Behind Adobe Walls and Iron Bars: The Utah Territorial Penitentiary Library

Drawing upon a wealth of detail recorded in the writings of imprisoned Mormon polygamists and other published and unpublished records from the Utah Territorial Penitentiary, we get a glimpse of the educational and intellectual life of an inmate population unique in the annals of American penal history. Utah lagged behind other state and federal prisons in establishing a prison library. It also differed somewhat in the way in which the library was founded. This frontier library was popular with inmates, and the bulk of the collection contained classics and good literature.