141. Stroud, Robert. Autograph letter signed (“Robert Stroud” twice and “Bob”), 1.25 pages (8 x 10.4 in.; 203 x 264 mm.), front and back, in pencil, “P.M.B. 594, Alcatraz, California, 18 September 1945, written to his sister “Miss Marie E. Stroud, 414 E. 6th Street, Metropolis, Illinois”. Usual folds.

Robert Stroud, “The Birdman of Alcatraz,” writes his sister from the notorious prison discussing an additional printing of his book on bird diseases, his continued interest in scientific books and journals and his philosophy of self-improvement.

Stroud writes in full:
Dear Marie: Your letter of the 10th came this evening and am glad [to] know that you are feeling well. I am feeling a lot better, too, and things are o.k. here. I also had a nice letter from Mark last night and another tonight – though his letters were written four days apart. From what he says things seem to be picking up there, and I am pretty sure that all of our plans will work out. He is having another thousand of the books bound and from what he says the orders are picking up. They should be going good in a very short time. The clubs start holding their meeting this month and their shows next month, and it is there that things should start to roll right. I got permission for some more scientific books and journals some time ago – stuff that I have wanted to study for a very long time; so I am reading myself half blind. You will find plenty of people in the world who never find anything o.k., and the worst part of it is that most of them never do anything but cry about it. If one would tell them how to improve the condition complained of, they would find a thousand reasons why they could not do it. I have seen plenty of that around here, and one sees it everywhere. I never believed in that. I’ve never found any profit in crying about things. If I think they can be made better, I will use my brain to try to accomplish it. If a thing can’t be changed, it does no good to be continually griping about it. There is no particular news here, so I will make this short. I hope that this finds you well and all things going well there. Love, Bob, Robert Stroud #594

Robert Stroud was convicted of murdering two men (one in 1909, and the other, a prison guard at Leavenworth, on 26 March 1916), Stroud was imprisoned continuously since 18 January 1909; he spent a total of 54 years in prison [33 years at Leavenworth (1909-42); 17 years at Alcatraz (1942-59); and the last 4 years of his life (1959-63) at the Federal Medical Center at Springfield, Missouri] - 42 of them in solitary confinement (continuously from 1916-59). While incarcerated at the Leavenworth (Kansas) federal prison, he became interested in birds, and studied (by correspondence) chemistry, medicine, and pharmacology. He constructed cages out of cigar boxes for his pet canaries. He wrote two books: Diseases of Canaries (April 1933) and Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds (December 1943), a classic work in the field of bird diseases. Transferred to Alcatraz prison (19 December 1942), where he was held in solitary confinement in D-Block, he was forbidden from keeping pets.
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