State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Records, American Philosophical Society

Table of contents

Abstract

Intended as a model of Jacksonian penal reform, the Eastern State Penitentiary operated in the Cherry Hill section of Philadelphia between 1829 and 1970. Designed to promote the moral reform of prisoners by imposing a regimen of silent, solitary self-reflection, the penitentiary became the purest example of the "Pennsylvania plan" of "cellular isolation."

The Records of the Eastern State Penitentiary consist of seven bound volumes and a series of miscellaneous records and correspondence that document aspects of life in Jacksonian America's model prison. The collection has been organized into four series: Series I, Bound Volumes; Series II, Miscellaneous Records; Series III, Correspondence of Elizabeth Velora Elwell; and Series IV, Prisoners' Correspondence. The bound volumes contain records of admission for prisoners between 1830 and 1892 (with some gaps), three of which were kept and annotated by the Moral Instructor at the prison, Thomas Larcombe. Larcombe provided interesting comments on the "moral state" of each prisoner, in addition to data on name, age, gender and race, religious affiliation, the charges, sentence, and final disposition. The unbound materials in the collection are diverse, but include an important 70 page manuscript comprising the records of the joint commission charged with investigating management of the prison in 1835, with a partial transcript of testimony, and a series of 29 letters written to or from prisoners at Eastern State, 1845-1871, most unusually the inmate Elizabeth Velora Elwell, writing to her paramour and fellow inmate Albert Green Jackson.

Background note
Scope & content
- Arrangement
Administrative information
Additional information
- Related material
- Bibliography
Added entries
Contact information
Collection overview
- Series I. Admission ledgers and bound volumes, 1830-1892
- Series II. Miscellaneous Records, 1819-1835
- Series III. Elizabeth Velora Elwell Correspondence, 1862-1965
- Series IV. Prisoners' Correspondence, 1845-1955
Collection inventory
- Series I. Admission ledgers and bound volumes, 1830-1892
- Series II. Miscellaneous Records, 1819-1835
- Series III. Elizabeth Velora Elwell Correspondence, 1862-1965
  - Elizabeth Velora Elwell letters, 1862 Apr. 13-May 12
  - Correspondence about Elizabeth Velora Elwell, 1955-1965
- Series IV. Prisoners' Correspondence, 1845-1955
  - Prisoners' letters, 1845-1871
  - Correspondence about the prisoners' letters, 1953-1955

Background note

Responding to a perceived crisis in the rise of criminality and the breakdown of civic virtue, Americans of the 1820s increasingly looked to the new concept of the penitentiary for a solution. Of all the prisons built during the spate of construction that followed, none was more famous or more imitated than the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the wellspring of design for over 300 prisons in America and abroad. Built in the Cherry Hill section of Philadelphia, Eastern State was held up as a model of modern penal reform, the surest means of instilling repentance in hardened (or would-be) criminals, and it was considered one of Philadelphia's most noteworthy architectural achievements. In theory, the penitentiary facilitated intensive self-reflection through "cellular isolation" -- separating prisoners from each other, as well as the outside world -- coupled with equally intensive religious instruction. In practice, however, it became a pioneer in a new regime of harsh penal discipline.

Construction on Eastern State began in 1822, after an acrimonious contest to select the architect was settled in favor of a young emigrant from England, John Haviland. Although the prison's commissioners had initially appointed the more experienced William Strickland, America's master of the Greek Revival, Haviland's design was believed to be the less expensive alternative and had novel and appealing features. It was above all a brilliant expression of the penal philosophy of Benjamin Rush, Jeremy Bentham, and a host of Quaker prison reformers. Owing a debt to Betham's Panopticon, Haviland's prison was built upon a radial design in which prison observers were situated at the hub, allowing for unimpeded views of all cell blocks. Prisoners' cells were aligned along the spokes of the radii, but arranged to prevent any contact between them, and each was fitted out with a small outdoor exercise yard that was equally isolated. Forced to wear a concealing black hood over their heads, prisoners spent their time confined in near-total sensory deprivation, allowed neither to speak, communicate, nor see other prisoners, and permitted out for only one hour a day to exercise alone in confinement. During the early years, the silence of the cellblocks was broken only by the exhortations of a minister brought in to provide religious instruction.

Eastern State began accepting prisoners in October 1829 after only one of the seven cellblocks had been constructed. During its first four years, just over 200 males (75% white and 25% black) and four females (all black) were admitted for offenses ranging from murder and arson to prostitution and petty larceny. By the time the last of the original cellblocks was completed in 1836, the prison had become both a destination for sightseers, tourists, and dignitaries attracted by its reformist philosophy, and a lightning rod for critics. The totality of "cellular isolation" was a point of particular concern, and was thought perhaps to be conducive to mental and physical breakdown. Supporters of the influential "Auburn plan" of incarceration (named after the penitentiary at Auburn, N.Y.) argued that silent labor was more conducive to moral reform. Other advocates, such as Charles Dickens, who paid a special visit to the prison during his tour of America in 1842, denounced the "Pennsylvania plan" as inherently cruel, "immeasurably worse than any torture of the body." Still others argued that the penal system was simply ineffective in meeting its goal of reforming prisoners' behavior.

The central point of contention, however, may have been the extravagant cost and grandiosity of the prison's design. Originally budgeted for $100,000, the construction costs had ballooned to an extraordinary $772,600 by 1836. As a result of the mounting controversy, a joint legislative committee was delegated in December 1834 to investigate the operations of Eastern State, and to evaluate charges of licentiousness on the part of staff, misuse of funds, embezzlement, and of outright cruelty to prisoners.

In the end, criticism of the system of cellular isolation slowly began to erode its practice, as reformers sought to reform the reform. Labor was introduced among the inmates in the 1830s, partly by directive of the state (and against the wishes of some of the prison's overseers). From that time forward, prisoners learned and labored at a trade within their cells, making shoes, textiles, picking oakum, or performing other manual tasks. By 1903, prisoners were no longer required to wear masks, and silence fell by the wayside shortly thereafter. The prison remained in operation until July 1970, and today it is a National Historical Landmark, still a draw for visitors.

Thomas Larcombe, the first moral instructor at the prison, united with the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia in 1807 at the age of 16, and was ordained a minister in 1821. He was pastor at churches in New Hopewell and Bordentown, N.J., and later at Colebrook, Conn., and he served at Eastern State from about 1837 into the 1850s.

Scope and content

Arrangement


Series I. Admissions ledgers and bound volumes	1830-1892	7 vols.
Series II. Miscellaneous Records	1819-1835	5 folders
Series III. Elisabeth Velora Elwell correspondence	1862, 1955-1965	2 folders
Series III. Prisoners' correspondence	1845-1871, 1953-1955	1 folder

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

The Records of Eastern State Penitentiary came from two disparate sources. Five manuscript items were acquired in 1960; while the seven bound volumes were donated by Jacob Gruber in December, 2000 (accn. no. 2000-1076ms) and February 2002 (accn. no. M2002-07).

Preferred citation

Cite as: State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Records, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Catalogued by rsc, 2001, 2004.

Additional information

Related material

The Papers of William Parker Foulke (B F826) are rich in material relating to county and state prisons and prison reform associations, particularly the Philadelphia Prison Society, the New York Prison Association, and the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries in Public Prisons. Foulke corresponded with a great number of prison reformers, including Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-1887), Louis Mathurin Moreau-Christophe (1799-1881), A. Blouet (probably Guillaume Abel Blouet, 1795-1853), H. C. King, Isaac G. Gordon (1819-1893), James Hall, and the architect John Haviland (1792-1852). In addition to the correspondence, Foulke collected biographical material on John Haviland for an obituary, including a list of prisons he designed and copies of a few of his letters one of which includes a sketch of a radiating plan for a prison. Two notebooks on prisons and prisoners are located at the end of the collection.

References

Haviland, John, A Description of Haviland's Design for the New Penitentiary, Now Erecting Near Philadelphia; Accompanied With a Birds-Eye View (Philadelphia: R. Desilver, 1824) Call no.: Pam. 994:4.

Pennsylvania. General Assembly, Report of the Joint Committee of the Legislature of Pennsylvania Relative to the Eastern State Penitentiary at Philadelphia ... Read in the House of Representatives, Mar. 26, 1835 (Harrisburg: Welsh, 1835) Call no.: Pam 1001:14.

Pennsylvania. General Assembly, Report of the Minority of the Joint Committee of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, Relative to the Eastern State Penitentiary at Philadelphia ... Read in the House of Representatives, Mar. 26, 1835 (Harrisburg: Welsh, 1835) Call no.: Pam 1001:15.

Richard Vaux, Brief Sketch of the Origin and History of the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia (Philadelphia : McLaughlin brothers, printers, 1872). Call no.: 365 V46b

Norman Johnston, Ken Finkel, and Jeffery Cohen, Eastern State Penitentiary : Crucible of Good Intentions (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994). Call no.: 365 J64c