Robert Stroud, the famous “Birdman of Alcatraz”, is released from solitary confinement for the first time since 1916. Stroud gained widespread fame and attention when author Thomas Gaddis wrote a biography that trumpeted the expertise Stroud birdwatching.
Stroud was first sent to prison in 1909 after killing a bartender in a fight. He had almost completed his sentence at Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas when he stabbed a guard to death in 1916. Although he claimed to have acted in self-defense, he was found guilty and sentenced to hang. A handwritten plea from Stroud’s mother to President Woodrow Wilson earned Stroud a life sentence commuted to permanent solitary confinement.
For the next 15 years, Stroud lived among the canaries brought to him by visitors and became an expert on birds and ornithological diseases. But after being ordered to abandon his birds in 1931, he redirected his energies to writing about them and published his first book on ornithology two years later. When the publisher did not pay the royalties to Stroud because it was forbidden to file a complaint, Stroud released ads complaining about the situation. Prison officials retaliated by sending him to Alcatraz, the federal prison with the worst conditions.
In 1943, Stroud’s Bird disease digest, a 500-page text which included its own illustrations, was published with great success. Despite his success, Stroud was depressed by the isolation he felt at Alcatraz and he attempted suicide several times. The legendary “Birdman of Alcatraz” died in a Missouri prison in 1963 at the age of 73.
