Behind these walls,

✍ Scribed by James R. Winning

• Publisher: The Macmillan Company
• Year: 1933
• Tongue: English
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

This fictionalized account describes life at the Ohio Penitentiary, indicting it for brutality, forced contract labor, and conditions which drove men insane. The central event is the great fire in which nearly 300 prisoners lost their lives, with vivid descriptions of the flaming, crashing timbers, the chaotic rescue operation, and the aftermath. Author was a leader in an effort to seize control of the prison while the warden and his staff were under attack for negligence, but after a tearful memorial service he and the other organizers were shipped to the penal farm at London. When they returned months later, the lid was on tight again in the penitentiary at Columbus.