alcatraz Essay -- essays research papers

An mental image of power and strength, Alcatraz has become the single most recognizablesymbol of American society. Situated in the San Francisco true laurel, one cant help notwithstandingbe drawn to the rocky shore, the dark walls, and the lone light chromatography column sanding coldagainst a picturesque sunset imagining what it would have been like to beincarcerated in one of the worlds most in noteworthy prisons. detect in 1775 by the Spanish explorer Juan Miguel de Ayala, La Isla de losAlcatraces was little more than than a rock inhabited by a group of pelicans from whichthe island bears its shout out (Alcatraces meaning pelicans in Spanish). However, in1847 the US government began to look at it as much more. Strategically placed atthe mouth of the San Francisco Bay it was the perfect site for a military fort. By1853 a disk operating system of the art military fortress was protecting the Western United Statesagainst unconnected infiltration. In 1861, with outbreak of th e Civil War, Alcatraz beganreceiving its first military prisoners. However, it wasnt until 1898 and the Spanish-American War that the isolation of the island that made it an impregnable militaryinstallation similarly made it an inescapable prison. During this war the prisonerpopulation jumped from 26 to 450. That physique spiked again as civil prisoners weretransferred from city jails after the famous 1906 earthquake. With the islandbecoming more and more a prison and less(prenominal) and less a military fort, a cell housewas built in 1912. This is generally felt to be the p...