Description:

Stroud Robert

Robert Stroud, "Birdman of Alcatraz", TLS Two Months before Transfer to Alcatraz, Mentioning Microscopes & Sparrows

 

1p TLS on blue-lined cream paper 3x signed by notorious criminal Robert F. Stroud (1890-1963) as "Robert Stroud," once in blue pen at bottom, and twice typed (at top and beneath signature at bottom.) Written at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas on October 3, 1942. Stamped "Censored 1" at top, while "physical" appears in blue-colored pencil in the left margin. In near fine condition, with expected paper folds, measuring 8" x 10.25".

 

Federal prisoner Robert Stroud, #17431 wrote this letter to his half-sister Mamie E. Stroud (1881-1969) just 80 days before his surprise transfer to U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz Island on December 19, 1942.

 

All excerpts from Stroud's letter include his original spelling. Stroud mentions in the second paragraph that brother Marcus (1897-1976) had contacted him about the imminent publication of a book, probably what would become Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds. He wrote: "I had two letter from Marcus on Thursday. He…later wrote me again about some of the business concerning the book. We are going to announce publication the first of November, and if things go just half as good as they should, we will put it over with bells." In fact, Stroud's second edition reprint of his 1933 Diseases of Canaries would not be published until 1943, well after his transfer to Alcatraz.

 

Stroud's interest in birds began as an inmate at Leavenworth around 1920, 8 years into his 30-year-long incarceration there, after nursing some jail yard sparrows back to health. He later obtained permission to breed, house, and study around 300 birds in 2 adjacent prison cells. He also maintained a research laboratory in the cells where he could use a microscope--such as the one mentioned in this letter--or produce homemade mail-order bird medicine.

 

Stroud coaches his older half-sister in how to properly wear glasses. "At our age it is impossible to get glasses that are good for close work and also for distance unlessthey are bifocal. As you do not need distance glasses, you should take the others off except when doing close work, or get the habit of shoving them up on your forehead. I have tried to develope that habit myself without much success. I cannot see through the microscope with glasses on, even though mine are bifocal, but I have never been able to make them stay comfortably on my forehead, so when I am doing microscopic work I have to keep putting them on and taking them off. And iI always end up with a headache." In Stroud's psychiatric interview conducted by Dr. Romney M. Ritchey at Alcatraz on January 7, 1943, the physician noted that the 52-year-old Stroud did indeed have "Defective Vision" and that the inmate wore reading glasses.

 

Stroud concludes his half-sister's letter with an observation about the weather and its impact on bird breeding habits. He mused: "This climate this year has been the funniest I ever saw, and it still has even the birds fooled. The sparrows nesting in the wall of my back yard are still breeding."

 

A little over two months later, apparently with only 10 minutes' notice to pack, Stroud would be transferred 1,700 miles east of Leavenworth to Alcatraz. The official reasoning is recorded in an Alcatraz warden's notebook as: "In view of this man's homicidal traits and impulsively dangerous tendencies, he cannot be released with general population…also wishes to call attention to need for eliminating the insanitary condition..from this man's bird breeding activities here…Rec. trans. to Alcatraz." In reality, Leavenworth prison officials had attempted to transfer Stroud as early as 1933 because of his unwelcome celebrity. Stroud remained at Alcatraz until 1959.

 

Robert Stroud spent 54 years in prison, 42 of which were in solitary confinement. After his initial 1909 arrest for manslaughter, Stroud compounded his sentence by assaulting fellow inmates and staff, as well as by killing a prison guard in 1916. At Alcatraz, prohibiting from caring for birds, he devoted his energies to learning French, studying the law, and writing.

 

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