Public Reaction
Much of the impact Spivak’s research had on prison reform could be attributed to the public’s reaction. One of the main reasons Spivak's research was so successful in instigating prison reform was that his findings sparked the public's awareness of a situation that many thought had ended with the abolition of slavery decades earlier. As his findings began to circulate amoung newspapers and organizations such as the NAACP, those that were aware of these injustices worked to make the public aware as well that people were still being targeted and exploited unjustly for the benefit of cheap labor. After newspaper articles published his findings and explained the book's implications, neglegent wardens and supervisors were suddenly being observed very closely, as more investigators visited to see if what they read was true. In this way, his research alowed the public to hold the government accountable for neglect of prisoners and presented the need for reform.
This letter from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), written by the acting secretary Walter White to Mr. Forrest Bailey of the American Civil Liberties Union, was written in 1930 at the first stages of Spivak's investigative work. The writer explains his admiration of Spivak's work and his confidence that the documents and photographs from the prisons would dismantle the unjust prison systems. He expresses his optimism for Spivak's success, as well as emphasizes the importance that Mr. Bailey support him in his investigation, as Mr. White strongly believed that the public's awareness of the conditions would be what brought the unjust system to an end.
This article from the NY Journal, published the same year as Spivak's novel, explains how the book reveals a “hidden story of torture” within the prison system that William G Hosie compares to the institution of slavery. He begins the article by graphically describing the "sweat box" torture mechanism, which was one form of torture prisoners were subject to for crimes such as not working. These sweat boxes, he affirms, are responsible for deaths that were previously written off as suicide before any investigations were allowed to take place. As people became aware of the prison conditions, there was an effort to investigate these deaths further. The article demonstrates an enthusiasm to inform the public that, after Spivak received authorization from Vivian Stanely of the Georgia Prison Commission to enter the camps, he collected firsthand accounts of government mistreatment used in the novel to "expose the entire system" of prisoner mistreatment. He debunks the idea that many citizens had, that such mistreatment would not happen "in this country”, through citing the information found in Spivak's novel.
This clipping from the Providence R.I. Journal, 1932, details the process of how those in need of cheap labor managed to essentially enslave those guilty of "petty crimes," by having them arrested, bailing them out, and forcing them to work on their plantations as repayment. This article on "New Slavery" is one that yet again depicts the severe punishments to which these individuals were subject, as well as the harsh living conditions, and urges its audience to read the novel and learn of the conditions themselves. The journal eventually characterizes Spivak's investigation as a "propaganda effort," that despite his intentions, socialist or otherwise, did raise the public's awareness of the issue. Thus, as the governor of Georgia admitted, Georgia stood "indicted as a people before the world," which might not have happened without Spivak's photographs and documentation. His journalistic work forced the prisons to account for the mistreatment and address the rumors of injustice.