Austin H. MacCormick Papers
Scope and Contents
The Austin H. MacCormick Papers contains materials documenting the personal life and career of Austin H. MacCormick, one of the nation’s most influential criminologists and prison reformers. This collection contains materials covering his career as Executive Officer of the U.S. Naval Prison, Assistant Director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Professor and Dean of Criminology at Berkley, and Director of the Osborne Association of New York. Some of the many subjects include: state and federal prison conditions, prison reformation, juvenile detention centers, probation, parole, correctional standards and staff training. The collection includes over twenty-five individual state correctional system reports conducted by Austin H. MacCormick and other criminologists of the time.
Dates
- Creation: 1923 - 1978
Conditions Governing Access
Some materials in this collection are restricted due the personal nature of somecontent. Restrictions are noted at the file level.
Conditions Governing Use
The materials represented in this finding aid have been made available for research, teaching and private use. For these purposes, you may reproduce (print, make photocopies, or download) these items without prior permission on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the source in all copies. Please contact the Newton Gresham Library's Special Collections and University Archives department to request permissions to reproduce materials for any other purpose, or to obtain information regarding the copyright status of a particular digital image, text, audio or video recording.
Biographical / Historical
Austin H. MacCormick was born on April 20, 1893 in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada, the seventh of eight children. His parents were Reverend Donald MacCormick of Scotland and Jean Green MacCormick of England. The MacCormick family moved to Maine in late 1893 and Austin lived in Boothbay Harbor until his 1915 graduation from Bowdoin College, Brunswick. In 1916 he received the Masters of Arts degree from Columbia University Teachers College. He was an Instructor of English and Education at Bowdoin College from 1916 to 1917 and served in the U.S. Naval reserve from 1917 to 1921. Also in 1917 he married Gertrude Albion of Portland, Maine; the couple had two children. MacCormick then became the Executive Officer of the U.S. Naval Prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His senior officer at Portsmouth was Thomas Mott Osborne, a penologist who later employed MacCormick.
After retiring from the Navy, he served as Alumni Secretary of Bowdoin College with instructional duties in the Department of Government until 1928. In 1929 he resigned as Alumni Secretary at Bowdoin and was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the Federal Prisons in the Department of Justice where he worked under Sanford Bates (whose collection is also held by Sam Houston State University). In 1930, the Federal Bureau of Prisons was established and MacCormick was named Assistant Director. From 1934 to 1940 he served as Commissioner of the New York Department of Corrections under the reform administration of Mayor La Guardia. In 1936, Austin MacCormick was wed for the second time to Patricia Welling of New York City. In 1939 he was President of the American Correctional Association. After serving as Commissioner of New York Department of Corrections, he became the executive director of the Osborne Association, Inc. located in New York.
The Osborne Association, founded by Thomas Mott Osborne, was a non-profit organization that worked to improve adult and juvenile correctional conditions and offer support to released prisoners. MacCormick was special assistant to the Undersecretary of War from 1944 to 1947. In 1946, he and Victor H. Ejen, planned and implemented the Army’s parole program.
From 1951 to 1960 Austin MacCormick was professor of criminology at Berkeley College in California. He served as Chairman of the California Special Study Commission on Correctional Facilities and Services in 1952. At the same time, Austin MacCormick was Co-chairman of the Citizens’ Advisory Committee to the Attorney-General on Crime Prevention of California.
Working for the Osborne Association, MacCormick surveyed many state prison systems located in the southern states. His first survey in 1944 of the Texas Prison System exposed harsh conditions and practices of the prison farms. By 1947, the prison conditions in Texas had continued to decline and MacCormick made his findings public which created a demand for action. With a directive from Governor T.C. Jester and under the leadership of Prison Director O.B. Ellis, Texas Prisons initiated comprehensive reforms that made Texas one of the top three prison systems in the country.
When he retired from teaching at Berkeley, MacCormick worked full time as the executive director of the Osborne Association until his death in 1979. Austin H. MacCormick was influential in federal and state prison reform and worked with adult and juvenile prisons throughout the nation to help guide penology into the modern era. He served on many committees concerned with alcoholism and drug use and wrote countless articles expressing progressive ideas on prison reform, libraries, and juvenile delinquency. Austin MacCormick is known for his great influence in modern Criminology. His life's work with prison reform and inmate rehabilitation continues today within Texas Prisons and correctional institutions across the nation.
Extent
9 boxes
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
This collection contains documents, reports, and brochures arranged in the order previously assigned to them. Correspondence is arranged in chronological order.
Topical
- Correspondence
- Criminal Justice, Administration of
- Criminology
- Juvenile corrections
- MacCormick, Austin Harbutt, 1893-1979
- MacCormick, Austin Harbutt, 1893-1979 -- Correspondence
- New York (State), Board of Parole
- Parole
- Prison administration
- Prison reformers
- Prisoners -- United States
- Prisons -- Texas
- Prisons -- United States
- Probation
- Title
- Austin H. MacCormick Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Trent Shotwell
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Thomason Special Collections & SHSU University Archives Repository