Clarence Jefferson Hall



I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. I am completing the research and writing of my dissertation with Professor Christopher Sellers, which is entitled "'No Longer Will Distance and Mountain Winds Silence the Ghetto's Scream': Prisons, Nature and Economy in New York's Adirondack Mountains, 1970-1999." My work explores the expansion of the prison-industrial complex in New York State in the final four decades of the 20th century. Specifically, I examine the interplay among deindustrialization, urban decline, white flight, racial and ethnic inequality, state criminal justice and sentencing policies, mass incarceration, and the eventual construction of a penal colony in the Adirondack region of northeastern New York State. The dissertation explores several case studies involving debates over the placement, construction, and opening of new state and federal prisons in a number of communities in the Adirondacks, as well as the vital role that convict labor has played in communities outside the prison walls. Built in an environment that is a mix of public and private lands and that is both legally and constitutionally protected from most large developments, prison expansion in the Adirondacks was not a seamless or easy process and raised more questions than it answered. In 2011, as the process seems to be reversing itself with the closure of prisons across New York, my work provides a timely glimpse back to an era when many leaders and lay people alike saw incarceration as a vehicle for economic development in rural, depressed regions like the Adirondacks. With prisons fading, what will save these communities? I earned a B.A. from Binghamton University in 2001, where I was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. I earned an M.A. from Binghamton in 2003, under the supervision of Melvyn Dubofsky. I have taught in numerous programs and departments during my years at Stony Brook, including the History Department, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, the Graduate Program in Public Health, the Freshmen Learning Communities Program, the School of Professional Development, the School of Professional Development's Online Division, and the School of Journalism. The Department of History has awarded me the Hugh Cleland Award for Innovative Teaching.
E-Mail
jeffersonhall@gmail.com
Office
SBS S-314
Phone
Fax
Research Interests

environment, race, social class, deindustrialization, rural economic development, labor history, Adirondack history, New York history, prisons & incarceration

Scholarly Works

PUBLICATIONS

“Private Housing,” in the Encyclopedia of American Environmental History (New York: Facts on File, 2010)

PRESENTATIONS

"Prisons and Nature in New York's Adirondack Park," paper to be presented at the 104th Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 18-22, 2012.

"Prisons and Economy in New York's Adirondack Park, 1975-1999," presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Phoenix, Arizona, April 12-17, 2011.

“Nature, Prisons, and the Olympics: Housing Athletes and Convicts at Lake Placid, New York, 1972-1990,” presented at the American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon, March 10-14, 2010.

“Olympic Village or Prison Town?: Building the Federal Prison at Ray Brook, New York, 1975-1990,” presented during the Spring Colloquium Series, Stony Brook Department of History, April 29, 2009.

“Prisons, Nature, and Social Reform in New York’s Adirondack Wilderness, 1844-1861,” presented at the 28th Annual Conference on New York State History, Cooperstown, June 7-9, 2007.

“Prisons, Nature, and Labor in New York’s Adirondack Wilderness, 1895-1980,” presented at the Stony Brook History Department Dissertation Prospectus Colloquium, May 2006.

“’Soviet Vultures’ in the ‘Valley of Opportunity’: Prosperity and Recovery in New York’s Triple Cities, 1933-1935,” presented at the Binghamton University History Department Graduate Student Conference, December 2002.