A full list of the all the revolts by U.S. prisoners against their barbarous treatment would fill many volumes. Inedible food and brutal guards are the spark here for hundreds of Philadelphia prisoners to rise. Holmesburg Prison was particularly notorious, the site of medical experiments that rivaled the Nazis, and far outlasted them, it was known as “The Terrordome” by its inmates. It closed in 1995.

‘600 Philadelphia Prisoners Revolt’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No 322. January 14, 1929.

600 PRISONERS REVOLT AGAINST TERRIBLE FOOD–Men in Philadelphia Jail, Made Desperate, Hold Off 60 Guards–Overcome by Tear Gas–Freed Prisoner Tells of Vile Conditions

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13. While prison officials are making strenuous efforts to hush up the spontaneous revolt of 600 prisoners at the Philadelphia County Prison at Holmesburg on Friday, details of the insurrection and of the terrible conditions that aroused it continue to leak thru.

The heroic stand of 600 prisoners who kept more than 60 guards at bay for 24 hours before they were finally overcome by tear gas bombs is being answered with severe reprisal measures, with the leaders of the revolt signaled out for particularly brutal punishment.

The immediate cause of the revolt is said to have been the rotten, inedible food that was being fed to the prisoners, tho other conditions at the jail also inflamed the resentment of the men. Six hundred of them, armed with table legs, pieces of iron, spoons, forks and other improvised weapons, shouting “We want food!” took possession of three of the eight sections of the prison and held the guards at bay, thruout Friday afternoon and night. Waging a heroic fight, they drove off the repeated attacks of the armed guards until the tear gas bomb squad was brought in at ten o’clock yesterday morning. Overcome by the bombs, many of the prisoners set fire to their mattresses and threw them into the corridors. The flames were put out by the prison guards who also turned the hose on the prisoners already dazed and blinded by the tear gas.

Revolt Started Friday.

The revolt started at mess hour at noon Friday when the prisoners, driven desperate by a diet of all sorts of filthy odds and ends that were labelled food, began throwing cups and dishes around and finally gained possession of three sections of the prison. So bitterly did the prisoners fight that the authorities sent a call for reinforcements to the Moyamensing County Prison and 20 extra guards were dispatched.

John W. Bennett, newly appointed prison superintendent, was also compelled to call in his chiefs, Major Lemuel B. Schofield, director of public safety, and Superintendent of Police Mills, both faithful tools of the Vare machine, to help him crush the revolt.

Released Prisoner Tells Story.

Tho the prison and city authorities made every attempt to keep the revolt from gaining publicity, the story managed to seep thru. John Gibson, a prisoner who completed his sentence while the revolt was in progress, told the tale of the inhuman treatment accorded the prisoners. “The disturbance had been brewing for a long time,” he said. “Some time ago the prisoners refused to eat their soup and it was stricken from the menu. The meat has been terrible and the coffee made me sick.”

Gibson said he had not eaten for two days.

Prison officials hastened to deny that the food was bad, tho they admitted that the prison was overcrowded, 1,7500 men being squeezed into cells intended for a maximum of 1,500.

Holmesburg County Prison, like Moyamensing Prison, also in this city, is one of the most notorious prisons in the country. Prisoners are starved or fed rotten food and subjected to the most brutal treatment, which is intensified by the graft-ridden prison supervision system. Moyamensing Prison, which has been ranked as among the three worst jails in the country, is the place where 40 workers, demonstrating against the United Fruit Company, were recently sentenced.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

Access to PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v05-n322-NY-jan-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf