Life, 1915-04-08 · page 26 of 44
Life — April 8, 1915 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page discusses **Thomas Mott Osborne**, a real prison reformer who served as warden of Sing Sing Prison. The top illustration depicts the naval wreckage—likely referencing Osborne's naval background or a contemporary naval incident. The article explains Osborne's controversial reform philosophy: prisoners shouldn't be confined by walls and dungeons but given agricultural work and rural life to reform them. He believed institutional life bred recidivism; instead, prisoners should practice "lawful life" through farming and self-governance, becoming "transients" unlikely to reoffend upon release. The satirical cartoon at bottom shows a woman (labeled "Miss Greene") asking a man about sports; his companion responds "Oh, Mr. Toughly, this is so sudden!"—a non-sequitur joke mocking the earnestness of the reform discussion above, typical of *Life* magazine's satirical humor. The satire implies skepticism toward Osborne's idealistic but impractical vision of wall-less prisons.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
OUR UP-TO-DATE NY Warden Osborne’s Idea ARDEN OSBORNE’S idea of a good prison is one without walls. He the where his prisoners could have im- proving associations with cows, hens, pigs, sheep and birds and tould prac- tice farming. He took up with his present employ- ment at Sing Sing, not because he liked the plant there, but because he didn't like it. Strong walls do not make to suit him. Just one thing about a prison looks good to Warden Os- borne, and that is prisoners. Give him prisoners enough and you may take the cells, dungeons and most of the iron gates and high walls. He will consider that the only valuable part of the prison is what you have left him. There are plenty of Sing Sing, and that is why Warden Osborne accepted a call to that insti- tution. His prisoners continue to live in the prison, not because he thinks well of it as a place of residence, but because it is the place the State of would have it in country, prison prisoners at New York provides for them to live in. He hopes in time to get them into the country, He wants them there, not exclusively because he thinks they will like it better, but because he thinks that it will he better for them, Living at Sing Sing they seem to get a taste for institutional Anyway, too many of them come back after they are released. Warden Oshorne wants to fix it so that his prison-hoarders will he almost all transients who will To that end he tries to develop in them a taste for the lawful life and capacity 10 pursue it. That is not altogether a novelty in The aim has heen for a long time to make them reformatory as well The part of Warden Os- that is rather new is his idea of making life in prison more like stay away when once discharged prisons as penal horne’s life outside and giving the prisoners constant practice in keeping themselves and one another in order. That was the fundamental idea of He She SUDDEN | ARE YOU FOND OF SrorTs, MR. TOUGHLY, THIS comichooks.