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Guide to the Henry Lesser Collection
MS-0534
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Collection Title: Henry Lesser Collection
Dates: 1928-1994
Identification: MS-0534
Creator:
Lesser, Henry, 1902-1983
Physical Description: 4.55 linear ft
Repository:
Special Collections & University Archives
5500 Campanile Dr. MC 8050
San Diego, CA, 92182-8050
URL: http://library.sdsu.edu/scua
Email: askscua@mail.sdsu.edu
Phone: 619-594-6791
Henry Lesser (1902-1983) was a prison guard, advocate for prison reform, and men's clothing salesman who formed a friendship
with convicted murderer and career criminal Carl Panzram, corresponding with him until Panzram's execution in 1930. He is
known for having persuaded Panzram to write his autobiography while in jail, which along with the two men’s correspondence
established Panzram's reputation as a violent and misanthropic criminal.
Lesser was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children. His father, Lazar Lesser, worked as a door-to-door
salesman to support the family.
Lesser dropped out of school in the 10th grade to follow his brothers to Washington D.C. There he found work in a men's clothing
store, but was later fired for his efforts to unionize the salesmen, an event which prefigured his lifelong interest in social
reform and progressive causes.
After working as a hospital attendant, Lesser was recommended for a job as a jail guard. He began his career as a guard on
March 1, 1928, reporting to work at the D.C. district jail.
In August of that year, Carl Panzram was incarcerated at the district jail on charges of housebreaking. While awaiting trial,
Panzram was twice beaten by guards. Taking pity on the prisoner, Lesser had another guard pass a dollar to Panzram, and the
two men began an unlikely friendship.
Intrigued by the prisoner's provocative statements and anti-social attitude, Lesser encouraged Panzram to write his autobiography
and provided him with writing materials. In his manuscript, Panzram detailed the abuses he suffered as a child — at home and
in a boy's reformatory school — and his early crimes, including theft and arson. He claimed to have went on to commit 21 murders
and thousands of acts of sodomy, espousing a hatred of humanity that has made him a case study among criminologists and psychiatrists,
and an object of fear and morbid curiosity to the general public.
Panzram was eventually transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he killed Robert Warnke, a foreman in the prison laundry
room. For this crime, the only murder for which he was convicted, he was executed by hanging on September 5, 1930.
Lesser had already begun trying to publish Panzram's manuscript before his execution. He would spend the next four decades
doing so, until significant parts of it were eventually published in 1970 in the book
Killer: A Journal of Murder, co-written by Tom Gaddis and James Long. In the interval, a typed copy of the manuscript was loaned to various journalists
and criminologists, who returned it either because they found the subject matter unpublishable or simply could not commit
to the venture due to personal constraints, even as they acknowledged the manuscript’s value. Among those with whom Lesser
corresponded were the journalist H.L. Mencken, criminologist Sheldon Glueck and psychiatrist Karl Menninger, who had evaluated
Panzram in prison and declared him sane at the time of Warnke’s murder.
Lesser rose in the prison profession, working for several years as a parole officer, and later as the junior warden’s assistant
at the federal reformatory camp in Petersburg, Virginia. However, he grew despondent over the lack of improved conditions
for prisoners and the slow rate of prison reform. He resigned from his position in 1935, while the country was still in the
midst of the Great Depression. After a period of unemployment, he returned to work as a men’s clothing salesman the following
year. That same year he met and married Esther Brookes, and their son Richard was born a year later. The family later settled
in Los Angeles, where Lesser found work in a department store.
In 1955, having exchanged hands many times, the Panzram manuscript came into the possession of Tom Gaddis, who had written
Birdman of Alcatraz, a biography of the convict and ornithologist Robert Stroud. For the next fifteen years, Gaddis struggled to produce a book
based on the manuscript, as work, school and family commitments called him away. Twice Gaddis had to return the manuscript
to Lesser, who was growing despondent over the delay and feared he would not see a book about Panzram published in his lifetime.
Finally, Lesser’s literary agent brokered a deal in which Gaddis would write the book, and it was eventually completed with
the help of co-author and
Oregon Journal reporter James Long.
Published in 1970, the book was not a commercial success and soon went out of print. However, its reputation continued to
spread through word of mouth until in 1995 a film adaptation brought the story of Panzram to a wider audience.
In his later years, Lesser continued trying to secure a film adaptation of the book, but without success. In 1979 he made
the first of two visits to San Diego State University to speak before students in the criminal justice program. He was invited
by criminal justice professor Thomas Gitchoff and Joel Goodman (1954-), a graduate student and employee of the Federal Bureau
of Prisons. During this visit, Lesser, Goodman, Gitchoff and criminal justice professor Ron Boostrom conducted a filmed interview,
“Killer’s Guard: An Interview with Henry Lesser.”
In the last years of his life, Lesser carried on a correspondence with Goodman, exchanging items of interest on criminological
matters until an extreme bout of depression — with which he struggled off and on all his life — left him incapacitated. Before
his death Lesser donated the Panzram papers and related correspondence to San Diego State library, where they are held in
Special Collections & University Archives.
This Collection is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
Goodman, Joel, 1954---Archives
Lesser, Henry, 1902-1983--Archives
Panzram, Carl, 1891-1930
Prison reformers
Goodman inherited Lesser’s papers, to which he added his own files. The whole of the papers were then given to filmmaker John
Borowski while he was conducting research for a documentary film about Panzram. Borowski then donated the papers to San Diego
State Special Collections & University Archives.
2013-001
The copyright interests in these materials have not been transferred to San Diego State University. Copyright resides with
the creators of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. The nature of historical archival and manuscript collections
is such that copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Requests for permission to publish must be
submitted to the Head of Special Collections, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access. When granted, permission
is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder(s), which must also be obtained in order to publish. Materials from our collections are made available
for use in research, teaching, and private study. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including
but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials.
This collection is open for research.
Identification of item, folder title, box number,
Henry Lesser Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, Library and Information Access, San Diego State University.
Carl Panzram Papers
I. Henry Lesser Files, 1928-1981
1. Prison Career, 1928-1935
2. Literary Projects, 1944-1981
3. San Diego State, 1979-1981
4. Criminology Research, bulk 1970s
II. Joel Goodman Files, 1979-c.1994
The
Henry Lesser Collection (1928-1994) consists of Lesser’s personal papers as well as those of Joel Goodman, Lesser’s friend and a graduate of San
Diego State’s criminal justice master’s degree program.
Lesser’s papers span his time working in the prison profession in the 1920s and ‘30s, the four subsequent decades he spent
trying to publish the Panzram writings, and his final years, in which he donated the
Panzram Papers to San Diego State and lectured there on two occasions. These papers offer a look into Lesser’s life and character beyond
what can be learned from his correspondence and reminiscences included in the
Carl Panzram Papers, particularly his roles as a prison reformer and promoter of Panzram’s story. Goodman inherited Lesser’s papers, to which he
added his own, including his correspondence with Lesser, Lesser’s wife, the filmmakers of the 1995 adaptation of
Killer, and others.
The collection is divided into two series, the
Henry Lesser Files (1928-1981) and the
Joel Goodman Files (1979-1994). The Lesser Files are further divided into four subseries:
Prison Career (1928-1935),
Literary Projects (1944-1981),
San Diego State (1979-1981), and
Criminology Research (predominantly 1970s). The first three of these subseries document certain periods in Lesser’s life, falling in roughly chronological
order. The fourth comprises press clippings and publications on matters of criminological and penological interest, with Lesser’s
annotations.
The
Prison Career (1928-1935) subseries documents Lesser’s work as a prison official as well as his involvement in prison reform. Lesser’s
efforts as a reformer are revealed through letters to the press and documents pertaining to his union activity. The depth
of his involvement is shown by a 10-page letter written to Director of the Bureau of Prisons Sanford Bates and signed by 26
prisoners at the Federal Reformatory camp in Petersburg, Virginia, listing the abuses suffered by the prisoners and appealing
for a redress of grievances. In another letter addressed to prison reform advocate and author Jesse O. Stutsman, guards at
the Federal Road Camp in Fort Wadsworth, New York, testify to the cruelty of their superiors. Lesser’s work as a parole officer
is shown through correspondence with his parolees as well as their case files and psychological evaluations. Of particular
interest is a notebook Lesser kept during his time as a guard. In it Lesser recorded prison protocols, notes on his co-workers,
anecdotes and reflections on the state of the prison system.
The
Literary Projects (1944-1981) subseries covers the roughly four decades Lesser spent seeking a writer and publisher for the Panzram manuscript.
The bulk of the correspondence details his partnership with Tom Gaddis and James Long and the process of seeing the project
to completion, as Lesser pitched the manuscript to various publishers and writers and sought to enlist interest in a television
or film documentary. Also present are documents the writers obtained in the course of their research, literary contracts,
book reviews, letters from readers and contemporaneous correspondence not strictly related to the book. Later documents in
this series include correspondence from the author and playwright Frederick Hunter, who adapted Panzram’s story for the stage.
The
San Diego State (1979-1981) subseries documents Lesser’s two visits to San Diego State to lecture to students in the criminal justice program,
as well as his decision to donate the
Panzram Papers to the university’s library. A good deal of the subseries consists of dozens of notes written by students in response to
Lesser’s talks, and in a couple of instances a sustained correspondence between Lesser and a student.
The
Criminology Research (predominantly 1970s) subseries consists mostly of press clippings, magazines and trade publications with items of general
criminological and penological interest. The press clippings and other published material bear Lesser’s annotations as well
as handwritten indexes, either on the folders or loose sheets of paper. Lesser’s interest in helping a particular prisoner,
Leo Lewis, is shown through a small amount of correspondence between Lesser and prison officials regarding this prisoner’s
case. An early notebook contains extracts Lesser copied from the published proceedings of the American Prison Association
(later the American Correctional Association), and notes on mental patients Lesser worked with while he was employed at St.
Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. An alphanumeric filing system devised by Lesser has been retained in the labelling
of some of the folders, otherwise the folders are labelled according to the subject of their contents or with a title, as
in the case of a publication or article.
The
Joel Goodman Files (1979-1994) begin chronologically near the end of Lesser’s life and contain correspondence between Goodman and Lesser, Lesser’s
wife Esther and their son Richard. Esther steps in to continue the correspondence on Lesser’s behalf when Lesser is incapacitated
by a serious bout of depression and after his death. Later correspondence between Goodman, Gitchoff and screenwriter Tim Metcalfe
involves the making of the film adaptation of
Killer. Also in this series is a folder containing photographs of Lesser’s visit to San Diego State and some taken on location during
the filming of
Killer.