Birdman of Alcatraz
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- This article is about the federal prison inmate, Robert Stroud. For the article on the 1962 film, see Birdman of Alcatraz (film).
Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the Birdman of Alcatraz, was a prisoner in Alcatraz who supposedly found solace from segregation in raising and selling birds. Despite his nickname, he never kept birds in Alcatraz, running his business until transferred to Alcatraz from Leavenworth.
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[edit] His life
Stroud was born in Seattle, Washington to Elizabeth and Ben Stroud on January 28, 1890. He was the couple's first child, although Elizabeth had two daughters from a previous marriage. Stroud left home at a young age and by 1908 was in the frontier town of Cordova, Alaska, where the 18-year-old met and began a relationship with 36-year old Kitty O'Brien, a dance-hall entertainer and prostitute. In November they moved to Juneau.
According to Stroud, on January 18, 1909, while he was away at work, an acquaintance of theirs, F. K. "Charlie" Von Dahmer, raped and viciously beat Kitty. On his return, Stroud confronted Charlie and a struggle ensued, resulting in Charlie's death from a gunshot wound. However, according to police reports from the time, Kitty had continued to engage in prostitution after arriving in Juneau, with Stroud acting as her pimp. Reportedly, Von Dahmer had refused to pay for a session with Kitty and Stroud had come to collect. The reports stated that Stroud had managed to knock Von Dahmer unconscious and then shot him at point blank range. Stroud was later arrested with Von Dahmer's wallet in his possession.
Although Stroud's mother Elizabeth retained a lawyer for her son, on August 23, 1909 he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years in the federal penitentiary on Puget Sound's McNeil Island. (Stroud's crime was handled in the federal system as Alaska was not yet a state with its own judiciary.) While at McNeil Island, Stroud assaulted a hospital orderly who had reported him to the administration for attempting to obtain narcotics (morphine) through threats and intimidation and also reportedly stabbed a fellow inmate who was involved in the attempt to smuggle the narcotics.
On September 5, 1912, Stroud was sentenced to an additional six months for the attacks and transferred from McNeil Island to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. While at Leavenworth, Stroud was reprimanded by a guard in the cafeteria for a minor rule violation. Although the violation was not a serious one, it could have annulled Stroud's visitation privilege to meet his younger brother, whom he had not seen in eight years. Stroud stabbed and killed the guard Andrew Turner on March 26, 1916, was sentenced to execution by hanging on May 27 and was ordered to await his death sentence in solitary confinement. The trial was later invalidated. In a later trial he was given a life sentence. That trial was also invalidated, after reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered a new trial, set for May 1918. On June 28 he was again sentenced to death by hanging. The Supreme Court intervened, but only to uphold the death sentence, which was scheduled to be carried out on April 23, 1920.
At this point Stroud's mother appealed to President Wilson and his wife, Edith Bolling Wilson, who halted the execution. Stroud's sentence was again commuted to life imprisonment. Leavenworth’s warden, T. W. Morgan, did not approve of the presidential decision, as up to that point Stroud had been a violent and unruly inmate and a threat to both the guards and other prisoners, and ordered that Stroud was to be held in segregation for the complete duration of his imprisonment.
While at Leavenworth, Stroud found three injured sparrows in the prison yard and kept them. He started to occupy his time raising and caring for his birds, soon switching from sparrows to canaries, which he could sell for supplies and to help support his mother. Soon thereafter, Leavenworth’s administration changed and the prison was now directed by a new warden. Impressed with the possibility of presenting Leavenworth as a progressive rehabilitation penitentiary, the new warden furnished Stroud with cages, chemicals, and stationery to conduct his ornithological activities. Visitors were shown Stroud's aviary and many purchased his canaries. Over the years, he raised nearly 300 canaries in his cells and wrote two books, Diseases of Canaries and Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds. He made several important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases. He gained respect and also some level of sympathy in the bird-loving field.
Initially, Stroud had a close relationship with his mother. She helped him with legal proceedings on many occasions, even managing to elicit sympathy from the president over her son's death sentence. Stroud kept busy with his bird enterprise and had numerous bird-loving pen-pals. He started a regular correspondence with a woman named Della Mae Jones, resulting in her move to Kansas in 1931 and starting a business with Stroud, selling his medicines. Stroud's mother strongly disapproved of the relationship and moved away from the Leavenworth area. She also argued against her son's application for parole, which became a major obstacle in his attempts to be released from the prison system.
Soon, Stroud’s activities created problems for the prison management. According to regulations, each letter sent or received at the prison had to be read, copied and approved. He was so involved in his business that this alone required a full-time prison secretary. Also, most of the time, his birds were let free to fly in his cells. With the very high number of birds he kept, his cell was dirty and Stroud’s personal hygiene was reported to be gruesome. In 1931, an attempt to force Stroud to discontinue his business and get rid of his birds failed after Stroud and Jones made his story known to newspapers and magazines and undertook a massive letter- and petition-writing campaign that climaxed in a 50,000-signature petition being mailed to the president. The resultant public outcry allowed Stroud to keep his birds and he was even given a second cell to house them, but his letter-writing privileges were greatly curtailed.
In 1933, however, Stroud took out an advertisement to publicise the fact that he had not received any royalties from the sales of Diseases of Canaries. In retaliation, the publisher complained to the warden and, as a result, proceedings were initiated to transfer Stroud to Alcatraz, where he would not be permitted to keep his birds. Stroud, however, discovered a legal loophole, according to which, he would be allowed to remain in Kansas if he were married there. He therefore married Della Jones in 1933, though he infuriated not only prison officials, who would not allow him to correspond with his wife, but also his mother, who refused any contact with him until her death four years later, in 1937. However, Stroud was able to keep his birds and his canary-selling business until it was discovered, several years later, that some of the equipment Stroud had requested for his lab was in fact being used to create alcohol with a home-made still.[1]
Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz on December 19, 1942. While there, he wrote two manuscripts: Bobbye, an autobiography and Looking Outward: A History of the U.S. Prison System from Colonial Times to the Formation of the Bureau of Prisons. The judge ruled that Stroud had the right to write and keep such manuscripts but upheld the warden’s decision of banning publication.
Stroud spent six years in segregation and another eleven years confined to the hospital wing. He was allowed access to the prison library and began studying law. With his newfound knowledge, Stroud began petitioning the government that his long prison term amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. In 1959, with his health failing, Stroud was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. However, his attempts to be released on the grounds that his extremely long sentence was cruel and unusual punishment were unsuccessful. On November 21, 1963, Robert Franklin Stroud died at the Springfield Center at the age of 73, after 54 years of incarceration, of which 42 were in segregation. He had been studying French near the end of his life.
Robert Stroud is buried in Metropolis, Illinois (Massac County). [2]
[edit] The book and film
Stroud became the subject of a sympathetic 1955 book by Thomas E. Gaddis, Birdman of Alcatraz , which was adapted in 1962 into a well-received film.
The film, directed by John Frankenheimer, starred Burt Lancaster (as Stroud), Karl Malden (as the fictionalized and renamed warden), Thelma Ritter (as Stroud's mother), Neville Brand (as a prison guard), Betty Field (as the renamed representation of Della Mae Jones), Telly Savalas (as another prisoner), Hugh Marlowe, Whit Bissell, Crahan Denton and James Westerfield. In a brief unbilled role, actress Adrienne Marden played First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson, as she intervened to save Stroud from execution. Gaddis was portrayed by Edmond O'Brien, who also narrated the film.
The film was adapted by Guy Trosper from Gaddis' book. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burt Lancaster), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Telly Savalas), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. Stroud was never allowed to see the film.
Alcatraz Penitentiary had gained popularity and public exposure over the years. Therefore, when a movie was made about Stroud’s incarceration at Alcatraz it generated great public appeal. Burt Lancaster’s impersonation of Stroud stirred sympathy with the general public. The Birdman of Alcatraz was now part of popular culture. Petitions were being signed in theater lobbies in favor of Stroud’s release or parole.
[edit] Truth versus fiction
According to those who knew Stroud while he was in prison, the mild-mannered characterization of him, as presented in Gaddis's book and the subsequent film was largely fiction. Some have challenged the claim that Stroud's transfer to Alcatraz was due to some of the equipment he requested being used to make alcoholic beverages (which was depicted in the film though not shown as the reason for his transfer).
[edit] External links
- Birdman of Alcatraz at the Internet Movie Database
- http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/stroud.htm
- http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/stroud/
[edit] References
- ^ "The Birdman of Alcatraz: A Brief Narrative on Robert Stroud AZ #594", AlcatrazHistory.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-11.
- ^ "Robert Stroud", Find A Grave, 2001-01-01. Retrieved on [[2007-02-12]].
