney general's office. Governor Myers Y. Cooper and E.C. Snively, assistant attorney general, headed the board of inquiry. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05671
Subjects: Ohio History--State and Local Government--Corrections; Fires; Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio); Prisons--Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: An unidentified woman sitting in a chair apparently giving testimony at the Ohio Pen Investigation, January 1935. The investigation of the Ohio Penitentiary Fire that broke out the evening of April 21, 1930, killed 322 inmates and is regarded as the worst disaster in American prison history. Official investigation into the penitentiary tragedy was started the following morning by the attorney general's office. Governor Myers Y. Cooper and E.C. Snively, assistant attorney general, headed the board of inquiry. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05672
Subjects: Ohio History--State and Local Government--Corrections; Fires; Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio); Prisons--Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: View of Johnson's Island, while the American Civil War was happening this island was considered an ideal place to house POWs. Anyone kept there would have a hard time getting away from the place without any help because of the remote nature of the island. Despite this, Johnson's Island was in an ideal place for supply lines to reach. The prison was built without having much trouble if any getting the necessary materials for, and food was shipped in without issue. Even for the prisoners, life on Johnson's Island was not so bad, they were fed and they were treated relatively well as the prison was specifically made to house men of military rank who most often had rich relatives who were willing and able to send them extra money. This is in contrast to the atrocious conditions experienced in other facilities. The island became a part of a daring attempt to create chaos for the Union and force the Union army to divide its ranks and defend Ohio against an unexpected Confederate campaign. The audacious plot was thought up by Charles Cole and John Yates Beall. Cole managed to use his influence to win over Union officials in Sandusky and had a small number of Confederate soldiers become a part of the Union Army. The plan was for Beall to commandeer a civilian ship along with a number of Confederate soldiers. The plan was to use this civilian boat to take control of the Union ship stationed on Lake Erie. To successfully take control of the ship, Cole would eat dinner with the Union officers who would be drugged before Beall took control of the Union ship. The plot was foiled when Cole was found out as a spy, while Beall's men decided to revolt against him. In the end, Cole was arrested and put away, and Beall sentenced to death for his role in the scheme. The U.S. had no need for the island after the war, and eventually the island would be settled and used by civilians. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06733
Subjects: Civil War--Prisoners and prisons; Civil War 1861-1865; Erie, Lake; Erie County (Ohio)
Places: Sandusky (Ohio); Erie County (Ohio); Ohio
 

Description: This bird's-eye view shows the layout of Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. Established in 1861, Camp Chase served as a recruitment and training center for the Union Army and as a prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. There are over 2,200 Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery at Camp Chase. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04216
Subjects: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery (Columbus, Ohio); United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865; Prisoners of war; Prisons--Ohio; Ohio History--Military Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of Columbus, Ohio, author Ysabel Rennie posed with a copy of her book "Kingside," from the Columbus Citizen-Journal Collection. Ysabel Fisk Rennie (1918-2006) was born in California, and attended Stanford College and Harvard University. During World War II, she worked as a political analyst and later as an intelligence analyst in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, from 1943 to 1945. Following the war, she was an officer of the U.S. State Department until 1947. She moved to Columbus with her husband and children in 1951, and was the author of two novels, "The Blue Chip" (1954) and "Kingside" (1963). She became interested in prison conditions and prison reform following the 1968 Ohio State Penitentiary riot, and remained active in this effort, helping to achieve many changes in the Ohio prison system. She published newspaper columns and non-fiction works in addition to her earlier novels, including "The Search for Criminal Man" in 1978. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: P339_B11F16_05_01
Subjects: Authors; Ohio Women; Literary Ohio; Prisoners and prisons; Social reformers;
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: Thomas Davis was electrocuted December 15, 1911, for the murder of two Hungarians (one named Paul Hegyi) in a strip of woods north of Circleville in Pickaway County, Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL08091
Subjects: Ohio History--State and Local Government--Law; Capital punishment--Ohio; Death row; Prisoners and prisons
Places: Pickaway County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photograph from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus is of Eugene Harris, a 24-year-old male from Montgomery County, Ohio. His formal attire suggests that the photograph was taken during his trial or sentencing. Harris was the 227th individual to be executed via the electric chair in Ohio. The caption at the bottom reads: "No. 227, Eugene Harris of Montgomery County, Legally Electrocuted October 23, 1940, for the Murder of Policeman Lucius Rice, at Dayton, Ohio." In 1885 the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, became the location for all executions, which previously took place in the various county seats. In 1896 the Ohio General Assembly mandated that electrocution replace hanging as the form of capital punishment. The Ohio Penitentiary regularly offered tours as well as souvenir photographs and postcards of the building and prisoners on death row. A total of 315 prisoners, both men and women, were executed in the electric chair known as “Old Sparky” between 1897 and 1963. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL08281
Subjects: Ohio History--State and Local Government--Law; Capital punishment--Ohio--History; Death row; Electrocution; Ohio History--State and Local Government--Corrections; Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio); Prisons--Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio); Dayton (Ohio); Montgomery County (Ohio)