Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Read my article on Anthony Lamb, who was perhaps America’s most successful transported convict, in February’s issue of The Readex Report: “‘Human Serpents sent us by our Mother Country’: The Transformation of Anthony Lamb, Transported Convict.”
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J. L. Bell posted a follow-up to my recent article about the burglar William Linsey on his Boston [...]
Monday, December 14, 2009
John Warren has just posted an article on his New York History blog about a new online exhibit by the New York Correction History Society. The exhibit chronicles the last execution to be carried out by hanging in the state of New York.
The hanging of John Greenwall for murder and burglary took place on December [...]
Monday, November 30, 2009
air and exercise
– 1. a short term of imprisonment, hence “two stretches of air and exercise” means two years in prison; 2. working in the stone quarry at Blackwell’s Island or at Sing Sing.
State Prison at Sing Sing, New York, 1855 – Image via Wikipedia
In England, air and exercise originally referred to someone being [...]
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Cant, or flash as it is sometimes called, is a specialized language used by criminals to keep communication about their intentions and actions from being understood by their victims or the authorities. Because any language requires a distinct group of users who can speak and understand it, cant indicates the presence of at least a [...]
Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York by Thomas M. Truxes (New Haven: Yale UP, 2008), 288 pp.
Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York by Thomas M. Truxes is about British attempts to stop trade between New York City merchants and the French during the Seven Years’ War (1754-63), [...]
