Eastern State Penitentiary
Before Eastern State Penitentiary was built, most prisons in the 18th century were simply used to hold criminals and keep them locked away. First time offenders, murders, adults, children, men and women were all locked behind the same walls where abuse and torture at the hands of guards was commonplace. There were over 150 offenses that were punishable by death; other offenses might be punished by whipping, branding or some form of public humiliation, depending upon the crime.
In 1790, some Quakers renovated the Walnut Street Jail, housing men and women separately and separating the hardened criminals from those convicted of lesser offenses. Children were either freed completely or transferred to a more suitable environment. The prisoners were given work to do and received religious instruction. However, the Walnut Street Jail soon became overcrowded and a new prison was required.
The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, a Quaker group whose members included such notables as Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush, convinced the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to build the first penitentiary, not just a holding pen or a place of punishment, but a place to inspire sincere regret and a changed life.
The site chosen for the penitentiary was a cherry orchard more than a mile outside the city limits. The man hired for the job was John Haviland. His design was seven cell blocks that radiate out from a central rotunda in a “hub and spoke” design allowing a clear line of sight down every cell block. Prisoners had their own small, windowless cell with running water (with flushing toilets) and the building was centrally heated. At the time, not even the White House had running water and heat was provided by coal- burning stoves. Each cell also had a private exercise yard accessed by a small door at the back of the cell and surrounded by a ten- foot wall. The prisoner would be allowed into this yard for one hour each day.
The penitentiary received its first inmate on October 23,1829, but construction was not completed until 1836. At the time, it was the most expensive building in America, at the then outrageous sum of $772,600. The design proved so popular that it was copied by over 300 institutions worldwide.
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