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Bad Girls, Convict Women Part 3, The SeparationBy: Kerry Myers

During the first 50 years after Louisiana ended theinhumane practice of convict leasing and took control of itsprisoners on January 1, 1901, the plantation prison known asAngola experienced the best and the worst of times—for apenitentiary.

The initial takeover was played publically before a plethoraof press and surrounded by gratuitous political grandstanding. Thestate prison system had succeeded in turning a corner in itstreatment of convicts, if only briefly. But the public outcry forreform, precipitated by the exposed horrors of the James lessee era,began to wane by 1915. Profitability, still the state’s top priorityfor the penitentiary, fell as well. It simply wasn’t enough to makeAngola self-sustaining. There were a few spikes, years that therich farmland made money from prisoner labor instead of bleedingit, but money wasn’t the only thing bleeding in a state prisonsystem based on backbreaking agricultural labor. Young healthyprisoners were picked for the most physical work, the only criteriafor what was, in effect, a non-existent classification system. Theyeither worked, or the work was extracted through beatings. With aseemingly endless supply of free labor, the penitentiary at Angolacontinued to push toward the grand vision as a great agricultural,industrial and business enterprise.

Female prisoners, long invisible in the state penitentiarysystem and having distinctly different problems and needs frommen, lived at Angola in a separate, isolated camp. Before long,according to reports from the state Board of Control that oversawthe prison, the small enclave of clapboard buildings built originallyfor 30 woman in 1901 and expanded in 1908 to house 60 becameunsuitable for habitation. The women worked in the cotton andtobacco fields, and as launderers and seamstresses, and were notimmune to the floggings, beatings and general mistreatment of apenitentiary system that quickly lost the luster of reform and sawlittle wrong with giving a convict—male or female—a littleincentive to turn a profit.

Under Henry L. Fuqua, the Angola general manager from1916 to 1923 who would later become governor, the penitentiarysaw modest improvement. Prisoner deaths fell, sanitation and foodimproved, but the penitentiary was still a drain on state coffers. Bowing to legislative pressure to cut operating costs, Fuqua copiedneighboring Mississippi in 1917 and implemented the infamousconvict guard system that placed armed prisoners over otherprisoners. Shotgun-toting convict guards saved a considerable

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amount of money, but they quickly became a plague of violenceand death that patrolled Angola for 56 years.

By the late 1920s, the penitentiary had become a living,breathing organism fueled by politics and organized exaction thatno single man swimming against the tide of the time could fully setstraight. Losses incurred from mismanagement, corruption andpolitical patronage during the 1930s degraded living and treatmentconditions for prisoners, a long, steady, deleterious slide that,tempered by a few brief periods of well-meaning reform, wouldturn the prison into a morass of brutality and decay until the early1950s. Drastic measures were required to shake things up then,and before Angola could remotely be called a model for anythingbut atrophic ideology and human debasement, another 25 yearswould be needed before politics and penology melded in the formof professionally trained security personnel, a nominal incentivepay system for prisoners, and institutional-based rehabilitation andeducational programs.

In 1928 Huey P. Long was elected governor of Louisiana.He rode into office on a tide of populism and a record of deliveringon his promises—highways, bridges, schools, hospitals. But sincethe convicts at Angola were not voters, spending tax dollars on thecastoffs and undesirables was politically impudent, wrote historianMark T. Carleton. The Long regime and its progeny saw noreason to invest in prisoner rehabilitation, especially if it siphonedoff public dollars and interfered with the goal of putting thepenitentiary on a paying basis. Educating prisoners meant takingman hours out of the fields and industries, man hours that cut intoproductivity and profit—or so it was believed.

For more than a decade, the Longites held a death grip onstate politics, much to the detriment of the statepenitentiary—unless you were the typical unqualified friend orpolitical ally placed there to benefit from the patronage. HueyLong’s first general manager, Clay Dugas, a man a state Senatecommittee investigating the penitentiary in 1930 said got his job asa political reward and who lacked “the necessary ability toadminister the affairs” of the penal system, was leasing convicts toa private rice grower in violation of the state Constitution and hadpermitted the “financial affairs of the penitentiary” to fall into a“deplorable condition,” Carleton wrote in “Politics andPunishment, A History of the Louisiana State Penal System.” Thecommittee also determined that the penitentiary has never trulybeen self-sustaining, and had become a black hole of officialcorruption by indiscriminately raising salaries for administrators. Nine days later Dugas resigned.

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Long, however, was not deterred. In April 1931 hereplaced Dugas with R. L. Himes, former business manager atLouisiana State University, directing him to put the penitentiary on“a 100 percent paying basis.” It helped that the Legislatureauthorized more than $41,000 to the penitentiary fund to pay offthe debts incurred by Dugas. By 1933, however, the magic hadbegun to fade.

Theophile Landry was appointed in 1936 by GovernorRichard Leche to replace Himes. In 1940 he summarized hisexperience in his biennial report on the penitentiary to theLegislature. “In a economic or financial sense, the most efficientoperation of our farms and of the prison can be absolutely nullifiedby such elements as the weather, the markets for our products, thepolicies of the administration in power, the restrictions imposed bystate and federal laws on our operations, and the complaints ofpressure groups who feel that in our efforts to make a living for theinstitution we are competing with them improperly.” Theelements, the markets, the legislators and divine intervention rarelycombined to produce a favorable result to make the prisonprofitable, but that did not stop anyone from trying, as attested toby the thousands of floggings and beatings inflicted on both maleand female prisoners over the decades.

Under Governor Sam Jones, elected in 1940, and GovernorJimmie Davis, elected in 1944, Angola was cleansed of the Longpolitical machine. According to a December 30, 1947, article inthe State-Times, the Baton Rouge paper said that, with a push fromreformists, the Davis administration appropriated $1.4 million tobuild a new hospital at Angola and $100,000 for improvements atthe women’s camp, Camp-D. A state legislative oversightcommittee and a U.S. Justice Department study had condemnedthe woman’s camp as being deplorable and unfit for habitation,and lacking any meaningful education or rehabilitation training. Exactly what improvements were made to the women’s facilities isdifficult to document. Suffice it to say that the patchworkrenovation was all there was until 1956, when female prisonersmoved from Camp-D to new quarters in the northwest corner ofthe prison they named “The Willows.”

The 1950s rolled in leaving behind a decade that included aworld war and the advent of nuclear weapons. It was a heady timein the United States driven by post World War II euphoria and anew prosperity that was sweeping the nation. The Cold War hadbegun, as had the baby boom, and rock-n-roll music was shakingthe foundations of established mores to the exasperation of adultseverywhere.

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In Louisiana Earl K. Long, the lieutenant governor whoascended to the top spot in 1939 after Richard Leche resigned thenlost the governorship to Sam Jones in 1940, won a term of his ownin 1948. The nascent an oil and gas industry in Louisiana wasbeginning to reshape the state’s economic structure and its politicallandscape. With the Great Depression and its budget problems inthe rearview mirror, and oil and gas revenues beginning to fill thetreasury, there was less pressure on the penitentiary to produce aprofit. Still a working farm trying to throw off the yoke of itsbrutal past, Angola was only partially succeeding. As usual,politics came before penology, but state funding for thepenitentiary from 1948 to 1950 for levee improvements, drainage,power and water systems and construction of staff housing totaledmore than $2.3 million. Much of it though, according to a March14, 1951, State-Times article, went to pay salaries and perks for theinflated prison staff Long appointed at Angola in return for theirpolitical support.

Rollo Lawrence, former mayor of the central Louisianatown of Pineville, was Long’s first penitentiary superintendent, atitle created in 1944 when Governor Davis abolished thecoexisting positions of general manager and warden that oftencame into conflict. Appointed as a political reward, Lawrencediffered in one respect from the Longite appointees of the past. Though not a penologist, he believed that prisoner rehabilitation,rather than mere work or profit, was the state’s most importantobligation. Lawrence took a proactive approach, using theresources at hand and bucking official disfavor for the initiative.He tapped his most educated inmate, former LSU President JamesM. Smith, convicted of embezzlement, as “director ofrehabilitation.” The Times-Picayune in New Orleans quoted thegovernor as saying that Lawrence was, “at times, too kind and tooconsiderate,” to his inmates. Lawrence and Smith took as manymen as they could from the cane fields and put them onconstruction projects and other jobs where they could learn aviable skill that would benefit them after release. By 1949machinery had virtually eliminated the need for experienced canecutters. But, as Carleton wrote, “the cane crop was traditional”and “breaking tradition” at Angola was difficult, if not impossible.

Smith was a one-man classification department. Any maleinmate with an aptitude for clerical work was utilized there, andbefore long most of Angola’s “book work” was in the hands ofprisoners. A growing prison bureaucracy fueled by a postwarprison population increase created opportunities for more inmatesto be placed in clerical positions.

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Smith died in 1949 and Lawrence’s rehabilitation effortsdied with him. Any effort to include women in the education andrehabilitation programs was not documented, but since there wereonly 91 women out of a total of 3,500 prisoners at Angola in 1950,and women were responsible for laundering, tailoring and othertraditional female tasks, it was unlikely they were included, despitethe 1945 U.S. Justice Department report calling for a completerevamp to the classification, housing and rehabilitative training forwomen prisoners in Louisiana.

In 1950, Long’s legislature recreated the position ofwarden and, that fall, he appointed Rudolf Easterly, a state senatorfrom Livingston Parish to the position. Clearly a political reward,Easterly and Lawrence had a tenuous relationship, though withinsix months that would prove to be the least of their problems.

During the last part of February 1951, in an effort to callattention to serious problems at Angola and avoid what theyclaimed was overwork, brutality, abysmal living conditions andextreme physical punishment, 37 white prisoners deliberately cuttheir Achilles tendons rather than go into the cane fields. The“heel stringing” at it was called, came in two waves. Thirty-onewhite prisoners confined to the infamous Red Hat cellblock werethe first to slash their heels. About a week later, six inmates fromCamp-H also cut their Achilles tendons in support of the Camp-Econvicts. By the time of the second incident word had alreadyleaked out and reporters were swarming Angola. Word had gottenout when a released prisoner informed the press about the heelslashings.

Wallace McDonald was one of the Red Hat convicts whotook a razor blade to his Achilles. He was there for an attemptedescape the year before. “One of the reasons we heel-stringed, theywas trying to kill us at the Red Hats, to get rid of us. We weregoing for survival.” McDonald, in a 1999 Angolite interview, saidthat he was told by a field supervisor that Easterly wanted to getrid of the trouble makers who tried to escape. It was notMcDonald’s, or his cohorts’, first attempt. The heel stringers weretaken to the prison hospital, where the penitentiary’s only nurse,Mary Margaret Daugherty, who was thereafter known as Angola’s“angel of mercy,” reattached the severed tendons and held offprison guards who tried to kidnap the prisoners from the hospital. She literally saved their lives. “Without Daugherty,” saidMcDonald, “a whole lot of us would be dead.”

Long, informed of the first incident before it becamepublic, tried to manage the situation by going to the “farm” andconducting his own investigation. When the story did break, his

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response focused on heading off an investigation that might lead toa scandal. His protestations that the prison was operatingefficiently and effectively and would “be on a paying basis before Ileave office or shortly afterwards, instead of a cancer or headacheon state finances as it had been in the past,” reflected thetraditional Longite political philosophy toward Angola, one out oftouch with current public and political attitudes fostered by thethriving postwar economy. A torrent of public opinion built asrapidly as a tsunami, and soon Long bowed to pressure andappointed a 34-member citizens committee to investigate whatMary Margaret Daugherty called, in her testimony before thatcommittee, a “sewer of degradation.” She gave the most damningevidence about conditions at the prison, according to a March 9,1951 Times-Picayune article, testifying that “sex offenders, stoolpigeons, homosexuals” and “degenerates of every type” were“huddled in bedside companionship with the new arrivals.” Prisoners, she said, “are huddled in huge dormitories that are filthyand stink like the hold of a slave ship.” Punishment, even for themost minor offenses, included being “beaten with a whip, or stickor anything they could find.” Finally, Daugherty testified, the“real brutality” was the “complete lack of rehabilitation.” Shecharged that politics and patronage had left Angola competentlyand ethically bankrupt, and that “very few employees … arequalified for their positions; the remainder are small-timepoliticians to whom a political position is owed and who for themost part are unable to hold any other legitimate job in the state.” She backed up her statements with evidence from Angola’spersonnel files that contained numerous letters ofrecommendations and patronage requests from sheriffs, legislators,local and statewide officials and even Long himself.

Daugherty resigned from Angola on April 3, 1951, after hertestimony emblazoned the pages of every major newspaper in thestate, refusing to give any official the pleasure of firing her. In herletter of resignation she went so far as to call Easterly an “arrogant,uncouth, narrow-minded, unprincipled bigot.” The CitizensCommittee spent a month investigating the prison, and released itsreport on April 20, 1951. It concluded that the heel slashing wasthe result of brutality on several levels, “physical, mental,emotional and moral.” According to Carleton, the committee also“expressed its belief that ‘human lives and law enforcement cannot be measured in dollars and cents,’ a long-overdue, butnonetheless revolutionary conception of penal policy inLouisiana.”

The subsequent investigation and Citizens Committee

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recommendations would change Angola forever, though thepolitical blowback would ban all reporters from Angola for a year. And even though the politics of penal policy would prevent manyof reforms from being implemented giving rise to a federal courtorder some 25 years later, the heel stringing incident launchedreforms not seen in scope since the end of the lessee system, thelast time public support for reform reach such a fever pitch.

Except for the physical condition of the living quarters,some sporadic whippings, and an incident where a female prisonerwas sexually assaulted during the receiving process the yearbefore, testimony from some of the 66 female prisoners at Angola(55 black, 11 white), reported in the March 14, 1951 Times-Picayune, convinced committee investigators that the women werea “disturbing influence” and “should be removed entirely fromAngola.” As if punctuating the point, during the hearings, TheTimes-Picayune reported that a baby was discovered living atCamp-D. The “youngest prisoner at Angola is only about 1 monthold,” the article said. “She’s a little Negro baby, born at the prisonhospital a month ago to a mother who is serving a year’ssentence.” A special investigative subcommittee visiting thewomen’s camp in early March said they found the baby “sleepingpeacefully in her mother’s arms.” The mother arrived at Angolaabout seven months pregnant, the prison doctor reported, addingthat, “Sometimes the family asks for the child and we give it tothem if they can properly care for it and sometimes they are turnedover to the welfare department.” Regardless of the result, theinvestigative committee found Angola was unsuitable for thespecial needs of women and a distraction for the male prisoners,adding to an already unstable situation.

The Citizens’ Committee, comprised of 34 prominent andinfluential Louisianians and journalists spent an entire monthinvestigating conditions at Angola, and its recommendations forreform followed the same guidelines laid out in the 1946 Sanford-Jenkinson survey, a study of state’s prison system commissionedby a senate investigative committee. The meat of the changesproposed called for the establishment of a comprehensiverehabilitation program administered through a professionalclassification system; hiring a qualified penologist, free frompolitical pressure, to have full authority over the penal system;abolishing corporal punishment; segregation of first offenders,incorrigibles and other “abnormal inmates” from the general prisonpopulation; a merit system for security personnel; and, once again,the removal of women from Angola.

But the committee did not speak with a unanimous voice.

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Two of the members dissented, former Angola warden D.D. Bazerand Col. E.P. Roy, head of the State Police, both Angola“traditionalists” and both highly skeptical of changes that mirroredthose put forth by outsiders. Their recalcitrance flew in the face ofthe fact that twice during the course of about five years the prisonsystem had been examined, and its operations, treatment ofprisoners and qualifications for employees were found lacking.

Long had less than a year left in office and had littleincentive to implement any significant changes, but the theme ofthe upcoming governor’s race had already galvanized on cleaningup Angola. Each of the eight major candidates promised to makethe prison system a priority. Angola stayed on the front pages,courtesy of the cadre of journalists on the investigating committee,who made sure that the problems at Angola remained an electionissue and, more significantly, until significant reforms improvedconditions.

On May 31, 1951, Rollo Lawrence resigned assuperintendent. But Easterly, a close political friend of Long,survived. He did more than survive. Instead to taking theopportunity to bring in an independent, qualified penologist tochange the culture of the prison system, Long elevated Easterlyand gave him complete control of the penitentiary. DissentingCitizens’ Committee member Bazer became his chief deputy. Sixmonths later Easterly was managing a car dealership in DenhamSprings, replaced by former Washington Parish Sheriff L.H.Mulina, who held the spot until after the gubernatorial election.

Robert F. Kennon became governor of Louisiana in 1952 and immediately began fulfilling his promise to make Angola a toppriority. He instructed the state hospital board, the entityresponsible for state hospitals and the prison, that it was hisintention to hire a competent, professional penologist to run theprison, and told them that they were “free of strings” because nopromises of jobs at Angola had been made.

The new governor asked the Legislature for, and received,an initial $4 million to begin construction projects at the prisonwith another $4 million to follow. This gave rise to the MainPrison Complex, completed in 1956, an innovative design that putemphasis on education and rehabilitation. Today Main Prisonholds more than 2,200 inmates. Funding was also approved toimprove the pay of civilian guards and recruit additional officers. A commitment was made to reduce the number and reliance on thedespised convict-guard force. The old hospital board was split andreorganized into a Board of Institutions responsible for the penalsystem and all its functions.

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In May 1952, at Kennon’s request, Reed Cozart, director ofthe federal penitentiary at Seagonville, Texas, surveyed operationsat Angola and developed a 12-point program for sweepingreforms. Apparently, one of the men was very persuasive becausea month later Cozart was appointed superintendent at Angola onleave of absence from his federal prison job. His first move was tobring in a team of penologists to operate Louisiana’s penal systeminstead of the traditional planters, sheriffs, businessmen orpoliticians.

Angola was again opened to the press, the one-year banlifted as Cozart and warden Sam Anderson, also from the federalsystem, ushered in a new era of openness. According to the Times-Picayune, there was nothing hidden at Angola “except thewreckage of years of brutality, misrule and neglect.” The newvision for the penitentiary was to replace brutality and corporalpunishment with measures that would curtail or deny privileges,convict guards with a trained correctional force, politicians with aprofessional administrative staff and profit for profit’s sake withrehabilitation. Through retirements, resignations and outrightfirings, Cozart and Anderson had cleaned out much of the oldregime, and their reforms helped improve morale among theinmates, but they were considered outsiders and resented by thefew who remained.

In December 1952, Anderson returned to federal service,replaced as warden by Maurice Sigler, another of Cozart’s penalprofessionals. Kennon gave Sigler his full support to continue thereforms, and Sigler came in with his eyes wide open. “I was notwelcome here,” he told The Angolite in a 2000 interview. “Thiswas a deep segregation time. You just didn’t do anything for blackpeople. But I had my own ideas and I believed in these[rehabilitation] programs because that’s the way I was raised andtrained.” About six months later Sigler outlined his philosophyabout the prison and prisoners in The Angolite. “We are going toshape Angola so that its inmates, men and women, will leave thepenitentiary as citizens. That’s our sole aim and purpose: men andwomen who have been bettered; who will not come back to his orany other prison.”

The events of February 1951 and its aftermath had broughta sea change to the Louisiana penal system. Sigler implemented the first, true penological-based classification system in Louisianaprison history for categorizing new arrivals. Education andvolunteer programs were implemented, and an inmate counsel wasestablished to hear concerns and solve minor problems before theybecame major problems. Though past attempts to establish an

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inmate publication had fallen by the wayside, The Angolite wasborn in 1953. Early issues included information on and columnsby female prisoners.

Virgie Mae Pleasant, a black female inmate who worked asa washerwoman. Pleasant discharged in June 1953 but made herfeelings about the post-heel stringing reforms and Warden Sigler’streatment of prisoners in a letter published in the prison paperbefore her release. “I want to thank Warden Sigler for what all hehave done to make it possible for me to get the best attention formy health,” she wrote. “I also want to give the girls three cheersand a big thanks for them for being so kind to me any may Godbless those who had something to give also those who didn’t havebut deep in they heart they wanted too and a special thanks to theones who had and wouldn’t give. Also I want forget some of theboys at different camps who give me something, white and coloredand some of the free people. I will remember tham (sic) in mypray and you Old Wooden Ear think of your wash girl sometime.”

As a washerwoman, the “give” Pleasant referred to was her hustle, payments made in appreciation for special handling oflaundry, whether an inmate’s or employee. Often it was the onlyway the inmates, especially black females from poor families,could support themselves during their incarceration.

Before the reforms involved any major moves involvingwomen, the early to mid-1950s saw better times for thosedomiciled at what was called “The Forbidden City.” A beautyshow, the only new structure built there in 20 years, helped boostmorale, but did little to solve the larger problems—lack ofopportunities other than laundering and sewing. Getting together,black and white female inmates repainted the unit’s “rumpusroom” that housed the “colored side’s” TV set, a piano and servedas the location for camp festivities.

Life wasn’t always beehives and boy talk at the women’scamp. Disciplinary records describe a“cat fight” in 1953, completewith hair pulling and name calling. In January 1956, The Angolitereported that Forbidden City resident Geneva Jones “inflicted aknife wound on fellow resident Bernice Sawyer that took 14stitches to close. Ms. Jones indicated that was tired of Ms. Sawyer’s attempts to play “Jane-the-Grinder” with her boyfriend. In April, two female prisoners were given two additional yearsafter pleading guilty to “a nocturnal walkaway from Camp-D.” Acouple of weeks later a Forbidden City resident threw a Cokebottle at another woman, a tirade that was accompanied by “wordsyou won’t find in the dictionary.” She was fined 30 days of goodtime and placed in the “hole.”

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Twice in two weeks one female prisoner set fire to hermattress and, in June of 1956, a 16-year-old girl was removed fromAngola by a New Orleans judge when he discovered she was beingheld there. Arrested for narcotics and sentenced to three years atthe state penitentiary, the girl listed her age at 17. According toThe Times-Picayune, the girl’s mother testified that she did notknow why the girl listed her age as 17. Apparently, the hole at theCamp-D unit, rumored to be called the women’s Red Hat,consisted of two or three small locked rooms and stayed busy.

But girls will be girls and, when given a chance, they alsoknew how to have fun. In June 1955, a special edition of TheAngolite featured D-Day at Lake Killarney, a summer Sundayouting where 51 “Jills and Judys … together with several folksfrom Personnel, and a few kids …” spent a day lakeside,picnicking, fishing and playing ball. The event sponsored byMattie Waters of Raleigh, North Carolina, one of a number ofprison reform advocates over the years who kept Angola on theirradar by lobbying for humane conditions and programs to helpprisoners after release.

The article, a parody of the day’s events, includedanecdotes about the forlorn catfish that jumped in the boat, theleaky skiff that took three women to bail, and the woman who putone foot each in two skiffs tied at the dock and, as a result,splashed down in the lake leaving another unwary passengerholding on to the dock piling.

Even inside Angola, William Sadler, better know as OldWooden Ear, The Angolite’s founding editor, occasionally found itdifficult to glean information about life in The Forbidden City. Interestingly, the male staff of The Angolite provided a fairlyaccurate chronology of events related to women and reportedsuccinctly and accurately about their activities and facilities—fromthe outside. The paper also advocated to improve the women’sliving conditions, an expansion of jobs and training and, after thepost heel-stringer reforms for inclusion on the newly createdinmate council.

Relying on female correspondents for the inside scoop,columns from Camp-D writers delved mostly into gossip thatincluded hair dos, birthday parties, clothes and visits. Almost allof the paper’s writing at the time, about the women and by thewomen, including the cartoons, reflected a “Mad Men”-type flavorthat by today’s standards would today be considered demeaningand sexist, but seemed perfectly normal for the mid-to-late 1950s.

Sometimes the information flowed as irregularly as acolumn writers’ whim. Alice Savage wrote “Behind the Lace

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Curtain” for more than two months. But in early January 1956,she informed the editor that she had “nothing to write about, andno one has handed in anything, so I’ll just give it up.” Sadlerwrote in the next issue that, “The shades were … pulled down‘Behind the Lace Curtain’ after two months in which readers hadbeen given a peek at what goes on in Angola’s Forbidden City,domicile of more than 100 female felons.” Two weeks later,Sadler introduced another correspondent, Marty Quinlin, whom hecalled Camp-D’s number one pinup girl, took over the column. Onoccasion the rifts that stopped the flow of information appearedpersonal, with allusions from the editor about undefined squabblesbetween the correspondents and himself.

After a sharp increase during the first decade that forced adoubling of the original 1901 capacity, the women’s numbersfluctuated between 60 and 100 for the next 40 years, a fairly steadypopulation. In 1953 there were 60 women at Angola, in 1955, 100. Then, few females served more than 10 years, even convictedmurderers sentenced to life.

Almost immediately after taking over the reins, Kennonand Cozart knew that something had to be done to improve thefacilities and opportunities for the invisible prison population. By1954 the debate about what to do with the women vacillated backand forth—move them, don’t move them. Talks were eveninitiated by state officials to create an interstate compact thatwould build a new regional facility to share with several otherstates—but instead, with all the new construction going on,funding was secured to build a new women’s camp on the groundsof Angola. The collection of clapboard buildings at The ForbiddenCity that had served as the women’s quarters for half a century, byany standards dilapidated with inadequate sanitation facilities andcrowded rooms, showed only years of wear and tear and neglect.

The new facility, situated alongside a finger of meanderingDavis Bayou at Camp-F, in the northwest corner of the prison,would be a combination of new construction and a completerenovation of and addition to existing facilities. Work began inJuly 1955 on the $225,000 contract on with a two-story dormitoryfor white females that featured 50 doorless eight foot by eight footindividual rooms, 25 upper and 25 lower, that included an attachedrecreation room for table tennis, a television and furniture forlounging or reading. Adjacent to new two-story dormitory was alarger original building that was gutted and completely renovatedfor the black women. An open building instead of individualrooms, it featured dormitory-style housing and more personalspace. Attached to renovated dormitory was the new kitchen and

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dining hall, the latter divided into white and colored sides by apartition. A tailor shop and laundry completed the camp’sbuildings.

After months of weather-related construction delays thatpushed off moving day from the late spring and through thesummer of 1956, delays must have seemed like teasing consideringregular construction updates in The Angolite that described thefacilities, Angola’s women occupied their new quarters the firstweek of November. Temporarily nicknamed the “Hen House” bythe prison paper’s editor, considered less than an endearing termby the women, they sought permission from the warden to namethe camp. In February 1957, the women’s unit officially becamethe Willows, keeping with the theme of naming housing units aftertrees as was done in the new Main Prison that opened severalmonths before the women’s camp the year before. A month later,noted Baton Rouge journalist Margaret Dixon would write aftertouring the new quarters that it resembled a dormitory in a girl’sschool. At the time of her article there were 100 women at theWillows, 24 whites and 76 blacks.

The Willows came with its own animals, birds, alligators inthe bayou across the road, and even dogs, including a white part-Spitz named Snowball. Security around the camp was light, afence with a couple of strands of barbed wire. Snowball was likean alarm, according to the camp matrons, barking frantically on theoccasions when one of the women decided to run for it. But at theWillows, escapes became less of a problem. “The girls seemgenuinely proud of their new quarters,” wrote Dixon. “Keptpainstakingly neat, the women’s prison now could serve as amodel of a well-run unit.” Along with the new Main PrisonComplex, Angola, from a facilities aspect, had come into the 20th

century. In 1958, the quarters at Camp-D, the small enclave ofwooden building built in 1901 to house 30 female prisoners whenthe state ended the lessee system and took control of its prison,was demolished.

That same year Louisiana would take the first steps tofollow reform recommendations that called for the segregation offirst time offenders from other prisoners when initial funding wasapproved to build a new facility, the Louisiana Training Institute atDeQuincy—this 50 years after it was first proposed by the PenalReform Association. Construction delays and subsequent fundingwould delay its opening until 1958. Also urged, in study afterstudy, report after report, was a separate facility for women, achange still years away.

In June 1955 Cozart returned to the federal penitentiary

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system. Before leaving he submitted a report on the progress madeat Angola since 1952. New construction and improved housing,improved prisoner morale, and the establishment of a disciplinarysystem that eliminated corporal punishment were cited. So was therecruitment of a professionally trained staff, many of whom heldcollege degrees in specialized fields. His final wish was forpolitics to “stay away from the penitentiary,” a wish that would bemet with mixed results, but nothing like the political patronagedumping grounds seen in the past.

In January 1955, while still at the old Camp-D quarters,one of the most significant changes for women in their 54-years atAngola began when Warden Maurice Sigler hired Dorothy Ballard,a white woman serving a 15-month sentence, to work in theadministration building as a bookkeeper for Lloyd J. Knox, theassistant administrative officer. Placed in charge of incomingaccounts receivable on toll telephone debits, she broke the barrierfor women prisoners, the first of several that would soon follow. By the time they moved to their new quarters at the Willows, 16 ofthe 24 white women were employed in Angola administrativeoffices as secretaries, stenographers and clerks. With somebarriers still unbreakable, Sigler hired five black women to work inthe mail room.

Confined to work the fields, as nannies, laundresses,seamstresses or as housekeepers, it was considered taboo to have awomen working so far outside the camp and around so many men,both free and inmate. But Sigler was a reformer, and wanted toexpand opportunities for both education and job training for thewomen. In April 1957, Sigler told Morning Advocate reporterMargaret Dixon that since placing them in the jobs and startingeducation classes, morale greatly improved. If getting them out ofAngola was not an option, he chose the only options available. Byeducating women and training them in clerical positions was agamble, especially for an outsider who seemed to taunt the oldtraditionalists and create resentment at every turn, except with theinmates.

Like the femme fatales of Angola in the 19 and early 20th th

centuries, the 1950s female population had its share. Some, like19-year-old Jackie McIlvaine, aka Jackie Lesieur, a barmaid whowas arrested in 1952 for robbing a French Quarter barroom andsentenced to 14 months, left Angola in April 1953. Three monthslater, she was arrested again, this time with three others as asuspect in the robbery of the pharmacy where she worked.McIlvaine was returned to Angola on a parole violation. But onlyone woman would be unwittingly used to help bring down a

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warden. In March 1955, 29-year-old Penelope Header, a BourbonStreet dancer who went by Penny Kent, was arrested forpossession of narcotics. She arrived at Angola in July and, afterthe standard classification testing, was discovered to have an IQ of130. Education director Charles Eldridge said her intellect was“very superior” because the average IQ at the prison is about 65. Only four other inmates had IQs in Kent’s class, according toEldridge, and reports in the Angolite spoke of him developing apossible “wiz-kid” contest quiz. Quickly nicknamed “lil biddyegghead” by the other women, she established herself by tutoringother women prisoners in GED studies and working on aneducation plan for camp matron Elizabeth Mouledous.

Within weeks Kent was tapped as a clerk in the mailcensor’s office in the administration building. By February 1956she had moved up to fill a position in the office of assistantadministrative officer Lloyd Knox, a job that came open whenKnox’s female clerk moved up to a temporary job in the warden’soffice. In September Kent moved up to Sigler’s office, anothertemporary assignment until a suitable civilian replacement couldbe found.

Sigler’s professional penologist approach had angered andalienated many of the traditionalists, including several politicianswho had benefitted from the wide-open pre-1951 patronage. Cozart’s hope that politics would stay away from the penitentiarywas quickly darkened as the 1956 election approached. Reformersworried that all the gains since 1952 would be lost it the prison’soperations returned to the old ways, especially since Earl K. Longseemed to be the most popular choice to succeed Kennon. Twomonths before the election, an organization calling itself the WestFeliciana Parish Citizens Committee met with Director ofInstitutions Edward Grant and Kennon’s executive counsel WilburLunn. The committee, formed in 1953, said it wanted to “protesta rash of escapes from Angola,” although escapes and attemptedescapes had declined from 102 in that year to 14 in the first half of1955. Chairman of the committee Ed Percy, hostile to both Grantand Lunn, told them that it would be in the best interests of thestate if the governor would fire both Grant and Sigler. Percy saidmorale among the prisoners and employees was low, and hisreasoning, according to a September 29, 1955 article in theMorning Advocate, was because “these out-of-state people havebeen brought in here and placed over Louisiana people.” Twostate senators, neither of whom represented the parish, were alsothere. The political foes were lining up against the “outsiders butthey could gain no traction as long as Kennon was governor.

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Earl K. Long was elected in 1956, but the heel-slashingincident five years earlier and his response had given him politicalwisdom. Long was nothing if not an astute politician. Hisapproach to Angola could be summed up in one of manycolloquialisms heard after his last term. “You don’t fool withAngola or LSU if you’ve got good sense.” The heel-stringingincident still stung, and he told the State-Times in February 1956that as a result of that scandal “I was almost run out of the state.”Long kept Sigler, giving him his full confidence to continue thereforms started during the past five years. With the women set tomove into new quarters and the new Main Prison Complex beingoccupied in stages, a lot of state money had been put into turningAngola from a sewer of degradation to a penitentiary thatrehabilitated men and women to live productive lives in society. Sigler paid only slight attention to those who wanted his head,choosing to focus on the task at hand. But out of mind was not outof sight. An incentive pay system for inmates was started in 1956,the top pay five cents per hour, the low two cents (as it is today). Parole was also examined and the system was found to be whollyinadequate for post-prison rehabilitation. Long appointed acommittee to study the problems, popularly known as theForgotten Man Committee, that made nine specific proposals forfuture reforms. The first was to create a Department ofCorrections to coordinate the custody and rehabilitation ofinmates. With the scars from his previous administration stillvisible, Long had become sympathetic to penal reform. But thepolitical traditionalists who still believed the penitentiary shouldproduce a profit instead of being a drain on the state’s coffers,were lying in wait. They resented the outsiders in charge at theprison, and in 1957 a joint legislative committee, headed byRepresentative Lloyd Teekell of Rapides Parish, beganinvestigating state institutions. Teekell felt Angola was not doingenough to support itself, especially in the wake of the millionspoured into the prison since 1951. He mocked the education andrehabilitation initiatives began by Cozart and Sigler, claiming thatthe taxpayers would rather their money go elsewhere. He began totarget Sigler.

It didn’t help that in early 1958 a scandal blew up when itwas discovered that the warden’s secretary, Penny Kent, was aformer Bourbon Street stripper convicted of drug possession—her130 IQ and development of an educational program for women notwithstanding. No doubt the scandal was the result of a smearcampaign to remove the warden. Sigler responded that Kent was

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more competent than anyone he could hire at the existing salaryand that he had the authority to hire his own staff. But the politicalenemies had aligned, and whispers about an inappropriaterelationship had put Grant between a rock and a hard place.

In February Grant went to Angola to ask Sigler to resign. Kent was removed from her job at the warden’s office andreassigned to the education department, but Sigler, angered by theattacks, did not quit. Moving Kent from her position as Sigler’ssecretary did not satiate the sharks circling both Grant and thewarden. At Sigler’s request, the Board of Institutions launched aninvestigation into the allegations. He was cleared. Teekell’sinvestigative committee also searched, but could find noimproprieties with Kent’s employment and Sigler went on vacationin early July. But the politician’s smear campaign to rid thepenitentiary of outsiders continued. He used the damage from theKent episode to launch new attacks, this time about cleaning up“the new turbulence at Angola.” A committee report release onJune 30, 1958, claimed that the prison was still “a very rotteninstitution,” and accusing Sigler of being more interested in theinmates’ welfare than his own employees. The passive-aggressivereport lauded Sigler’s dedication and character, but ripped hisrehabilitative policies and ineffective and unproductive.

Called back to another committee hearing two weeks later,Sigler resigned as warden July 29, 1958, issuing a statement to thepress. “I make no apologies for the manner in which I haveadministered this affairs of this prison,” the Times-Picayunequoted his as saying. He said the persistent rumors about he andKent made by disgruntled former employees with politicalconnections was the tipping point for his resignation, but he stoodby the conclusions of two investigations that found no impropriety.As for Kent, Sigler said, “She earned her way. This statement canbe checked by anyone qualified and willing to do so, and will befound to be absolutely accurate.” Sigler was replaced by VictorWalker, a longtime Angola veteran. Upon his resignation morethan 2,000 Angola prisoners refused to report to their jobs inprotest. Several hundred returned after Sigler asked them to andthe remainder reported to work after lunch for the afternoon shift.

By early 1961, it was well known that the women would beleaving Angola and moving to St. Gabriel, about 15 miles south ofBaton Rouge and a part of the penitentiary system called Camp-M. The 135 black men at Camp-M would be relocated, except for 25quartered in a remodeled building remote from the fenced-inwomen’s compound. The male prisoners remained to care for the325 acres of corn and the 1,400 head of cattle that grazed St.

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Gabriel’s 1,500 acres.After 60 years and a half dozen studies and investigations

recommending that Louisiana’s invisible prisoners be given aplace of their own. In June, about 100 women were moved to theirnew quarters, still a branch of the Louisiana State Penitentiary andadministered by a superintendent directly under the warden.

Gone, however, was the diversity of employment andeducational opportunities that had been implemented at Angolaunder Sigler. At St. Gabriel, the only work originally availablewas the expanded garment factory that supply textiles and clothingnot only to the penitentiary but the state’s entire system ofinstitutions and hospitals. It wasn’t the separation penologists hadlong called for, but it was moving in that direction.

Many of the women were unhappy with the move. Their“showplace” at Angola had been hard won. Now, 61 black womenwere housed in a new dormitory with bath facilities and arecreation room. The white females were housed in a seconddormitory built after a fire destroyed the existing building about 18months prior. It would also house the garment factory and a first-aid room.

Warden Earnest Welch told the women that they were“starting fresh. If you’ve had a bad prison record at Angola, now’syour chance to start over,” he was quoted in the Morning Advocateas saying. “Your status here is going to depend on your behaviorhere.” The arrangements in the dorms left some leeway, allowingfor colorful bed linens and steel cabinets for hanging clothesthough space was a premium. The dress code was also liberal,allowing the women to wear the state-issued pin-stripe skirts andwhite blouses or their personal clothing.

In a significant way the women were again invisible. Nowisolated at St. Gabriel and still under the auspices of the statepenitentiary, their primary function was garments and textiles. ByJuly 1961 there were 123 women. With sewing as the principaloccupation, it was not until 1967 that the first academic programcame into existence, headed by a college-educated inmate. In1970 a legislative act officially separated the women’s institutionfrom the state penitentiary, creating the Louisiana CorrectionalInstitute for Women. Capital improvement plans to build a newfacility on the state land two miles away had been in the works forseveral years. Funding was the only obstacle. Finally,construction began and, after several delays, the women movedinto a completely new facility designed for 200 that included, onceagain, individual six foot by nine foot rooms—for both black andwhite women—than included their own sink and toilet. The rooms

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had doors and the inmates would be given their own keys. Thenew prison was also air-conditioned, featured an enclosedtelevision room and covered walkways—unlike the old place thatoften forced them to delay meals if it was raining hard. Two tiersof room were controlled by a central station, with acommunications system and closed-circuit television monitoringthe halls and entrances. In addition to the dormitories, twoclassrooms, a sewing room, chapel, dining hall and infirmarycompleted the first stage, with a visiting room and auditorium still under construction.

By 1977 an upholstery class was added as a vocationalprogram but the garment factory was still the main employer. Former Deputy Warden Helen Travis began her career that year. Her memories of the time painted a picture of a prison with fewrules and little discipline. Now a distinct unit in the correctionsdepartment, the women’s prison was going through systematicgrowing pains. “A lot of times the inmates would not go to workbecause there was no one to enforce them going to work. Employees were not considered “security” as they were at the maleinstitutions, did not wear uniforms, had no system of rank andwere referred to as Mr. or Mrs.

A year later Johnny Jones was appointed warden at theLouisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) and almostimmediately changes were made. Employees were reclassified ascorrectional officers and a system of rank was created. Pay wasincreased and uniforms were required for all security employees.

There as only about six life-sentenced women back then,now there are nearly 120. From a prison built originally for 200, itnow hold more than 1,000 after additions of two new dormitoriesand a cellblock. In all there are over 2,200 female prisoners inLouisiana, an increase of more than 1,500 percent since womenwere moved from Angola in 1961. Women are the fastest growingsegment of the prison population in the United States.

Gary Sumrall was the chaplain at LCIW for nearly 20years, starting in 1992. When he arrived there were 358 women; 1,200 when he left. Over the past three decades the number offemale prisoners in the United States increased at twice the rate ofmale prisoners.

Forty-eight percent of the women at LCIW when Sumrallarrived were white, 52 percent black, a split that is almost identicalto when he left nearly 20 years later as it is today. But, accordingto Surmall, it is the teenage female leading the way in populationgrowth irregardless of race.

Because of the growth the new prison that opened in 1973

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holding slightly more than 100 but built for 200 has been expandedseveral times. Three dormitories have been added, along with twomaximum security cellblocks. All units, in a somewhat ironictwist, are named for astrological signs.

Women no longer have single rooms—most are doubleoccupancy but Sumrall says he has seen three to a room. Therewere no trustys during his tenure, but a behavioral reward systemcalled blue dots. It was then, after the double bunking, that awoman could have a private room. No longer. “As populationgrew,” Sumrall told The Angolite, “that went the way of thedinosaur.”

Garment factory is still there, but during the years a sewingclass, paralegal class, horticulture class and other vocations havebeen added. The licencing success rate for the horticultureprogram is one of the top in the state. There is also culinary arts,but some women believe it to be stereotyping.

The 120-plus lifers, according to Sumrall’s extensivepersonal knowledge, have generally accepted their lives andconsider helping their community a personal responsibility. Unlike when the women were at The Forbidden City and theWillows, all life sentences in Louisiana are without the benefit orparole, probation or suspension. Younger women, he said, offersome concern for the lifers because their need for instantgratification creates instability.

Like Angola, the women now have a Bible College, anextension of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Astrong, extensive volunteer network exists, support groups thatoffer a holistic approach to help the women with their families,with post-prison employment opportunities and their spiritualgrowth.

He credits former Deputy Wardens Helen Travis and NellieFungy with making significant differences in the programming thathas transformed the prison. One in particular allows a child tospend a day with his or her mother if the inmate maintains a goodconduct record for one year. On the whole, children are muchmore visible in the women’s prison than they are at a maleinstitution. The good conduct visiting program allows the child tovisit the mother’s room, each together in the dining room, andparticipate in recreational activities.

But there are drawbacks. Unlike the women of Angola,there is a no interaction policy. The days of gossiping in the dorm,exchanging clothes or makeup, sharing music or other interactionsare gone. It’s against the rules, creating a sort of negativesocialization.

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“I’ve been asked to write a book,” Sumrall said, “but noone would believe it. But most of what I know will go with me tomy grave.

From the ramshackle shacks of 1901 to the campus settingof 2012, from the 30 female inmates that included only two whitewomen to the 2,000 that are almost racially equal, to the absentopportunities for rehabilitation or education to today where dozensof programs are available including a four-year degree, the historyof Louisiana’s female prisoners has been a search for identity, anda place of their own.