Clinton Prison General Ledger

Alphabetical by category or name of account.

This series consists of one volume of Clinton Prison's general ledger, covering the period 1899 to 1910. The general ledger functioned as the principal record of final entry for all Clinton's financial transactions. This ledger is especially significant as a record of Clinton's production of textiles, woodenware, tinware, and other items and their sale to State and local government.

This type of ledger would have been prepared from the prison's general journal, which was the principal accounting record of the institution, listing all financial transactions in chronological order as they occurred. Because general journals from Clinton Prison apparently do not exist, this volume of the general ledger is perhaps the only record documenting the institution's financial transactions in such detail.

The bulk of the ledger consists of a record of all Clinton's production and sales listed chronologically under the supplier and customer accounts to which they apply. The majority of Clinton's customer accounts consisted of individual prisons, reformatories, almshouses, hospitals, asylums, schools, police and sheriff departments, and other agencies and institutions maintained by State and local government. Clinton's supply accounts included a number of companies supplying Clinton with sewing machines, fabric, soap, wood, and other products.

Ledger pages are divided into two parts, the left page registering debits (Dr.) to the account and the right side listing credits (Cr.) to the account. Entries for both the debit and credit side of the ledger are made in the following categories: date of transaction, value of sales by type of merchandise (i.e., shirt and clothing, tinware, hosiery, woodenware, mats, weaving, spinning, boots), and total value of the transaction. The date on the debit side of the ledger indicates the date the merchandise was sold while the date on the credit side indicates when the merchandise was paid for. The credit side also indicates how the bill was paid, usually by cash or merchandise.

In addition to the ledger information listing the purchase of supplies or sale of merchandise by individual account, the ledger also describes a number of controlling accounts with expense and profit information relating to production and sales. These include debit and credit entries in the same ledger categories as the customer accounts: date of transaction; value of individual transaction; and total value of transactions. These controlling accounts include Capital Fund, Merchandise, Expense, and Plant and Machinery.

Originally accessioned as part of old collection #512E, accession -443.

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