Jack Black

Jack Black (1871–1932) was a Canadian-born American hobo and professional burglar. Black is best known for his autobiography You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926), describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years (fifteen of which were spent in various prisons in Canada and the United States) as a traveling criminal, and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame as a prison reformer, writer and playwright. He disappeared in 1932 in a likely suicide. Life Black was born in 1871 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri in the town of Maysville and eventually Kansas City. Aside from this, Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure; even his actual name is uncertain. In his autobiographical book, he quotes his father as calling him "John," of which Jack is often a nickname. Some 1904 news articles name him as Jack Black, alias Tom Callahan, while a 1912 newspaper article names him Thomas Callaghan, alias Jack Black, and another gives his alias as Harry Klein. One of his nicknames among criminals was Blacky. After his last spell in prison, Black became friends with wealthy patron Fremont Older and worked for Older's newspaper The San Francisco Call. He worked on his autobiography with Rose Wilder Lane and eventually composed essays and lectured throughout the country on prison reform. He was also rumored to have received a stipend of $150 a week to draft a screenplay titled Salt Chunk Mary with co-author Bessie Beatty, based around the infamous vagabond ally and fence of the same name in You Can't Win. The play flopped, although he was able to attain some amount of popularity, which subsided quickly. His philosophy on life was especially influential to William S. Burroughs, Burroughs associated with similar characters in his early adulthood and mirrored the style of You Can't Win with his first published book, Junkie.