Ear on Chicago; House of Correction; Part 1

This is Hugh Hill, and we'll come out to the City Jail, or the House of Correction, or the Bridewell. You can call it one of the three names. The Bridewell is probably the most common used to describe Chicago's House of Correction. Our guide on this particular program is going to be Reverend Lewis King. Now Reverend King, first of all, we've come here to the receiving room, and that's where one of the boys or men starts in the Bridewell as he goes through and is finally assigned to a job or to the school. Now what happens here? Well, Mr. Hill, this is the first and most important step to every man or teenager that enters the institution. This is more commonly known as the receiving room or the admission room, where each man is received by Captain Samuel Dudeck, who you see at this desk. Captain Dudeck, just exactly what do you do right here at the receiving room? When a man is received in here, he comes up in front of me, and I ask him his name and his number. I also have a minimalist paper here alongside of

me, which tells me his name and number, and that's the way to make sure that it's the right man that I'm speaking to. Then I ask him if he has any money on his person, and personal effects such as a wallet and papers, and whatever he may have on his person is turned over to me, and that is written down on a receipt in triplicate, and he gets the original receipt of whatever he had on his person. And then of course, then he keeps that receipt, and upon the release date, he will receive everything that he has turned over to me today. This

man's name is Robert Hicks, his number is 5679. He is what we call a whole over case. A whole over case, it means that he's going to be retained here until the day of October 25, 1955, and which day goes back to court? You're money first. Get the change. What is it? You'll get that into a cell house. When you get to your cell house, ask the cell housekeeper, what you ask me, you need to take care. I got a 22 down this year. You got a 10, 15, 20, 21, 22, 50, 60, 70, 80, 5, 90 cents. Is that right? That's 2290. See now, his name is Robert Hicks,

5779, 5679. We'll put this 5679 in here. The date is 1020, 55. Robert Hicks, cash received 22, 80, 90, you're right. So I'll put this in the envelope. Now he has a wrist watch. That's a hell brass. That's a hell rose watch. Whatever kind of maker watch it is, we always try to get the name. That's the one he can get back. That's for sure. What else you got? That's my keys to my truck. All right, here. These are just two wallets, right? Yes,

so this guy don't watch in the paper. Yes sir. All right, with the driver's license, stuff in my keys. The wall is where we should get a bigger envelope, which we will. Three keys. You got any more keys now? All right. Now you got two rings. All right. Two wallets. And just hold it. Two wallets and papers. What do you got here? Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. No problem. All right. Two notebooks. That's a package of miscellaneous items. And that does it? That does it. So you know, we have everything that he had on his person money. And he gets this, I sign this receipt as the receiving officer and give this original to him.

It's made out in triplicates, eh? I see. And he gets to ever hold it. Robert, stay right there. And he gets this original and on present, upon the date that he goes to court, which is on this. On October the 25th, in the morning, he'll appear right in the same receiving room. He'll be dressed. And upon being printed, to make sure that it is the same Robert Hicks that we have here now, he will receive all his personal property and go back to court. Fine. Thank you very much, Captain, for explaining it to us. We've moved now to the point where they get the case history on the gentleman. And we're going to listen to the officer as he interviews the boys coming in. This is Captain Walsh. Captain Walsh. All right, Captain. How do you do? You're five feet 11 inches. Your weight is 145. Your

hair is gray. Blue eyes, blue eyes. Complexion, buddy. When were you born? What is your October the 27th, 1894? 1027 and 794. And Brooklyn. How long have you lived in Chicago? I've just been in here since last Thursday. I had a few dollars left I did, and I was trying to get it. I stayed over at, well, one night I stayed at one hotel. I think I've been a little tired, I believe it was. You visited the wrong places, huh? I made a mistake. That's one thing, and that really cost me. You've lived in the United States all your life? Yes, I've owned them. I've been overseas over there, you know, with the Army. What education have you had? I had two years of college. Two years of college.

And your religion? Protestant. I fought with the IRA 69. And you're a veteran under 69. The original IRA 69, that's what I was talking about. 165th century. In case of emergency, who would we notify? Veterans administration. Veterans administration. My papers were at Waco Texas, though. You see, you had to invent a rough alphabet. VA, VA. Waco Texas. I've been at a hospital at Temple in 30 miles from here. How do you feel now? I feel bad. My husband? My wife, my wife, my wife. Can you sign in the hospital for one night? My. And more. I had a resection job on my, you know, one of these things happened. No TV, though. They wouldn't give me a line. They wouldn't give me out of this. All right. Just go on a line, thank you. That's how it works, Captain. Yes, sir. You're just about everything on them, don't you? See, we have our cards. These are our new cards. We're trying

to get everything on there. We've had trouble with some of the other cards. We don't have enough information on a man. A man may, like we get their emergency address. We don't notify. In case of an accident. They die in here. Some of them, we don't. Nobody to notify. This way, if we get, you can get that information. We send a wire. Anywhere in a country or are other countries? Where do you get your fingerprints? Their fingerprints. Their fingerprint are right here. And their fingerprints are on their minimus. And then their fingerprints are formed in the cell house before we lock them up. I have all the prints. And those are sent to the FBI. You're pretty thorough here. Oh, yes. And any warrants anywhere in the country will be notified of them. Thank you very much, Captain. Now I want to turn the microphone back over to Reverend King, the chaplain of the institution. Who is going to talk to one of the boys who is coming in today. You know, I'm the chaplain. How much time have you got, Paula? Well, my family was $10. What were you arrested for? Oh,

at the steppin' piece. What did you do? What happened? I mean, I mean, another friend of mine has a little deal. I have a little one. A little log, I mean. Did you get the drinking broth? No. What was it that you had? What was it that you had? I was a little... You know, when the school came up between us, he said I said the word or something about his girlfriend. They have been out here before. That was the first time out. You have been arrested before? No. You want to do your time? You want to pay your fine? Well, I'm going to get in touch with my brother. I'll pay my fine. Okay. Sit down. Good luck this time. I can help you. Let me know what you're doing. Reverend King is now ready to talk to another inmate. What happened to you, Paula? What happened to me? Nothing happened to me. You had the fight? No. What were they arrested for? Parole Violeta from another state. Huh? Parole Violeta from another state. How much parole did you have? About two or three years. How much? Two and a half years. What steady from? New York. What happened to your face? I fell down and hit myself on the swing. Oh.

What did you... Yes, that was real. Yeah, 30 days. Was it on a dollar fine? For what? I can't even conceal about it. What did you carry with it? Ninth gun? Pistol. What are we going to do with it? What are we going to do with it? Target practice. Target practice. How old are you? 21. Mary. Yeah, Mary. Got mother and dad? Yeah, got mother and dad. Were you living with her? No, I'm not living with her. Did you ever go to church? I always go to church. You know God? I know God. Were you living with God? Well, I believe in God. Well, you know, believing God is living for him. When they live with God, you don't need a pistol. Don't you think he's capable of taking care of you? I know that, but I didn't buy the pistol for any... Well, as long as I have to be here with you, let me help you. My name is Reverend King of the Chapel. Will you do that? Let me help you if I can, will you? All right. Okay, sit down. I'm the chaplain. Hello, Lisa.

I'm 58. How many times you've been out here before? About ten times. I like your drink, don't you? Yeah, once in a while. May I ask you this question? What do you drink? When you see an association that I have, I associate with the boys at Lincoln. I drink along with them. I can't go into the society. I'd like to go into it. Well, why can't you get into the society right here? Well, because I can't get any work anymore on tour. I got a broken back here about two years ago. Well, did you try the goodwill industries in one of those places? Well, I go to those places I've been down, but I never would go into the society. When were you here last time? Oh, I was here. I just got out of here fighting. Probably. And this is Thursday. It sounds less than a week. Yeah, I was a judge. I asked a judge to send me out, because I have no idea. How do you feel? I feel good. How old is he? 58. Well, let me help if I can while you're here with him. My name is Reverend King.

Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you again. Thank you very much, Reverend King. Now we'll move on to another part of the institution. Reverend, we've come now to what is obviously the print shop, and we hear a machine in the background. Is that one of the printers? Yes, that is one of the printing machines, Mr. Hill. This is the Union Print Shop. That is our printer, who's a supervisor, Mr. Urban. The Union Print, and we have 22 inmates employed here, where they're learning how to do printing work, very few of them have known anything about it before. All of the printing done in our print shop is used in the institution on various city departments. No outside printing is done otherwise. Could you tell me about this particular machine? What do they call that one? Well, they call that the cylinder press. We do our paperwork on there. Where are your smaller printers? You have something here, but I saw some in the other room. So what do they do? Well, there are typesetters. We usually have about five typesetters of rings

in the other room, just the press rooms in here. Here's one of the other fellows that works here in the print shop, and has been here for a while. What about the men that come in here? Do they have to have previous experience? No, not necessarily. They can come in here and learn their trade, and when they be able to go out, they can be able to get a job out there. As a printer? Is there a Gordon Fitter or a cylinder pressman? What do you print? Well, we print different kinds of places. We print here for the institution, for instance, a hospital slips, and for the receiving room, for the inmates. There are cards for the inmates who get their number, and we do some outside jobs, like for instance, for the city hall or the mayor's office, you know? You mean all the printing at the city hall is done by right here? Well, part of it is. And I don't know where else... Well, now tell us about

that newspaper you fell as a print. All of this is done by our own hands, typesetting, you know, all of them by ourselves, and Mr. Joe Urban picks out things for us to set up, and we usually set up by hand. Then we arrange it into the paper, and we put it on the cylinder to be run. When does the paper come out? It comes out every month. Call a corrector, and tell us a little bit about it. I can describe it, of course, but for example, you have a red and blue eagle right on the front of it. Now, how do you get those colors? And you have a green. That's one, two, three, at least four colors. Well, we'd run it about three or four times, depending on the color. Like we'd run the first color with ink, black ink. Then we'd run it again in blue ink, then green ink. So the colors are one on top of the other? That's right. That's a mighty fine job, that eagle. Who made that up? Well, we have, we sent out to be made. It was made by an expert. I think. Most of the fellows read the corrector.

Yes, sir. We pass around the institution. Everybody gets one. Okay, boys, thank you very much. I think we've learned quite a bit about the printing department. And now we better move on. Right outside of the print shop is the recreation area. The reverent standing right next to me here. And you can hear a ball game going on in the background, a softball game. Reverend, what about this? Do they practice like this every day, work out like this every day? Well, Mr. Hill, this is the kitchen game. I have their period of recreation every morning and every afternoon. There's a different apartment. And it comes out for at least two to three hours of baseball, basketball, volleyball, whatever they like to play, a weather permitting. Now we have part of the kitchen gang out here playing ball for this afternoon. There looks like a triple, at least going up against the wall. That's a mighty fine thing to have, isn't it, Reverend? Well, that's the first time in the history of the institution that we've had a recreation field. And that was since Ward and St. Kamen. He's introduced this recreation period as well as many other

modern and progressive things which we sell shall see as we go through the institution. By the way, where do we go next? From here we'll go to the electrical shop. Reverend King, we have arrived at the electrical shop. And I suppose this is another phase of the daily routine of the inmate. If they work in the printing shop, of course, they wouldn't work here, would they? That's right. This is one of the most progressive departments in the institution. At this time, Mr. Hill, I'd like to introduce you to Officer Ellis, who is in charge of the electric shop as well as the classes of instruction. Mr. Ellis. Officer Ellis, tell us a little bit about the shop. How long do the boys here, per day, how many days and so on? Well, a men spend about five hours a day in the shop. Six

days a week, they have one day of recreation. They report to the shop at eight o 'clock in the morning, and they leave the shop at 10 .45. They report in the shop again in the afternoon and one and depart from the shop at approximately 3 .25. Now, could we talk to one of your boys here that is actually in the class for just a moment? Yes, we have one of the men in the class here. His name is Albertan. Well, we can forget the name, but that's all right, fine. Would you tell us a little bit about the class itself? What do you learn? Well, the first steps in training is to go through sketches of the Ohm's law, the method and solving problems that you might run into and working with electric. And what matters is, what composes matter, and the difference between the electrons and the probe charms, and necessary winds and learn to read the schematic charts. So, when you're running into different troubles, and it's written down in technical

and symbols that you'll be able to understand how to go about reparing. And do you actually build some things? Yes, after we pass certain stages of training, we actually get into the practical theory of building it. Well, now, a little while ago, we heard of siren. Is that something that they're either working on, or repairing, or building, or what? Well, that have been through repair. It came from the junk department, and it was considered unusable. And I went through a method of preparation, and now it's perfectly and perfectly working in the condition. Now, officer, how about some of the other things you have here? For example, the lights and that jar of water over there. What are they? Well, those are some of the parts of some of the equipment the men's go through during that training. That's sort of a measurements of our electricity. And that determines some of the measurements, and some of the lights here are part of the things that they studied, determined in the measurement of electricity. Now, we have some of the addictive phones here that were brought in from the junkyard, and they're now being repaired, and they're now serviceable. Well,

now, where is this equipment going to be used, if at all? Will it be used by the city, or by the institution, or somebody? This will be used throughout the institution, after its reservice. Very fine. Well, this is a wonderful, by the way, how many men do you have in this particular class? Is this an average size? This is an average size class here of about 35 men. Thank you very much, officer Ellis, for explaining the electrical shop to us. Now, Reverend King, where will our next stop be? Mr. Hill, shall we walk back to the other part of the shop and see what the men are doing on those saw blade machines? All right, fine. As I understand it, as we walk back here, you can tell me, or if I'm wrong, this is the hobby department? This is the hobby department, and also part of the more serious in the electric department. Some of the men want to learn how to do telegraphy, more is code. And so we have some machines set up here. They have their own little station set up. And I believe this is the real hobby department of the electric

shop as you'll notice the machines here. Now, Reverend King, by hobby, you don't mean that each individual man would be given a hobby. They work on certain projects. There's a hobby, something they like to do. They have the opportunity to express themselves through the hobbies which they choose. Is that right? And Mr. Ellis here, I think, can explain a little further. Yeah, tell us about this, Mr. Ellis. Well, at least there's some of the hobbies that the men do in their spare time when they're actually not in classwork. And some of the things that they ever express, such as aeronautics, and different types of lamps that we have that are made in the shop here that have been used throughout the rest of the institution. Doing their free time, the times that they use for breaks, they spend that time in the harbys shop. One of that aeroplane over there, for example, is one of the things that one of the men would be working on. That's true. And what about on this side? They're learning over here, for example, telegraphy. Yes. We have some crude sets of our teletype set up here

for the men that are being used from the different scraps that are very similar from the junkyard here. And they have been able to set some of that up. That's now serviceable. So they learn quite a bit in this room? Yes. Okay, Officer Ellis, thank you very much. Reverend King, what comes next? You'll notice one thing here, Mr. Hill. Notice these large spotlights. Yes, these are some of the lights we use on the walls for the institutions that are brought in for repair. Oh, I see. These are used to actually end in an institution. On the walls that are on the grounds now that at night. That's right. Now you'll notice some of the generators and motors which have been repaired that are being used here in the institution. In other words, this is still part of the electrical shop here. Well, now where do we go? From here we go to the sheet metal shop, right next door. Well, Reverend King, we've come over now to the sheet metal shop that you mentioned a moment

ago. And do you mind if I talk to one or two of these men over here? This shop is under the direction of two union sheet metal workers with Mr. Pete Young directly supervising. However, we've got Mr. McGill here, assistant supervisor. I'm sure we've got to talk with you and take a more amount of it. Mr. McGill, would you tell us what the boys do here? We try to show them a little bit of sheet metal work and so forth. But it's like the time that they're in here and try to do the best we can with a short space of time. Well, now these boys over here are working on some kind of sheet metal. What is that? Those are dish pans for drying dishes and dormitories and all different parts of the institution where there's dishes to be washed and so forth. They put them into a dishwasher and bring them out and they dry in that. How many men do you have here? 35. 35 men. Do they get to learn quite a bit? The last three days do they? That man there

come in and went out and never saw a sheet metal before and he's putting them together there. It's like a pretty handy man with a hammer. He is. Would you want to interview him? Yeah, let's talk to him. It's okay. Excuse me. Could we interrupt you just a minute and talk to you for just a second? How long have you been here? Boxing me three months. And did you know anything about sheet metal when you come in? No. I was a journeyman roofer prior to coming in here. You were what? A journeyman roofer. A journeyman roofer. Right. So you didn't know anything about this? Nothing. It looks like you know quite a bit about it now. About this? Yes, this in particular. It's quite a bit to learn about it. What about the rest of the men? Do they work on the same type of thing or? Everything. Get berries from one thing to another. Different jobs. With sheet metal workers, you're special. No. This type of it. Yeah, it's here. I see. It's all I've been doing. Okay, thank you very much. They also make bread pans and gutters and drain pipes. The various parts needed to keep the buildings going and the interior of our bathrooms and kitchens working.

Now, are we going over to this other part of the shop? This is the welding part of the sheet metal shop. Park welding and every type goes well. What about this lawn lamp? I suppose you'd call it. Well, they also teach these men architectural steel work in this place. You see before you some architectural steel work as well as the architectural plant boxes and street lamp ornamental for homes and so on. When we came in, I noticed something interesting. The boys were working over here welding a basket together. Could you tell me about this? Where did this basket come from? Well, we saw it from the junkyard over here in house correction. What's it going to be used for? I guess it's going to be used for the grounds. That concludes the first of two programs dealing with Chicago's House of Correction, the Bridewell. Next week, we will explore the women's section of the jail and the new youth center. This is Hugh Hill speaking.