Eastern State Penitentiary: The Troubled Past of the World’s First Prison

Today, the Eastern State Penitentiary is a must-see museum for visitors to Philadelphia. But once upon a time, this historic landmark housed some of the country’s most notorious and violent criminals. 

The Eastern State Penitentiary was modeled on a penitentiary house, built as an extension to Walnut Street Jail in 1790. The function of this house was primarily solitary confinement, which was used as a “time out” area for rebellious convicts. 

Although the results would be disastrous, the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, or the Philadelphia Prison Society, had the best intentions. Unfortunately, time would show that solitary confinement is just as bad, if not worse, than hard labor. 

Other prisons across the country would be inspired by its design and management system, which came to be known as the “Pennsylvania System.” Based on Quaker notions, the idea was to induct prisoners into developing trade skills to ready them for rehabilitation.

The Pennsylvania system came about as the result of necessity, as well as through an attempt at reform. The Walnut Street Jail cells were too large and offered too many chances to socialize with other prisoners through bars and holes in walls—plus, the prison was already overcrowded. 

The Walnut Street Prison’s new addition seemed to solve its overcrowding problem and reduced its surveillance demands as the cherry on top. Convinced that their Pennsylvania model was the key to successful prisoner reform, the government began looking into implementing it elsewhere.

The Eastern State Penitentiary took around 15 years to complete. In 1836, its doors were officially opened, although prisoners had been incarcerated inside the completing wings as they were available. The architects and builders spared no expense in completing this mammoth, state-of-the-art project. 

Before the Penitentiary was fully finished, several inmates were housed in the finished parts of the building. The first prisoner to have the “honor” of being placed in one of the solitary confinement cells was a black farmer named Charles Williams.

When Charles Williams was sent in to be incarcerated, his head was covered by a hood to prevent him from seeing any of the building’s layout. It was a highly innovative design for its time—the building was laid out like the spoke of an eight-sided wheel. 

An average prisoner would see something like this for the remainder of their sentences: four walls, a 12 by 8 feet floor, a bed, and sparse amenities. The shape of the window would give its occupant just enough light to see but no means to communicate with the outside world. 

The only time inmates had off between their labors and the strict bounds of their cells was “yard time.” This gave inmates a break outside to exercise—usually about an hour a day—with strictly controlled socialization. Of course, they also had to attend religious services.

The religious themes extended as far as each cell’s construction—from the moment a prisoner was inducted into his cell, he was expected to bow his head low. This was designed to invoke the act of humbling one’s self before the power and judgment of God. 

Inmates would attend mass but would have no idea how many other prisoners were in attendance with them. This is just another example of the extreme lengths the staff went to ensure complete social isolation for each of their “guests.”

The Eastern State Penitentiary received a prestigious guest in its heyday. On his tour of the United States, the famed English writer Charles Dickens saw the prison with his own eyes. Not unfamiliar with some of the worst human miseries, he had much to say about the place.

If extended solitary confinement weren’t enough, the prison staff also utilized a slew of mental and physical punishments for those they deemed to have misbehaved. One of these punishments was getting straitjacketed over an extended period.

A particularly brutal device was fashioned for inmates called the “iron gag.” One part would be inserted into a prisoner’s mouth while the chains were used to tie the prisoner’s hands behind them. As their hands lowered from tiredness, the mouthpiece would gag them.

Not all cells were places of horrible pits of human despair. Very few were well-furnished with luxury items and niceties, including lamps, fine rugs, armchairs, and books. Of course, these cells were reserved for the more affluent inmates.

That’s right—the luxury cell belonged to non-other than Al Capone. The notorious prohibition-era gangster managed to get everything he wanted—within reason, of course—smuggled inside the thick walls of the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Here’s another example of a “celebrity” inmate. “Slick Willie” (or William Francis Sutton) was a notorious bank robber who spent several years in the Eastern State Penitentiary. In 1952, Sutton was caught after a string of bank robberies and sentenced to 30 years in the Penitentiary. 

Over the years, around 100 escape attempts happened at the Eastern State Penitentiary. Only four successfully escaped. One of the more famous escapees was Leo Callahan, who planned and executed a break-out with five others. 

One of the more unusual prisoners in the Penitentiary was a dog named Pep. In August 1924, he was imprisoned for reportedly killing the pet cat of the wife of the Pennsylvania governor, Gifford Pinchot. How a dog was supposed to repent without having any notions of human justice is unclear.

In its early years, the Eastern State Penitentiary held an average of 250 prisoners. However, by the 1900s, the number of inmates had skyrocketed to over 1,000. The prison first began putting more people into each cell to accommodate this population surge.

Despite the building’s mostly impregnable design—and each prisoner being held in solitary confinement or even straitjacketed—many Eastern State Penitentiary inmates found ways to communicate using handwritten notes passed through the plumbing system. 

In 1933, a riot erupted resulting in several injuries and extensive damage to the prison itself. Following this was the largest riot in the Penitentiary’s history on January 8, 1961, and involved approximately 800 inmates.

In the mid-1950s, the Penitentiary was renamed “the State Correctional Institution—Philadelphia.” It continued to operate until 1950 when it finally released or transferred its last prisoners and closed its doors for good. By this time, it had 134 years of history—much of it dark.

While those at the Eastern State Penitentiary were often visited by misery and anguish, today, the prison has a new kind of regular visitor: tourists. While it was always an attractive place to stop by (at least for outsiders), it is now a full-time point of interest for visitors to Philadelphia as a museum.