Eastern+State+Penitentiary

Souls as Prisons of the Body: Quaker faith and Enlightenment Values in Eastern State Penitentiary


 * Introduction**

**
 * Foucault considered modern disciplinary technologies as attempts to make the soul the prison of the body; in other words, methods of recreating individuals’ personalities so as to force both prisoners and those who witnessed their punishments to conform to and reinforce the prevailing politco-economic system. In the nineteenth century, most modern prisons were directly involved with making money for the state and the capitalist interests closely aligned with it. While Eastern State penitentiary and the Pennsylvania system it embodied represented a drastic change from previous methods of punishing criminals, its system of labor in solitary confinement was also quickly abandoned in all other United States prisons; not because of its failure to live up to its mission of reform, but because it required state funds far greater than those which the succeeding Auburn system required. Nevertheless, it continued employing this method for the greater part of the nineteenth century. We account for this by the unique Quaker culture from which it emerged and which sustained it. In contrast to its successors, Eastern State penitentiary was the result of a mix of both Enlightenment and overtly religious ideas regarding the discipline of society’s outliers; we attribute this religiosity to the technological continuity of the prison.


 * Emergence of the Pennsylvania System and Eastern State Penitentiary**

 Tradition in English penal law set the standard for penal practices in most of the colonies; corporal punishments like “whipping, branding, mutilating, confinement in the stocks or pillory.” Yet in the late 17th century, William Penn was ahead of his time in his advocating of the disciplinary strategy of //reformation // through hard labor. Quaker penal codes in West Jersey and Pennsylvania “present an unenviable contrast to the mild and humane Quaker codes of West Jersey and Pennsylvania.” (Barnes 38) Indeed the only offense deserving of capital punishment in Pennsylvania by 1794 was murder.  Yet his policies were not carried out uniformly until after the American Revolution, when the Quaker-dominated Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons lobbied for the implementation of his ideas. (Barnes 258) The formation of this coincided with the development of ideas for penal reform by European Enlightenment thinkers like Beccaria, Bentham, and Howard. And leading penal reform activists in Philadelphia were intimately aware of these thinkers, having written a letter to John Howard in 1788 and later mentioned him to justify the building of state prisons to the Pennsylvania State legislature. (Barnes 44, Vaux)

Influenced by the ideas of both Penn and men like Howard, the Society converted Walnut Street Jail into Walnut St. State Prison in 1794. (Barnes 44) They built an addition to adopt a system of solitary confinement, however, they reserved this function for the “more hardened and atrocious offenders.” The Quaker’s architectural designs embodied Enlightenment values of scientific classification and distribution along with religious motivations. Prisoners in solitary confinement were supposed to reform “in the spiritual presence of their maker.” (Barnes 260) According to Barnes, writing in 1922:

 One of the most conspicuous and significant phases of the progress of prison administration in the last century has been the development of a scientific differentiation in the institutions designed to treat the criminal class. In the early modern prisons which prevailed before the Pennsylvania and Auburn prisons came into existence, all alleged and real delinquents were herded together in one enclosure, generally in one room or group of rooms, containing accused and convicted, debtors and criminals, male and female, young and old, insane, idiotic and those of normal mentality, first offenders and hardened recidivists. The reformation of the offender was rendered hopeless at the outset under such conditions. 266

Yet for Barnes, the Quakers’ real achievement does not include the advantage of differentiation of criminals in separate confines. Instead, it was in: substituting imprisonment for corporal punishment in the treatment of criminals and of combining the prison and the workhouse…In other words, they originated both the idea of imprisonment as the typical mode of punishing crime, and the doctrine that this imprisonment should not be in idleness but at hard labor. .. A century later they added the principle that imprisonment at hard labor should be in cellular separation, and thus created a modern prison system in its entirety. 37

 Yet soon after its conversion to a state facility, Walnut St. prison had fallen into disarray. This was largely due to overcrowding and the related inability of wardens to maintain order. The Quakers attributed this to the ability of most prisoners to congregate together in one space; it suffered from an “unscientific congregate method of confinement … which made effective classification and discipline impossible.” (Barnes 52). Thereafter, the Society would no longer attempt to adapt smaller, less suitable structures to their philosophy of prisoner reform.  It took nearly 30 years for the Pennsylvania Legislature to approve and secure funding for two new penitentiaries: Eastern State and Western State Penitentiary. By 1821 John Haviland was awarded the commission with his radial design. Construction began in 1822 under the supervision of William Strictland who was promptly fired while John Haviland took complete control. “Eastern State Penitentiary opened in Philadelphia in I829, immediately becoming the world's most famous penal institution, visited by prison reformers from every point of the Western World.” (Barnes 260)

Eastern State Penitentiary embodied what was known as the Pennsylvania System, the system of imprisonment at hard labor in solitude for the purpose of reform. The prison was not just to serve the direct purpose of discipline and reform of its inmates, though. It was also meant to inspire fear among passers-by. As Foucault argues in //Discipline and Punish //, new methods of discipline differed markedly from their predecessors in this very aspect of privacy; whereas previously, torture was an exhibition, the penitentiary hid the disciplinary mechanisms in store for a would-be criminal and rejected the long-held ritual of involving the public as observer. On the outside, the design is traditional gothic, with large imposing walls and a bleak appearance. As stated by one of its founders, George W. Smith, in 1823:  The design and execution impart a grave, severe, and awful character to the external aspect of this building. The effect which it produces on the imagination of every passing spectator, is peculiarly impressive, solemn, and instructive. The architecture is in keeping with the design. The broad masses, the small and well proportioned apertures, the continuity of lines, and the bold and expressive simplicity which characterize the features of the facade, are most happily and judiciously combined. (Vaux, 61)

The exterior of the prison was made of large granite walls 40 feet tall and 12 feet thick at the base. There were seven towers around the perimeter of the walls each 50 feet tall with exception to the main central tower which was over 80 feet tall. The main gate is 27 feet tall and 15 feet wide. Inside, the penitentiary had a radial shape, with eight cellblocks radiating from a central hub in the middle of the prison (only three were complete when the prison opened).  The length of the "first block" is 368 feet; 10 feet wide, 21 feet high to the top of the arch. The old cells in this block are 7 feet 6 inches in width by 12 feet in length, and say 14 feet in height. The new cells in this block are 8 feet wide, 16 feet long and 11 feet high. There are twenty of these new cells, built 1869-70. There are fifty cells in this block. The length of the "second block" is 268 feet, including passage way from corridor to the centre-building. The block is only 180 feet in length, 10 feet wide and 21 feet high. There are 38 cells in this block. The size of " third block " is same as second block. There are 20 cells in this block ; 18" double cells," or 17 by 12 feet, 12 feet high, and used as shops. These three blocks are one story high. (Vaux)

This radial design was not new, having been implemented in several prisons in Europe. However, Haviland’s design was the first to connect the cell blocks to the central hub and use it as a center for observation, theoretically making each cellblock easily viewed from one vantage point, a crucial aspect of modern discipline and its scientific underpinnings as envisioned by Jeremy Bentham.** "On each side of these corridors, the cells are situated, each at right angles to them, and communicating with them only by small openings for the purpose of supplying the prisoner with food … and for the purpose of // inspecting his movements without attracting his attention // …” (Vaux 57) {italics added}

** And yet, “the opportunities for actual observation of prisoners in such arrangements was extremely limited, in spite of the great importance attached to such visual inspection by the prison reform groups and their formal espousal and promotion of the radial plan.” (Mannheim 114) Again, “ Its radial design added the functionality to see every cell from one central location by guards,” but “the centre structure was usually devoted to cells…opportunities for actual observation of prisoners in such arrangements was extremely limited” (Pioneers 114). Perhaps this says something about the Quaker’s motivations – though inspired by “scientific” methods of discipline, their more immediate concern was on the religious aspect. They preferred to keep the prisoner in a cell in which the only light that entered was from a tiny window at the top. Rather than subject the prisoners completely to the eye of science and the “art of distributions,” these prisoners were meant to be subject to the eye of God. For the Quakers, solitary confinement at hard labor was as much about reflection as discipline. They wanted criminals to eventually be reformed Christians capable of functioning in the world after their release. Criminals were to sit alone and reflect on their actions; they were given only a Bible and the tools necessary to do handiwork. The Quakers believed this setup was ideal for prisoners to learn how to engage in constructive trades: “ The exponents of the Pennsylvania system back in the 30's of the last century laid special stress upon the adaptability of their system to the teaching of a re-munerative trade to each inmate.” (Barnes 271) The following quote from Barnes sums their goals up nicely:  The originators and defenders of the system of solitary confinement alleged that it possessed the following virtues: the protection against possible moral contamination through evil association; the unusual invitation to self-examination and self-reproach in solitude; the impossibility of being visited by anyone except an officer, a clergyman or a reformer; great ease of administration of the government and discipline; the possibility of an unusual degree of individuality in treatment; little need for disciplinary measures; the absence of any possibility of mutual recognition of prisoners after discharge; and the fact that the horrors of loneliness made the prisoners unusually eager to engage in productive labor, during which process they might be taught a useful trade, preparatory to their attaining freedom. But, whatever its incidental advantages, the element uniformly and most vigorously emphasized by the founders of the Pennsylvania system was the allegation that solitude was most certain to be productive of earnest self- examination and a consequent determination to reform. 261

 The Pennsylvania System of reform through hard labor became the model for modern penitentiaries. Yet nearly all the prisons influenced by Eastern State Penitentiary quickly abandoned the “public-accounts system” of solitary labor for more profitable systems of congregate labor. This distinction is illustrated in the heated debate between the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems. “ In spite of the fact that the Auburn system became the great historical rival of the Pennsylvania system, it was in reality but a derivative or variant from the Pennsylvania type of prison administration. Imitating the precedent of Pennsylvania by substituting imprisonment for corporal punishment.” (Barnes Modern Penology p. 262) Though the Auburn system arose from the Pennsylvania system, officials there soon came to grips with the fact that there was no adequate way of measuring reform – yet, there was a way to measure the economic viability of the prisons. The Auburn method often took the form of private contractors entering the penitentiaries and disciplining prisoners themselves to get them to produce goods economically. This method, which was analogized to slave labor by its critics, used prisoners labor in congregation, and is a reflection of one of the key aspects of industrialization: division of labor. Backers of the Pennsylvania System like Richards Vaux also critiqued the harsh physical punishment that overseers at the Auburn prison and others like it inflicted on prisoners. They claimed that, “to coerce criminals by punishment will be productive of but trifling benefit, unless you make them virtuous by discipline” (Smith 9). Indeed the Auburn system "included separate confinement of inmates, congregate work during the day, enforced silence, lockstep walking, striped uniforms, and the use of the lash as punishment.” (NYCHS) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> Critics of the Pennsylvania system accused the prisons of having no way to measure the effectiveness of reform and criticized the high the cost of maintaining the prison. It was increasingly difficult to justify solitary labor without interference from private contractors for both of these reasons. The cost per cell each year in Eastern State was $1023 annually compared to $584 at Auburn (Garvey p. 351-2). In contrast, the penitentiary at Auburn generated profits for both the state and private contractors involved with it. Finally, some (even Charles Dickens) criticized the perceived mental torture involved with total solitude. Dickens recounts his 1842 visit to Eastern State Penitentiary Chapter Seven in his travel journal, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">American Notes for General Circulation. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">The chapter is titled “Philadelphia and its Solitary Prison:”
 * Debate between the Pennsylvania and Auburn Systems**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%; font-weight: normal;">In its intention I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who designed this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentleman who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing....I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye,...and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment in which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.

The largely Quaker defenders of the Pennsylvania system claimed: “all who are familiar with the history of monastic and other religious institutions, will recollect numerous instances in which absolute seclusion, and sometimes mere separate confinement, mitigated by the visits of certain members of the religious orders, have been successfully adopted as a means of reformation for certain classes of offenders” (Smith 8). Richard Vaux opposed the Auburn system and accused it of substituting money-making for reform. He claimed that it was a system that attempted to maximize profit with little regard being given to the well being of the individual inmates (Vaux). On a national level, the Auburn system won over the debate because it was not seen as a bottomless pit for state funding. Though obviously with strained logic, Auburn’s supporters claimed that they had a quantifiable way to measure reform. The more money the prisons produced, the more labor was being done, the greater success in the reforming process of inmates. When it came down to the bottom line, it seemed that this type of strained logic was sufficient enough for state politicians, even in Pennsylvania with the Western State Penitentiary.


 * Continuity at Eastern State Penitentiary**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Yet Eastern State continued in its methods. This was largely due to the power of the Quaker lobby, led by Richards Vaux, a Quaker and the son of one of the prison’s founders, Roberts Vaux. They submitted annual reports to the Pennsylvania state legislature, praising the viability of the prison. So it seems that without the strong religious dimension, wherein the criminal’s soul was actually to be reformed, we see a large-scale abandonment of the idea of reform in favor of economic profit. Enlightenment thinking without religious overtones forged the 19th century penitentiary in the United States as an overtly economic tool by which both public and private actors could benefit. Ironically, Eastern State remained truer to the goal Foucault had attributed to European Enlightenment prison reformers (who often saw their projects as moving away from irrational religion and towards rational science) because of the uniquely religious aspect.

Indeed, the Quakers played a large part in the reform of prisons in Philadelphia, and they worked hard to keep what they accomplished in effect. To begin with, “Quaker citizens…tirelessly work[ed] for the improvement of prison conditions and…persistently present[ed] the state legislature with memorials pointing out the necessity of completely overhauling the existing penal system and building a suitable prison” (Gardner 104). Initially, the Society, led mainly by Quakers but also prominent Philadelphians like Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin, “spent almost twenty years in preparing the minds of the public and stat government officials to accept—if not demand—the innovation necessary for the introduction of a planned system of prison discipline and the specially designed building needed before this new system could be put into practice” (Gardner 107).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; line-height: 200%;">The definitive end of the Pennsylvania System at Eastern state in 1913 is not so important to this story. Federal legislation provoked by the national labor movement – mainly unions like the Knights of Labor—forced nearly all the prisons in the country, whether or not they employed contractors to discipline prison labor, to discontinue prison labor practices, unless the products were sold to state institutions. In any case, beginning in 1883, a series of restrictive laws were passed which, by 1897, had achieved the almost complete extinction of prison industry in Pennsylvania. (Barnes 619) Just as important, the introduction of mechanical weaving obviated handiwork trades like individual weaving that could be done in solitary confinement by the 1860s. In other words, most of Eastern State’s products were no longer viable on the market by this time anyway. Until the end of solitary labor, prisoners occupied themselves with shoemaking, cigarmaking, and the manufacture of hosiery. (Barnes 624) And yet Eastern State could be seen “as important as Independence Hall in our political history” (Gardner (104) because the Pennsylvania system which it embodied had “originated the practice of hard labor as the prescribed punishment for criminal action.” (Barnes 619)


 * Conclusion**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Despite Dickens’s qualms, it was the fact that the prison caused an economic burden to the state, not its effects on the prisoners that made the practice of solitary confinement with labor a failed/abandoned technology. Tocqueville, perhaps somewhat cynically claimed that “the Philadelphia system produces more honest men, and that of New York more obedient citizens.” (Meskell 858) Future research on Eastern State Penitentiary would attempt to highlight the differences between the inspectors of Eastern State vs. those of Western State, since Western State abandoned solitary confinement much earlier, and also applied Bentham’s Panopticon more accurately. Since funding for the prison came proportionally from the counties where the prisoner’s resided, and since the Quakers presumably populated most of Eastern, rather than Western Pennsylvania, this further research would presumably reinforce our argument. It was the unique blend of religiosity and Enlightenment science in the Quaker community that caused continuity in a system seen as outdated everywhere else in the country. Further research might also attempt to understand why the Pennsylvania System had more staying power in Europe than in the United States.


 * Bibliography**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. “A Philadelphia Masterpiece Haviland's Prison.” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">, New Series, 14:4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 103-108. <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Eastern State Penitentiary Historic site, Inc., //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">History of Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia. [] //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">. (Accessed February 17, 2010). ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> Eastern State Penitentiary Reports 1831-1857Pennsylvania State Agencies Historical Reports <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Elaine Jackson-Retondo. “Manufacturing Moral Reform: Images and Realities of a Nineteenth-Century American Prison. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">8:1 (2000), pp. 117-137. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">George W. Smith (1800-1876), //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">A Defence of the System of Solitary Confinement of Prisoners Adopted by the State of Pennsylvania, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Philadelphia, E. G. Dorsey, 1833. <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Harry Elmer Barnes. “The Economics of American Penology as Illustrated by the experience of the State of Pennsylvania.” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">The Journal of Political Economy //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">. 29:8 (Oct 1921), pp. 617-642. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Harry Elmer Barnes. “The Historical Origin of the Prison System in America” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> 12:1 (May 1921), pp. 35-60. Matthew W. Meskell. “An American Resolution: The History of Prisons in the United States from 1777 to 1877.” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Stanford Law Review //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">, 51:4 (Apr., 1999), pp. 839-865. Mannheim, Herman, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Pioneers in Criminology //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">, New Jersey, Patterson, Smith, Montclair, 1972 <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Michel Foucault. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Discipline & punish: The Birth of the Prison, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">New York, Random House, 1975. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> Stephen P. Garvey. “Freeing Prisoners' Labor.” <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">**//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Stanford Law Review //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">, 50:2 (Jan., 1998), pp. 339-398. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">William G. Staples. “In the Interest of the State: Production Politics in the Nineteenth Century Prison.” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Sociological Perspectives //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">, 33:3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 375-395.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Harry Elmer Barnes. “Some Leading Phases of the Evolution of Modern Penology.” //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> Political Science Quarterly. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;"> 37:2 (Jun 1992), pp. 251-280. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">New York Correction History Society, N //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">YCHS browses NYS’ Archives, Museum, Library correction History photos on-line:III. // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">[]. (accessed February 17, 2010). **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Richard Vaux, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Brief Sketch of the Origin and History of the State penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal;">Philadelphia, McLaughlin Brothers, 1872. **

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