Series IV.B.VI. Superintendent's Files, 1934-1990 (bulk 1940-1970).

Containers:

Box 454-477; and Oversize Box 2.

Scope and content:

The Office of the Superintendent Files are housed in 24 boxes and is arranged primarily alphabetical by first letter of name and/or subject. This series primarily contains records from several superintendents including. Rice M. Youell (1922-1942), W. Frank Smyth, Jr. (1942-1960) and W.K. Cunningham (1960-1963).

Youell served as Superintendent until 1942 when he was selected as the first Commissioner of Corrections. In 1948 he was named director of the reorganized corrections division, a position he held until his retirement in 1960.

W. Frank Smyth, Jr. was born in Washington County, Virginia on 22 September 1894. Smyth grew up in Richmond and entered the National Guard in 1916 serving on the Mexican boarder and World War I. In 1919 Smyth was hired as the superintendent of the state lime grinding plant in Staunton, Virginia. He later served as the special agent of the state convict road force and was named assistant superintendent at the Penitentiary in December 1936. In 1942 Smyth was promoted to superintendent, a position he held until 1960 when he succeeded Youell as director of the entire penal system. He retired in 1965. Smyth was elected president of the American Prison Association in 1947. Smyth married Clara James Withcer in 1944 and had one daughter. Smyth died on 21 April 1981.

W.K. (William Kenneth) Cunningham, Jr. was born in Virginia on 11 December 1915. He joined the penitentiary's industrial department in 1939. He served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945. He resumed his duties at the Penitentiary after his discharge. In 1950 he became superintendent of the Southampton Farm. He was promoted to assistant superintendent at the Penitentiary in 1955, superintendent in 1960 and head of the correctional system in 1965. Cunningham died on 2 January 2011.

Subjects include: budgets, prison escapes, convict labor for farm work during World War II, education, medical studies on prisoners, administration of medical care for prisoners, Southern States Prison Association, Penal Industries Association; American Prison Association and prison labor and industries.

Notable Correspondence include : location of Convict Camps, 28 March 1944 (b457, f1); Bulletins on Convict Farm Labor Assistance from Highway Department, 30 June 1944 (b457, f1) and 21 July 1943 (b457, f2); Corrections Bulletins, 1956-1965 (b457, f3); Released Data Sheet form March-May 1963 that contains prisoner information, institutional work assignment, released to, educational level, general health and conduct (b458, f1); Road Camp Mailing List, 6 June 1946 (b459, f1); correspondence related to Shirley Controversy (H.G. Shirley, State Highway Commissioner, recommended the abolition of the convict road camps (b459, f2); copy of orientation talk given to new prisoners, written by Austin M. Grigg, Psychologist, 2 July 1946 (b460, f1); organizational charge for Prison Industries, undated (b461, f1); proposed building layouts, 9 May1961 (b461, f3); progress report of prison industries by Carroll R. Proctor, 23 April 1959 (b461, f3); progress report of prison industries by C.R. Proctor, 2 March 1959 (b461, f3); minutes of the Institutional Apprenticeship Committee of the Virginia State Penitentiary (b461, f5); minutes of Industrial Department meetings, 1955-1963 (b464, f2); correspondence between W. Frank Smyth, Jr. and William Sands Meacham, Associate Editor, Norfolk-Virginian Pilot, 1940-1955 (b465, f6); lists of guards and years of service, 1951 and guard's petition for salary increase, 1953 (b466, f5); guard's petition for salary increase, 1943 (b466, f6); memorandums for the files of individual guards (b467, f3); testimony of James Richard Page, 87913, on his attempted escape and conditions in the penitentiary, 1966 (b468, f5); and "A History of the Virginia State Farm", thesis by C.C. Bowles, Jr., May 1960 (b477, f4).

Access and use

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