Victor Folke Nelson (June 5, 1898 – December 9, 1939) was a Swedish-American writer,"Prison Ethics." The Tennessean. March 6, 1933."Bound to be Read." The Evening Sentinel. Carlisle, Pa. March 16, 1933."The Articulate Convict Studies Prison Life." The Philadelphia Inquirer. April 8, 1933."What Convicts Think of Psychiatrists Told By One Who's Lived Long in Cells" Kansas City Times. June 10, 1933.Norman S. Hayner and Ellis Ash. "The Prison As a Community." American Sociological Review. Vol. 5, No. 4 (Aug., 1940), pp. 577–583. prisoner, and prison reform advocate.Abraham Myerson, introduction to Prison Days and Nights, by Victor F. Nelson (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1936) He spent many years incarcerated in both the New York and Massachusetts prison systems and came to the attention of neurologist Abraham Myerson and penologist Thomas Mott Osborne for his potential as a writer.Merrill, Anthony. "The Man Who Broke Charlestown". Boston Sunday Advertiser Green Magazine. December 17, 1939."Movie Made Escaped Convict Go Back to Charleston Prison". The Boston Sunday Post. December 17, 1939."Thomas Mott Osborne and Paul Revere Frothingham letters to Victor Folke Nelson.." Retrieved on January 30, 2022. In 1932, Nelson published his book Prison Days and Nights with the assistance of Dr. Myerson.
Early life Victor Folke Nelson was born in Malmö, Sweden on June 5, 1898 to Anna Pehrson and Carl Nelson.New Hampshire, U.S., Marriage Records Index, 1637–1947, FHL Film Number 2069768 Victor's parents emigrated to the state of Massachusetts, US, with him and his three siblings when he was three years old. The Nelson family struggled economically and Victor's mother died when he was seven years old. Victor spent the next six years in the Swedish Lutheran Orphanage of Massachusetts.
Orphanage records documented that Victor was bright but had difficulties constructively managing his boredom. He frequently ran away and was eventually placed in the Lyman School for Boys. He served in the British Royal Flying Corps from 1916 to 1918, then enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve in 1918.Nelson Victor Folke Service Number 001239225. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
Incarceration
Victor Nelson's first charge of larceny occurred when he was 18 years old, but was discharged by a grand jury in New York City. He was incarcerated twice in the Portsmouth Naval Prison—punishment for his absence without leave—where he met and worked as an office clerk for then prison commander Thomas Mott Osborne."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Nelson Escaped Hotel Police Trap." The Boston Daily Record. January 2, 1933. Nelson received a dishonorable discharge from the US Naval Reserve in 1920. He cycled in and out of various New York and Massachusetts prisons from 1920 to 1932, spending a total of years incarcerated,"Victor F. Nelson, Notorious Ex-Convict, Believed Poisoned". The Boston Herald. December 10, 1939. primarily for robbery and larceny crimes. In May 1921, at age 22, Nelson made a sensational and highly publicized run and escape from Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts."Victor F. Nelson Eludes Pursuers." Boston Evening Globe. May 12, 1921. He spent some days planning his escape, even modifying a pair of prison-issued shoes, replacing the heavy soles with homemade felt soles to enable both speed and silent running."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Ex-Charlestown Convict Tells Own Story of Life Behind Bars." The Boston Daily Record. December 26, 1932. He made his break from a line of 13 prisoners after attending evening school in the prison chapel."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Dash for Liberty." The Boston Daily Record. December 27, 1932. Despite an attempted intervening tackle from a prisoner trusty and bullets from a guard's gun, Nelson ran some distance, leapt, caught the lower end of the window bars, and scaled the 40-foot high wall of the prison's Cherry Hill section. At the top of the wall, he performed "what was always believed an impossible stunt: throwing his body across a 10-foot space to the wall,""Back in Prison After Restful Sojourn Here". Daily Springfield Republican. September 12, 1921. where he managed to catch hold of the false coping of a small building in the corner where the south wing joined the main wall. The top of the false coping was too wide for him to grip with his fingers, but he managed to catch it with the crooks of his arms, regain his balance, and then topple over the outer wall to drop 30 feet down to the Boston and Maine railroad tracks, where two brakemen who saw him made no effort to stop him.
Nelson's friends gave him money for clothing and on the day of his escape Nelson joined a game of "scrub" baseball at Boston Common while authorities were searching for him."Osborne Brings Noted Escaped Convict Back to State Prison Here". The Boston Herald. September 12, 1921. He remained in Boston for ten days, then traveled through Massachusetts, West Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania before heading to Ohio. While in Pennsylvania he took a job selling enlarged photographs—work that he was able to continue doing for his employer as a traveling salesmen when worries about being detected by law enforcement made him eager to leave Pittsburgh—and he briefly stayed in East Liverpool, Ohio, due to interest in a local girl he had encountered on the train."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Blonde Lass Upsets Jail-Breaker’s Flight." The Boston Daily Record. December 30, 1932. After just a short time in East Liverpool, Nelson was nearly apprehended by a team of Pennsylvania and Ohio detectives, but he managed to escape across the state line into West Virginia where none of the detectives had jurisdiction to make arrests."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Quest of Blonde Leads Nelson to Police Trap." The Boston Daily Record. December 31, 1932.
In August 1921, Nelson learned that Thomas Mott Osborne was touring the region to promote a film Osborne had sponsored, The Right Way, and would be speaking at a Cincinnati movie theatre. During his lecture, Osborne spoke about how the new Secretary of the Navy appointed by President Warren G. Harding had terminated the Mutual Welfare League program for prisoners that Osborne had started at Portsmouth Naval Prison, which was a program that had impressed Nelson deeply."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Jail Angel Aids Nelson to Reform." The Boston Daily Record. January 3, 1933. Osborne also bemoaned those prisoners who had given innovative prison reform programs a bad name by failing to live constructively after release from prison. Nelson approached Osborne after the lecture, telling Osborne he felt regret for having been the type of prisoner who undermined public faith in Osborne's prison reform work. Nelson agreed to leave Cincinnati and return to Osborne's home in Auburn, New York. Nelson remained in Osborne's home for a week and then was accompanied by Osborne when he decided to turn himself in to Charleston Prison Warden Elmer E. Shattuck. At Nelson's subsequent resentencing trial, Osborne testified on his behalf and helped to persuade the judge not to add too much time to Nelson's sentence as extra punishment for having escaped, despite the protest of Warden Shattuck and the district attorney."In a Prison Cell I Sat: Saved from Stiff Term by Osborne." The Boston Daily Record. January 7, 1933.
During a 1931 hiatus from incarceration Nelson lived with friends in New York, who expected Nelson would work as a writer. Nelson instead picked up odd jobs around the neighborhood, but "failed to do satisfactory work." Nelson's friends subsequently paid his way to Sweden in hopes of getting him out of the neighborhood setting, but Nelson was sent back to the United States by Swedish relatives after one month and soon recidivated. Throughout his years of incarceration and paroles, Nelson at times struggled with morphia addiction and excessive drinking, and he later published writing giving personal insight into the patterns of drug use and recidivism to which many prisoners fall prey. Nelson's final prison sentence was from 1930 to 1932, after which he paroled under the supervision of Abraham Myerson, though he would have additional encounters with the law in his troubled later years.
Writing career and marriage
Progressive prison official Thomas Mott Osborne and neurologist Abraham Myerson both recognized Victor Nelson's potential as a writer. Before being reincarcerated in 1924, Nelson had worked for Osborne as a librarian and literary assistant while on parole. In a series of articles entitled "In a Prison Cell I Sat," which Nelson wrote for The Boston Record from December 1932 to January 1933, Nelson credited Osborne for inspiring him to cultivate his intellectual pursuits, stating "...the more I read and studied, the stronger became my desire for the intellectual things in life.""In a Prison Cell I Sat: Nelson Tells How He Educated Himself in Prison Cell." The Boston Daily Record. January 12, 1933. Osborne served as an informal academic advisor to Nelson, frequently sending him books and suggestions about courses of study. Nelson found his way to additional books through citations listed in the books Osborne sent him. Nelson also became interested in strengthening his skills in the written form of the Swedish language of his childhood, so he acquired the necessary reference books and practiced by translating Scandinavian stories into English. He sent some of these translations to a friend in New York, who then forwarded the translations to a magazine, which resulted in some of the translations being published. Nelson would later publish a piece in The Boston Record in which he would state: "I had always nursed a strong desire to write, and the translating proved to be the accidental means of making me a writer." Nelson easily learned foreign languages, and Boston news reporter Charles P. Haven once wrote that Nelson could "translate foreign books into sparkling English prose."
While incarcerated in the Auburn State Prison in New York, Nelson took Columbia University extension courses in writing and began publishing articles on penology. In 1930 he won a Writers' Club of Columbia University prize for his essay "Is Honesty Abnormal?""Writing Prizes Bestowed". New York Times. May 20, 1930. In 1929 he published a review on The Mårbacka Edition of the Works of Selma Lagerlöf in The Saturday Review of Literature."The Mårbacka Edition". The Saturday Review of Literature. January 19, 1929. Retrieved on February 1, 2022. Nelson also cultivated skills in art and regularly illustrated criminology articles for local newspapers, including his own articles in The Boston Record. He had musical talent as well and worked as a pianist for the prison orchestra during his time at Charlestown State Prison. During the later years of his incarceration, Nelson taught prison evening school courses.
In 1932, while Nelson was incarcerated in Dedham, Massachusetts, Abraham Myerson approached him and asked him to write something that would help psychiatrists understand how prisoners perceive those in the psychiatry profession. This piece of writing later became a chapter in Nelson's comprehensive book about prisoners' psychological experiences and prison reform in the United States, the first edition of which was published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1933 under the title Prison Days and Nights.Prison Days and Nights, by Victor F. Nelson (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1936) The book was reviewed in newspapers across multiple states. In addition to commenting on the culture and language of prisoners, the book identifies, from the perspective of one who has lived within American prisons, the causes of continually high recidivism rates in a chapter called "Reforming the Criminal":