In the end, we're all history

Today we spent the afternoon at Eastern State Penitentiary.

Haven't been there in years, in fact since before becoming parents. (First the children were too young to go, then they were old enough to enter according to the rules, but too impressionable...) And this amazing institution on the heights above downtown Philadelphia has changed.

For those who don't know, Eastern State was the first penitentiary and gave the meaning to the word. It was imagined and designed (as far back as 1829) as a place where criminals would be isolated and able to contemplate their offenses. In the process, they were to become penitent, and then leave the place ready to recommit to society.

In those early days, there weren't a lot of tracking options -- no fingerprints, no electronic databases -- and so no one really knows how many people were able to reform. 

What we do know is that initially the prisoners were given fairly short sentences and were left alone, with their bibles, for 24 hours a day. The only door out of their cells was to their private exercise yards, where they were permitted to take the sun (or at least the fresh air) for two 30-minute periods each day. And while short sentences, silent contemplation, and work therapy were surely better than what we have now, it is certainly true that some prisoners went insane.

Isolation -- as Dostoevsky taught us with the young murderer in his 1866 novel Crime and Punishment -- can be the worst part of a crime. When Raskolnikov realized that he had cut himself off from all community and couldn't even bear to kiss his mother or sister anymore, he began to understand that there was no way back for him, no way to retreat across that threshold that separated the moral from the immoral.

As time went on in Philadelphia, this system of isolation -- one that has been repudiated, at least for those under 21, at some of the nation's prisons today -- morphed into a different kind of prison, one where inmates worked at various jobs as they contemplated the error of their ways. In the beginning they worked alone in their cells, as shoemakers or weaving fabric or cane for chairs, and later they worked in the laundry, the medical wing, the print shop, where they wrote articles and published their own newsletter, etc. Eventually the isolation cells had doors cut in them, and prisoners had roommates, were able to walk through the corridors to the kitchens or the doctor, started musical groups and sports teams, and played chess with their guards. There were riots and escape attempts, including an amazing tunnel constructed over the course of a year by a prisoner with masonry experience. But there were also group therapy and bocce ball. The prison closed in 1971.

Visiting Eastern State today is a fascinating experience, not least because of the professionalism of the museum staff. Choices have been made since the historic site initially opened in 1994 that make it one of the best institutions I have ever visited. 

Al Capone's Cell (photo credit Eastern State)

The site is a "stabilized ruin" -- not "fixed up," but gently reclaimed for the sake of history and the safety of visitors. The audioguides are thorough and remarkably democratic: the main tour is narrated by Steve Buscemi, but other voices include not just the director and head of programming, but also individual tour guides, independent researchers, former guards and former prisoners. It's clear that there is constant research going on -- into the site, the records, newspaper and library archives, but also oral histories with people who were on both sides of the bars. Even without going to a special event (and events range from a haunted house at Halloween to lectures on prisoners' rights to the fabulous and silly Bastille Day celebrations every July), visitors find engaging art exhibits, a synagogue and chaplain's office, and of course the recreated posh cell of Al Capone. 

Most importantly, Eastern State engages with issues of incarceration today. And we have plenty of those -- from the appalling conditions of current U.S. prisons (and the horrific length of sentences in places which do little to "rehabilitate" or prepare prisoners for any other kind of life if they ever do get out) to the racial discrepancies among prison populations to the still-not-closed Guantanamo Bay facility.

Crime, and punishment. Two issues I think about almost as often as I think about death. In Dostoevsky's novel, Raskolnikov finds redemption on the shores of a Siberian river while exiled to a Russian prison camp. A lovely scene, but the least realistic part of the novel.

I'm grateful to Sean Kelley and the rest of the Eastern State crew for keeping punishment relevant. As Sean (who is the director of interpretation and public programming) reminds the listener on the ESP audioguide, history is always changing. New information comes to light, new interpretations shade what the museum presents, new artists show a different side of issues of crime and punishment. History is a changeable thing.

Wouldn't it be great if the future could change too?