# Thomas Mott

thomas mott Osborne (September 23, 1859 – October 20, 1926) was an American prison administrator, prison reformer, industrialist and New York State political reformer. In an assessment of Osborne's life, a New York Times book reviewer wrote: "His career as a penologist was short, but in the interval of the few years he served he succeeded in revolutionizing American prison reform, if not always in fact, then in awakening responsibility.... He was made of the spectacular stuff of martyrs, to many people perhaps ridiculous, but to those whose lives his theories most closely touched, inspiring and often godlike." == Biography == He was born on September 23, 1859, in Auburn, New York, to David Munson Osborne (1822–1886) and Agnes Lithgow Devens (1822-1886.