The collections of the Norfolk Public Library contain letters that Pauline Adams sent to her sons from her jail cell at the Occoquan Work House. They offer not only a glimpse of life behind bars for a segment of society normally far removed from that experience, but also provide insights on the energy and spirit of this remarkable woman and the movement of which she was a part.
Adams’ letter to her son, Forsty (Edward Forstall Adams), dated Sunday, September 30 (1917), is written on the letterhead of the “Work House, District of Columbia.” Beneath this heading are nine printed lines entitled “RULES FOR PRISONERS” and signed by W. H. Whittaker, Superintendent, Occoquan, Virginia. Rule number 1 reads: “…a prisoner will be permitted to write to father, mother, brother or sister, wife, son or daughter upon arrival, and one letter each month thereafter, so long as the prisoner maintains a perfect record.” According to the list of family to which prisoners were permitted to write, Adams was forbidden to write to her husband, a fact that underscores how unusual it was for women to be jailed at this facility in 1917.
In the letter, she describes aspects of her life as a prisoner. On Sunday, she writes, although they do not go to church, the women are given white caps and collars and cuffs to attach to their prison garb using five straight pins. She jokes that they all sit around looking like “little Dutch women” in their “blue checks (not stripes).”
Diversions at the jail were created by visits from counsel and from the “Uplifters” who came one Sunday. They handed out leaflets, as Adams describes, “with Lost Sheep pictures on them.” Then, Adams comments, with tongue in cheek, one imagines, “drink and drugs are the causes of all the down falls I’ve seen. And you know men invented them therefore ‘Votes for Women.’ ”
A later letter from Adams to her son, Walter P. Adams, dated Tuesday, October 23, 1917, is written on toilet paper. A note on the transcription in the Norfolk Library file describes the letter as being smuggled out of federal prison. Adams begins by writing that she has been kept from “the privilege of incoming or outgoing mail for over the past week and am now locked in a small cell in ‘solitary.’ ” She provides details about her current situation, the charges filed against the picketers, and the sentences handed down:
I have not been given my tooth brush or hair-brush here yet, but got the loan of this pencil from a new picket who came with another group yesterday. Two leave tomorrow. They only got 30 days while others have 6 months for doing the same thing “blocking traffic” which is the false charge they trump up against us. There was no one crowding around when I was arrested!