Education
Born on July 22, 1839, at Fountain Green, Hancock county, Illinois of Scotch-Irish ancestry, he attended public schools near his father’s farm. He graduated with honors from Monmouth College in Illinois in 1860.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Robert McClaughry
Edit ProfileCareer
He was one of the early advocates of remedial instead of purely retributive treatment, and was closely associated with noted prison reformers such as Z. R. Brockway, of New New York General Brinkerhoff, of Ohio, and the two Doctor Wines, of Illinois. He was also General Superintendent of Police for the city of Chicago from 1891—1893.
He worked for a year as a professor of Latin at Monmouth College, then as the proprietor of the Carthage Republican newspaper and then enlisted in the 118th Illinois Volunteer Infantry where he became the Captain of Company B. In 1862 he was mustered as Major and participated in the expedition to Vicksburg.
He mustered out as Paymaster in October 1865. He campaigned for the re-election of United States. President Abraham Lincoln before starting his life’s work as a warden and penal reformer.
In August 1874, he was appointed warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet. Fourteen years later he was invited to open and organize the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntington.
In August 1893, he was made Superintendent of the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac followed by a return to Joliet as warden there in March 1897.
On July 1, 1899, United States. President William McKinley personally solicited him to be warden of the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas where he served until June 30, 1913. He was a pioneer “in creating reliable identification records systems and was ready to implement and evaluate new techniques as they became available. McClaughry was the first person to introduce Bertillonage into the United States in 1887… and he persuaded the Warden’s Association of the United States and Canada to adopt the system in the same year.”
His body was transferred to Monmouth, Illinois for interment where services were held by The Review
Doctor Thomas Hanna McMichael, President of Monmouth College, on November
