FPI Through Depression and War, 1935-1945

In 1934, there were only a handful of industrial operations at Federal prisons-a textile mill producing cotton duck cloth at USP Atlanta, a shoe factory at USP Leavenworth, and a broom and brush factory at the Leavenworth Penitentiary Annex. Those factories and all of the BOP's industrial assets-including a revolving capital fund that had been set up in 1930-were transferred to FPI when the corporation came into existence on January 1, 1935. This transfer of assets represented an initial capital investment by the U.S. Government of just over $4 million in FPI-an investment paid back many times over, as FPI paid 2 million in dividends to the U.S. Treasury between 1946 and 1969.

FPI immediately embarked upon a program of expansion and diversification. In its first 2 years of operation, FPI opened a mattress factory at USP Atlanta; a clothing factory and wooden furniture factory at USP Leavenworth; a clothing factory and metal furniture factory at USP Lewisburg; a foundry and brick plant at the Chillicothe, Ohio, Reformatory; a cotton garment factory at the Federal Industrial Institution for Women at Alderson, West Virginia; a broom factory and woolens mill at the El Reno, Oklahoma, Reformatory; a clothing factory and rubber mat shop at USP Alcatraz, California; and a rubber mat shop at the New Orleans Federal Jail. lt also opened laundries at USP Atlanta and at the Federal Detention Headquarters in New York.

On the eve of World War II, FPI was producing more than 70 categories of products at 25 separate shops and factories. It offered a very wide range of items for sale to the Federal Government. Canvas products included mechanic's aprons, basket inserts, coal bags, feed bags, laundry bags, mail bags, drop cloths, map cases, automobile and truck seat covers, tarpaulins, knapsacks, and tents of all sizes. There was metal furniture (filing cabinets, bed frames, stationery cabinets, library carts, waste receptacles, chairs, desks, lockers, and shelving); fibre furniture (wicker chairs, settees, library tables, and writing desks); and wooden furniture (bureaus, tables, chiffoniers, stools, office screens, hat racks, chairs, and desk trays). The foundry cast bronze name plates, tablets, and land survey monuments; aluminum stamp handles; and iron boiler grates, gutter grates, manhole covers, ballasts, flanges, door holders, and bushings. FPI also produced clothing (chambray work shirts, woolen suits and uniforms, dungarees, undergarments, hospital gowns, riding breeches, overalls, and leather jackets); cotton textiles; metal food trays and document cases; mattresses; footwear (military shoes, men's and women's dress shoes and Oxfords, canvas Oxfords, children's shoes, leather arch supports, and baseball cleats); rubberized and woodblock mats; work gloves and mittens; and a multitude of brooms and brushes (shaving brushes, tooth brushes, paint brushes, dust brushes, scrubbing brushes, typewriter brushes, hearth brooms, parlor brooms, and warehouse brooms).

For a brief time in the l930's, FPI even manufactured license plates for Federally-owned vehicles - but FPI was long way from the stereotype about prisons and license plate factories. FPI was becoming a major corporation, employing a growing workforce in numerous skilled trades, and producing an impressive variety of goods.

FPI was meeting one of its most important goals by increasing the percentage of inmates it employed. In l935, FPI employed just over 2,000 inmates, or 13 percent of the Federal inmate population. By 1940, these numbers had grown to 3,400 inmates and 18 percent of the Federal inmate population. FPI's revenues were also on the increase during this period.

Above: inmates participate in a graphic arts vocational training class at USP Atlanta, 1939.

In 1937, its third year of operation, FPI realized nearly $570,000 in profits, on gross sales of over $3.7 million. "We scarcely believed this could be done in a Depression year, " Bennett recalled in his autobiography. By 1940, sales approached $5.4 million.

Part of the profits were paid to the United States Treasury as dividends. The rest were plowed back into FPI operations through the revolving fund and into expanded vocational training courses for the inmates. By the late 1930's, FPI was on sufficiently firm financial ground to establish a fund to finance vocational training programs and job placement services. It began hiring industrial counselors at individual institutions to plan vocational study courses and appointed a job placement director to coordinate FPI's vocational training opportunities with the needs of outside industry, to help ensure that inmates would learn the most marketable skills.

FPI's expansion, however, was strictly controlled. The law and FPI's own regulations imposed severe competitive disadvantages to prevent FPI from having an unfair negative impact on private industry. Many of the restrictions were particularly tight because they had been conceived during the Depression. Apart from limiting its customers to Federal agencies, the biggest competitive disadvantage that FPI cultivated was diversification. By spreading its work out over as many industries as possible, it minimized its sales potential in each area. Had it specialized in a handful of industries, of course, it could have increased its efficiency, lowered its costs, and acquired much larger market shares. FPI also spread the work out among as many inmates as possible by requiring a maximum of hand labor and prohibiting overtime; although these requirements made FPI less efficient, they aided prison management by keeping a larger number of inmates occupied. And, even though Federal agencies were required by law to purchase FPI goods whenever possible, FPI surrendered millions of dollars of potential sales by issuing clearances authorizing Federal agencies to buy merchandise from private industries.

In addition, FPI met with representatives of unions and private industry, listened to their grievances, and negotiated settlements where appropriate. In 1935, FPI officials met with the Legislative Committee of the Cotton Duck Association and voluntarily agreed to limit the number of spindles at the USP Atlanta textile mill, the hours those spindles operated, and the total output of woven textiles. After negotiations with representatives of the Brush Manufactures Association, FPI agreed to restrict installation of labor-saving machinery at the Leavenworth Annex brush factory and to refrain from developing new product lines in that industry. In 1937, it negotiated mutually-satisfactory arrangements with the Marking Device Industry Association, the Association of Metal Furniture Manufacturers, the Shoe Manufacturers Association, and various units of organized labor.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, FPI was almost 7 years old, and it was well-enough established to make a major contribution to the war effort. Its most immediate contribution was in the manufacture of war material. Production soared as FPI factories went on 2 or 3 shifts per day, and 95 percent of the output was sold to the military. Sales jumped from a little over $7 million in 1941 to nearly $18. 8 million in 1943. The Army and Navy were among FPI's biggest customers even before the war, and, during the war, FPI added many new products specifically for the military, such as bomb fins and casings, TNT cases, parachutes, cargo nets, and wooden pallets (for use in storing military gear). FPI also handled much of the laundry for stateside military bases, and the shipyard at USP McNeil Island built, remodeled, and repaired military patrol boats, tugboats, barges, and Navy floats used in submarine defense. Even though the number of inmates employed by FPI remained fairly stable at about 3,500, FPI increased production three-fold and, in 4 years, produced more than $75 million of goods that went directly to the war effort.

Federal inmates manufacture tents for the U.S. military, circa 1942.

Even before the United States intervened in World War II, FPI stepped up production to supply the military, which had already begun its massive buildup in anticipation of entering the conflict, and to provide goods sent to the embattled Great Britain under the Lend-Lease program. By May 1941, USP Atlanta alone produced eight to ten train carloads of defense products per day. FPI's production did not escape the attention or the criticism of the Nazi government. Warden Joseph Sanford of USP Atlanta noted with satisfaction that the Germans "apparently . . . didn't realize that even men in prison in America were willing to work hard to preserve the future liberties to which they could now look forward."

A chalk drawing reminds FPI workers during World War II of the importance of their work.

Another way in which FPI contributed to the war effort was by training inmates to move directly into jobs in defense industries after being released from prison. FPI hired additional personnel to provide job placement services for inmates and set up job placement centers at several institutions that helped hundreds of inmates every year find jobs in defense industries.

To meet special war needs, FPI also introduced 35 new vocational training courses and revamped 37 existing ones. Alongside such traditional training courses as painting, masonry, plumbing, and office machine repair, FPI added welding, aircraft sheetmetal work, building crafts, automobile mechanics, aviation mechanics, drafting, and electrician training. An airplane mechanics school at the Chillicothe Reformatory, for example, provided full-time training to inmates who could expect immediate placement following their release from prison in the all-important aircraft industry.

Inmates at the Federal Reformatory in Chillocothe, Ohio, learn about aircraft mechanics.

Having been born in the midst of economic hard times, FPI had matured into a valuable national asset that played an important role in helping to win the Second World War.