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Duffy, Clinton T. (24 August 1898–11 October 1982), prison warden, was born in San Rafael, California, the son of William J. Duffy, a San Quentin prison guard, and Eugenia Palmer. Raised at the San Quentin prison reservation and a graduate of San Quentin High School, Duffy left during World War I to fight with the U.S. Marines. After the war he worked briefly for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. In the late 1920s he returned to San Quentin, where he began his career in prison administration. Throughout the 1930s Duffy held positions such as assistant to the warden’s executive secretary and assistant secretary of the parole board. Later in the decade a number of public scandals exposed harsh conditions, rebellion among inmates, and corruption by officials at San Quentin. In response, in 1940 the state board of prison directors, under the direction of Governor Culbert Olson, fired warden Court Smith, replacing him with Duffy. Duffy married Gladys Carpenter, and they had one son....

Harris, Mary Belle (19 August 1874–22 February 1957), prison administrator, was born in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John Howard Harris, a Baptist minister, and Mary Elizabeth Mace, who died when Mary Belle was six years old. First educated at the Keystone Academy, Mary Belle graduated from Bucknell University, where her father had become president in 1889. In 1893 she received a music degree from Bucknell; she earned an A.B. in 1894 and an A.M. in Latin and classics in 1895. She next enrolled at the University of Chicago, where she obtained a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Comparative Philology in 1900....

McClaughry, Robert Wilson (22 July 1839–09 November 1920), warden and prison reformer, was born in Fountain Green, Illinois, the son of Matthew McClaughry and Marry (maiden name unknown). McClaughry attended Monmouth College in Illinois, receiving a B.A. in 1860. On 17 June 1862 he married Elizabeth C. Maiden, with whom he had five children. Two months after marrying Elizabeth, McClaughry became a private in the 118th Illinois Infantry. During the sectional conflict, McClaughry served in the Army of the Tennessee for two years and the payroll department for one, advancing to the rank of major in December, 1862. Mustered out of the army in October 1865, McClaughry returned to Illinois, taking a job as Hancock County Clerk....