Paahao Press, Monthly Hawaii Prisoners Magazine, full run of 1955

Honolulu, HI, Published monthly by the inmates of the Hawaiian prison system, 9" x 6.75", pages see below. Printed by permission of the Director of Institutions, Territory of Hawaii. Bound in Buckram at the 'Oahu Prison Bindery', with a stamp on the inside back cover. With the name John H. Beukema* in gilt on the bottom right corner of the front cover. --- Vol 32, Year 1955, includes: Jan 1955 21st Anniversary issue, 25pp Feb and March 1955, 25pp April and May 1955 Mother's Day Edition, 48pp June 1955 Maui Edition, 41pp July 1955, 25pp August, no issue September 1955, 25pp October 1955, 25pp November 1955, no issue December 1955, Christmas Issue, 55pp Issues include articles, poetry, and advertising. --- Paahao means prisoner in Hawaiian --- NO copies in Worldcat --- Cover and paper edges with some smudges and spotting. Pages very clean, without damage * John H. Beukema worked for 17 years with the State Department of Corrections in Hawaii. After his retirement he became the president of the Bridging Association, an organization that organized halfway houses for released prisoners. --- --- --- The Paahao Press was published in 194 issues, 19381972. --- For over twenty years in the 1940s and 1950s, the men of Hawaiis Oahu Prison published a newspaper titled the Paahao Press. Such newspapers were common across the United States and Canada in the mid-twentieth century, so much so that there were over one hundred prisoner-edited newspapers in circulation in the 1950s in a franchise called the Penal Press. One of the most surprising features of these newspapers was that they were traded across the North American continent, allowing imprisoned men and women at many institutions to read the journalism, fiction, poetry, and gossip from their peers at institutions from far away. Within the Penal Press circuit, the Paahao Press was unique in a number of ways. Firstly, although all prison newspapers were separated by great geographic distances, Oahu Prison was located in the Pacific Ocean, far from the journalists working for other prison newspapers in the United States and Canada. This contributed to the popularity of Paahao Press, which garnered a large readership among imprisoned people on the continent who reported enjoying its recitations of Hawaiian history and rudimentary lessons in the Hawaiian language. Additionally, although nearly all Penal Press newspapers in the midcentury United States were headed by white editorsmany of whom expressed white supremacist attitudes regarding the racial segregation of their institutions and who dismissed black prisoners political organizingPaahao Press was edited by various Asian American prisoners, such as the popular editor Pat Yim. These combined features made the Paahao Press a unique and widely read newspaper throughout the continental Penal Press, leading to its articles being reprinted in many other papers. Newspapers as diverse as Arizona State Prisons Cactus Blossom, Wisconsin State Prisons Candle, and Manitoba Penitentiarys Mountain Echoes cited material from Paahao Press and circulated it for response among their institutions own readers.

Product Info

Publisher: Published monthly by the inmates of the Hawaiian prison system

Year: 1955

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

HonoluluRareBooks

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Country: United States