Sing Sing Philatelic Association

Found in a box of old covers. Thought some might find this interesting (never knew there was a Sing Sing Philatelic Association):

I wonder if the inmates thought of him as a "humanitarian and penologist"

interesting postal history !

Who cares what the inmates thought.."you run again Luke, wer'e gonna kill you" !

"Shakin the bush here Boss....Shakin the bush...."

Hehehehe

FYI, I web searched "Sing Sing Philatelic" and came up with a reference to a book published in 2004 by Ralph Blumenthal for which the Warden noted on this particular cover and the circumstances around it are described. The book is entitled: "Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America's Most Dangerous Prisoners." This philatelic cover is even pictured.

As stated previously, an interesting piece of postal history.

Convicts...Forgers?...Prison Print Shop...Stamp Club... Kinda makes you wounder!

Great cover! I know from television that Sing Sing was one of the first "reform" prisons where it was believed that criminals could be rehabilitated and reintroduced into the normal population. According to Wikipedia Lawes was one of the men at the forefront of this movement so a Philatelic Organization that could offer some therapy to the prisoners makes perfect sense. I imagine prisoners might have sifted through correspondences in their spare time for interesting stamps to soak - the program also could have acted as an incentive for some prisoners to practice their reading and writing skills which is certainly something inline with the concept of rehabilitation.

" penologist" sounds downright dirty to me.

the Metro North railroad tracks are so close you can almost touch the razor wire..Sing Sing does not look user friendly to me..its where they sent guys (and a gal or two) to the "hot seat"

Driving down I-95 in the Southern States you see the guys in the zebra outfits mostly picking up stuff passersby have thrown out the window..i don't think they have to tar the roads in the Florida summer heat !!

Thanks for all the comments on this cover. It is an interesting piece of postal history. No one mentioned, though, that it's autographed by Mr. Lawes.