Progressives and Prison Labor: Rebuilding Ohio's National Road during World War I

During World War I Ohio Governor James M. Cox accepted pleas from the federal government to initiate a road-building project that would make the National Road suitable for military vehicles. A lack of workers threatened the plans, however, so in a controversial move hundreds of convicts, almost all African American, were pulled from Ohio's prisons to comprise the labor corps. The multi-million-dollar undertaking, completed just as the war ended, created what was reputed to be the world's lo...