Biography
Jack Beavert was an IWW lumber worker from Humboldt County, California, imprisoned at San Quentin under the state Criminal Syndicalism Law. Contemporary reports place him in the prison in 1926-27 and report his release after serving his sentence in 1928. His prison experience left him seriously unwell, and the release report anticipated state hospital commitment. Exact discharge and subsequent hospital dates remain unresolved.
The May 31 dispatch describes Beavert as a thirty-year-old Humboldt lumber worker whose illness followed hospital and solitary confinement at San Quentin. It says he refused parole and completed his sentence. Its forecast of possible state-hospital commitment is not an executed transfer or a new institutional-custody endpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n129-NY-jun-01-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
1920s custody review: The Daily Worker, June 1, 1928, page 1, carries a May 31 dispatch reporting that Jack Beavert had been released from San Quentin after completing his sentence and declining parole. Labor Defender, February 1927, page 29, separately lists him among San Quentin prisoners receiving Christmas checks. These contemporary sources contradict the inherited 1925 release. Release is corrected to 1928 at year precision; May 31 is the dispatch date, not a documented discharge day. The newspaper anticipates state hospital commitment, so this prison-release entry does not assert an end to all institutional confinement. His exact arrest, admission and hospital chronology remain unresolved; inherited admission is retained pending its original record. No identifiable portrait was found in the inspected pages.
Sources: Daily Worker, June 1, 1928, page 1; Labor Defender, February 1927, page 29. Original pages visually inspected.
White reports that Beavert’s mental collapse after three years at San Quentin led to confinement at the state asylum in Talmadge in March 1928, release in May and recommitment in June. This supplies a reported asylum sequence distinct from release to unrestricted freedom. It is retained alongside the contemporary May 31 prison-release dispatch rather than silently replacing the conflicting institutional chronology.
Ahmed White, Under the Iron Heel (University of California Press, 2022), physical PDF pages [206] (printed page = physical minus 11); source193 SHA256 7c24fb0ba336fcbf379fb9720f70dcdbf754d796a50dee77b39e38e0f9bd2868.
