13 Analyzing Prison Newspapers: No More Cages

Introduction

This chapter will introduce lesson plan components for analyzing prison newspapers, with an example set of issues of No More Cages,[1] a women’s prison newsletter published by the Women Free Women in Prison Collective, and located and digitized from the Cynthia Miller Papers[2] at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Special Collections. This topic is appropriate for undergraduate, graduate, and advanced high school students. This work is adaptable to other prison newspapers, with a growing set of openly accessible titles through Reveal Digital: American Prison Newspapers,[3] and to other alternative press publications, such as those at Independent Voices,[4] among other repositories with publications by and for minority and non-mainstream communities.

Periodicals in General

No More Cages can be used to teach lesson outcomes related to periodicals in general as well as alternative press publications: handling (if using physical artifacts) and basic primary source analysis of features including cover and title page, table of contents, graphics, types of text and contributors, audience, bias, and design such as layout, length, color, and other stylistic features. There are numerous primary source analysis checklists and worksheets for use in lessons using periodicals, such as those shared by the Library of Congress (LOC Analyzing Newspapers),[5] the National Archives (NARA Analyze a Written Document and NARA Understanding Perspective),[6] and the Modernist Journals Project (How to Read a Magazine).[7] In my own teaching, I use an adapted Library of Congress worksheet, which asks students to analyze primary sources, including periodicals, with questions from four “actions”: Observe, Reflect, Question, and Imagine/Empathize (See Appendix A: “analyzing_primary_sources_orqi-e”). If learning outcomes related to working with general periodicals are of interest for your lesson, I suggest interrogating the magazines or newspapers students may be familiar with in print or online, using an introduction to the genre,[8] and a worksheet such as those noted above to guide students as they look and read through different periodical features.

Alternative Press Periodicals

Beyond basic analysis as example periodicals, working with prison newspapers as primary sources allows for discussion and questioning around some of their unique features. No More Cages and other prison newspapers should be contextualized as a part of the long history of alternative press publications in the United States, as contrasted with the mainstream press. Alternative press periodicals are written from a specific political perspective or by a specific community, often because the mainstream press may ignore or offer incomplete coverage of that ideology or community. As a result, many alternative press publications come from marginalized or unique communities, including African American newspapers, LGBTQ+ magazines, military newspapers, immigrant group publications, indigenous community papers, religious organizational periodicals, and prison newspapers.^[9] With some examples or open discussion, students often understand how many groups feel compelled to create their own periodicals for specialized news, art, and community information outside of mainstream news. Translating historical notions of “power of the press” to more current considerations of “content creators” can be an interesting dialogue in relation to historical alternative press publications and current social media and internet practices.

Prison Newspapers: No More Cages

No More Cages: A Bi-monthly Women’s Prison Newsletter was begun in 1978 by a feminist collective based in Brooklyn, New York, to publicize issues related to incarcerated women and to create exchange and community between activists beyond and behind prison walls. The group was mostly white, working-class, and lesbian, and had been involved in several forms of “prisoner support work,” including letter-writing campaigns, assisting families with transportation to see incarcerated loved ones, political education, and direct-action organizing.[10] In addition to being a prison newspaper, No More Cages therefore also has a specific historical context to consider in classes, being situated particularly in (and, sometimes against) the feminist, anti-psychiatry, and often male-focused prisoner rights movements of the 1970s–80s. These topics can make for good introductory and/or concluding discussions, asking students where they see the legacy of these movements in the periodical. Some definitions may be necessary for working with No More Cages, such as “Third World women,” “multiple oppressions” and intersectionality, and “pigs” as slang for police. With prison papers in general, classes should discuss the differences between and appropriateness of terms such as “criminal,” “prisoner,” “incarcerated individual,” and “person affected by the justice system.”

The No More Cages Nov/Dec 1981 issue[11] is useful for beginning analysis. Ask students to look on the first and second pages to see the price of the newspaper, and they will note that it is free to “prisoners,” “psychiatric inmates,” and “poor people;” $6 for six issues, and for donated subscriptions; and $15 for institutions. Ask students to read the italicized editorial statement above the “Statement of Purpose,” (page 0) which outlines types of material that will not be published. Such statements and prices are common among prison newspapers and can be used to discuss with students the populations being prioritized by these alternative publications, and the primary source analysis concept of intended audience.

The “Statement of Purpose” (pages 0-01) in this issue highlights the historical and ideological impetus for the creators, including their understandings of intersectionality and multiple oppressions, deficiencies in the women’s liberation and prisoners’ rights movements, and their desire to foster dialogues between the prison and anti-psychiatry movements. Many prison newspapers will also have something akin to a statement of purpose, like the one in this No More Cages issue, which can be used to situate a prison newspaper in its historical context and discuss the primary source analysis interest in creators’ perspectives, biases, and intentions.

With the historical context and concepts of intended audience and creators’ perspective in mind, investigations of prison newspapers’ content are enriched. Not all periodicals, including prison newspapers, have a table of contents, but many examples in the genre do, including No More Cages (page 01). Tables of contents can be analyzed in a single issue, but are also a useful periodical genre component for presenting periodicals as serials, with multiple issues speaking to each other and their audience over time. As a small set of issues, No More Cages lends itself well to lesson plan activities based around both a single issue and also those viewing the periodical as a serial. Looking at the tables of contents of No More Cages, students, with assistance or not, will see many topical titles of news or other articles, but can also identify several recurring features across the serial, such as “Dear Sisters Inside,” “Letters from Inside,” “More Letters,” “Poetry,” and “Free to Prisoners.”

Analysis of the recurring features “Dear Sisters Inside” and “Letters from Inside” and other letters is a great opener for dialogue around power dynamics, voice, and insider/outsider tensions and collaborations in activist movements, and especially in prisoners’ rights movements. No More Cages clearly distinguishes between its creators, those writing the “Statement of Purpose” and “Dear Sisters Inside,” and those incarcerated, who send letters and other writing and artwork to the newspaper for inclusion in the publication. Ask students to compare “Dear Sisters Inside,” with “Letters from Inside,” or to find other examples of this dynamic of multiple voices in the periodical(s). Ask students to analyze the balance of nonfiction pieces with creative works in an issue or issues. What are they noticing about spaces in the newspaper where women in prison, or those formerly imprisoned, get to share their own words or creativity? Why might No More Cages or any prison newspaper have a large amount of creative art and poetry? How do students think these women felt about having their work published and distributed, or can they find evidence in the periodical itself of how engaging with No More Cages as writers and readers impacted incarcerated individuals? As readers of No More Cages in the classroom, can students imagine reading it as a part of its original intended audience?

Working with No More Cages allows for in-depth source and topical analysis tied to the unique communities connected to this prison newspaper. In addition to thinking of a whole periodical, or the serial as a group, instructors can allow students to select specific portions to investigate in-depth on their own. The mix of news, art, correspondence, and community networking in No More Cages is full of powerful stories and work. Ask students to analyze a specific letter, article, artwork, or the “Free to Prisoners” section, and use their observations and questions to think about the power and purpose of prison newspapers for their intended audience in the past. You could then ask them to do the same analysis but focused on the impact for readers now in the present. Similar questions can focus students on topical coverage in No More Cages, from questions regarding intersectionality and issues of race and gender, to places students notice discussions of mental health and psychiatry in the newspaper.

Conclusion

Instructors can reinforce all of this work by continuing to help students contextualize the content they encounter, as well as the newspaper as a whole, within the larger concept of prison newspapers as alternative press publications. Working with prison newspapers not only helps students with their primary source analysis skills, but also pushes them to think differently about content in the mainstream press or popular sources related to prisons and incarcerated individuals, and asks them to consider not only why prison newspapers exist, but also how they might use them as sources for their own understanding, research, creative activities, civic lives, and activism.

Appendix A

Appendix A: Analyzing Primary Sources handout created by Blake Spitz, heavily adapted from content available through the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/).

Endnotes

[1] No More Cages: A Bi-Monthly Women’s Prison Newsletter, 1981–1985, Cynthia Miller Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, https://credo.library.umass.edu/search?q=%22no%20more%20cages%22&sort=3a&facets=, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110201340/https://credo.library.umass.edu/search?q=%22no%20more%20cages%22&sort=3a&facets=.

[2] Cynthia Miller Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, http://scua.library.umass.edu/miller-cynthia/, archived September 22, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230922071034/http://scua.library.umass.edu/miller-cynthia/.

[3] “Reveal Digital: American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside,” JSTOR, last modified September 2023, https://www.jstor.org/site/reveal-digital/american-prison-newspapers,.

[4] “Reveal Digital: Independent Voices,” JSTOR, last modified September 2023, https://www.jstor.org/site/reveal-digital/independent-voices.

[5] “Getting Started with Primary Sources: Teacher’s Guides and Analysis Tool,” Library of Congress, last modified 2018, https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/, archived November 11, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231111162144/https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/.

[6] “Educator Resources: Document Analysis,” National Archives, last modified April 6, 2023, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets, archived December 18, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231218055057/https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets.

[7] “The Modernist Journals Project: How to Read a Magazine,” Brown and Tulsa Universities, ongoing, https://modjourn.org/how-to-read-a-magazine/, archived June 2, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230602150014/https://modjourn.org/how-to-read-a-magazine/.

[8] “Newspapers and Magazines as Primary Sources LibGuide: What are Newspapers and Magazines?,” Illinois University Library, last modified January 4, 2023,  https://guides.library.illinois.edu/periodicals/introduction, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110203621/https://guides.library.illinois.edu/periodicals/introduction. This LibGuide is an excellent example of an introduction to the genre, and various components or the whole can be used before or in class.

^[9] “‘What is the Alternative Press?,’ U.S. Cultural History since 1968 LibGuide,” Illinois University Library, last modified March 7, 2023, https://guides.library.illinois.edu/united-states-since-1968/alternative-press, archived May 25, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230525113429/https://guides.library.illinois.edu/united-states-since-1968/alternative-press.

[10] Emily L. Thuma, “Printing Abolition: The Transformative Power of Women’s Prison Newsletters” in All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019), 89.

[11] No More Cages: A Bi-Monthly Women’s Prison Newsletter 3, no. 1 (November-December 1981), Cynthia Miller Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums869-b002-f008-i001, archived March 15, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230315082148/https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums869-b002-f008-i001.