Copyright © 2021 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In 1924, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “Went down to Iowa where I closed another order in the State Prison hall.”
Of all the jobs that Moses mentioned in his memoirs, this one surprised me. I guess that I never really thought about state prisons as a theatre client. In many cases, the theaters were referred to as “chapels,” seating hundreds of inmates for a variety of events and lectures. At Iowa’s State Penitentiary and Men’s Reformatory there were prison bands. Orchestras and choirs were organized at both men’s and boy’s reformatories in the state. These groups presented concerts on Sunday’s and holidays. Visitor’s gate receipts also funded other performances, lectures and concerts. By the 1930s, movies were offered to the prisoners.
Image from: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/03/19/go-inside-abandoned-iowa-prison-full-beauty-sadness/99137858/
Locating any images of prison theaters became quite a challenge. I finally came across an image from one at the state prison in Des Moines, Iowa. It made me think of the bare-bones academic stages or Liberty theaters during WWI.
As I searched the 1924 newspapers for articles about any mention of a prison performer, one particular story caught my eye. On March 30, 1924, the “Des Moines Register” published a full-page article that headlined, “Sweet Alice, Omaha Beauty, Prefers Saving Souls to Stage. She is back home singing for poor and unfortunate.”
The article described the life and career of Alice (Alyce) McCormick, who started her career at the age of four singing to prison inmates. The article detailed, “Alyce was the first girl who ever sang in the Charlestown prison,” said Major McCormick. “No women had ever before been allowed there until Mrs. Booth secured the consent of the prison authorities to conduct religious services. That was in the days when prisoners’ beards were allowed to grow. “Alyce, a tiny little girl with long auburn curls, faced rows of grizzled whiskered faces and sang without a trace of fright. Many of those men had been imprisoned for long terms of years without seeing a single woman or child. Tears came into their eyes as Alyce sang and as I carried her from the building many reached out gently and touched her clothing and caressed her curly head,” said her father. During the summers since that time Miss McCormick has sung in the prisons of Trenton, N.J., Joliet, Ill., Anamosa, Ia., Lincoln, Neb., Leavenworth and Lansing, Kansas, Los Angeles, Cal., and Pontiac, Ill. the Charlestown prison in Charlestown, Mass.”
To be continued…
