Rare Book Monthly
What Book Collecting Becomes
San Francisco Boss, Inmate # 24911
For collectors such a database, potentially extended to include all 2,400 records encompassing convicted parties passing through all the California counties, may provide a unique way to approach the study and collection of history. The database provided is searchable for all categories by any terms of interest. Search a country or state to see where prisoners were born. Search Negro and separately Black to see persons described as such in the records. The term Negro was used for the first two years after which Black was employed. Search female to see women prisoners. Enter a profession such as baker, teamster or painter to see how many claimed the trade as their livelihood. Search by age and also search by crime. Of these 395, 19 were convicted of murder. How many were sentenced to death? Five. How many executed? As far as we can determine, of this group in this period: one.
The relationship between this item and the future of book collecting is somewhat difficult to explain but easy enough to see. These records are mixed media, photographs and the printed word, complexity and simplicity though it's unlikely any two people will see its potential the same way. To a researcher it may be in the possibility to compare sentences imposed and served then to today. To others it might, by comparing the yang of conviction to the ying of acquittal, cast light and possibly doubt on comparative fairness then and or now. Newspapers played a larger role then, their role in trials and convictions potentially altering outcomes. Certainly not every person convicted was guilty. Then as now, justice wasn't only blind, sometimes it was injustice. Newspaper archives, through the libraries, make it possible to revisit trials, social attitudes and the environments in which guilty verdicts were rendered. Certainly the social historian has a full plate in studying this material.
For individuals it may simply be the discovery of some forgotten or buried history. To a few it might be the scholarly study of simply one inmate: Abraham Ruef, no. 24911. He was the political boss of San Francisco at the time of the earthquake, was subsequently tried three times and convicted in 1910 of bribery. He entered prison on March 7, 1911, served 5 years of a 14 year sentence and died in the late 1930s impoverished. Two books have been written about him. Perhaps yours will be the third. If so, you are one of the new collectors, of information, if not necessarily the original materials.
Search San Quentin Prison Intake Records 1909-1912: click here.
Note: after each search sequence reset the database to access all materials. For the entire database and for all search results the headers, if selected, will sequence the result using their field parameters.
