Thomas Tunney was Superintendent of the New York State Training School for Girls in Hudson, NY from 1964 to 1972. He was 90 years old at the time oral historian Suzanne Snider interviewed him for the Prison Public Memory Project on September 3rd, 2011.
Tunney came to New York from Wisconsin where he worked with Girls Training Schools. He considered himself an innovator. To prepare himself for the work awaiting him in New York, he spent a couple months in Mississippi doing voter registration and trying to learn about black culture. His background included air sea rescue work in the Navy and he had a Masters Degree in psychology. He also taught Tai Chi. He was a Buddhist and peace activist and he often joined other anti-war activists in their regular protests against the war in Vietnam on Saturdays in Hudson.
In this short interview clip, Tunney, living now in Saratoga Springs, NY, talks about how he came to New York, and about his first innovations and his first mistakes at the Girls Training School in Hudson.
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/prison-public-memory/tom-tunney[/soundcloud]
1 comment
Kathleen Hulser says:
Nov 28, 2012
Fascinating candid commentary that shows how much Tunney was part of times. Fool hardy, ripper-upper of rules. Since he was trying out ideas that he had already used in Wisconsin, you get a picture of a system that sees itself as capable of doing better and moving forward. That is not how it always seems when you hear stories from the girls who were there. Two versions, two angles on the story.