This Report is a primary report from the warden, guards, and inspectors of the Prison from 1833-11853 and provides a substantial argument that the deprivation of social and civil rights, the presence of reasoning and reflection, and religious reform are the primary method of punishment and reform for prisoners. The report uses statistics gathered during each year to publish measures of race, death, release, and admission into the prison. The report is important because it gives us the perspective of the warden’s reasoning and also provides a more clear understanding of the our data including prisoner race and cause of death. The report helps us to answer our research questions regarding religion as a method of reform, lack of data for some prisoners, and why there were so few women in the prison. 

This account provides an intimate perspective of the troubled lives of one of Eastern Penitentiary’s female prisoners and her eventual death and argues that the religious reform used at the prison drove some ill-minded prisoners to insanity and were not successful or efficient. The account uses primary reports from Julia’s “friends”, visitors, ministers, and guards at the prison. The resource is important because it answers our research questions on the effectiveness of the prison’s religious reform, the lack of female inmates, and deaths within the prison. The account helps us to answer our undeveloped thesis by guiding our knowledge and focus towards a more specific approach. 

The source provides an excellent summary of Eastern State’s deviation and revolution in reform and structure which provides arguments for and against Eastern State’s separate and solitary confinement system. The resource is important because it answers most of our “why” and “how” questions on how the prison operated and why the founders decided to operate using solitary confinement and religious reform. The source provided a needed shift of focus away from general information-honing to curious exploration of topics of religion and its efficiency, a possible focus for our undeveloped thesis.  

The book presents arguments for and against the educational system at Eastern State Penitentiary, eventually supporting the prison’s historical efforts to educate its inmates. The book uses historical records and personal accounts from the prison administration, as well as statistics on the United State’s spending on education vs. incarceration. The source provides a very important understanding of the entire history of the prison and an intimate perspective on the administration’s battles with educating prisoners in an attempt to save them from hopelessness in faith. The book provides a foundation for a focus on religion, education, and administrative mindsets to answer several of our research questions and provide a strong option for a potential thesis. 

The resource briefly describes the beginnings, intentions, and eventual failure of the Eastern State Penitentiary as a new prison system focused on penance through isolation. It cites the words of Benjamin Rush, member of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, as evidence for the reform movement that would lead to the the solitary architectural design for the prison. The resource is important in that it covers the rise and fall of the prison in an informative overview, showcasing the separation of ideal and reality of the prison itself. This provides additional context and better explains possible discrepancies posed in some of the research questions.

Resource argues about the flawed aspects of the Eastern State Penitentiary, both in its architecture and management. It points to figures working in the prisons and their written records, rather than famous reformers of the time, showcasing the capability of the former in establishing the ideologies of the latter in real life. The resource is important in that it provides a more in depth account of the prison system’s procedure with criminal categorization and various prisoners’ lives behind the walls. This resource provides a clearer account of life in prison, affirming some of our conjectures and filling in gaps within the data set, thereby aiding in answering our questions about the data accuracy or discrepancy. 

The resource describes the benevolent intent in the establishment of the separate system, a concept of solitary confinement exemplified through the Eastern State Penitentiary, by providing background information about those who pushed for its creation, the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. The resource cites the organization’s constitution to reflect its values, paraphrases words that key figure Benjamin Rush had spoken about with regards to the need of prison reform, and describes the various new laws that were passed to explain society’s changing perception of prison reform. This resource is important in that it provides additional context of the ways in which prisons were managed at the time, and the mindset of those part of the prison reform movement itself, providing an explanation of the the Eastern State Penitentiary's setup. By providing the backdrop of the Eastern State Penitentiary, the source relates to one of the research questions about the prison’s conception. 

This source describes the progressive practices the State of Pennsylvania has implemented in its prison system in the 19th century. Barnes mainly utilizes excerpts of policies, annual report of the penitentiary, and description of inspectors in the penitentiary. Interestingly, the section “The Progress of Educational Policy” provides some insights about the orthodoxical theories in prison management. In the subsection of “Moral and Religious Instruction,” Barnes shows that a paid moral instructor is appointed to educate the “ignorant convicts” about moral and religious behaviors in the penitentiary. He also presents the progress of the convicts by drawing data from the penitentiary’s annual report. Noteworthily, the descriptions in this report are mainly from officials’ perspectives and words. Since the criminals’ moral behaviors and literacy levels are featured in our dataset, this report could be helpful for us in grasping how the authorities see and record the data in the past. 

This source argues that the criminal records of defendants can potentially lead to erroneous convictions. Through using the data from over 300 criminal trials in 4 large countries, Eisenberg and Hanst found that there’s a correlation between the defendants’ criminal records and judges’ rulings. When the juries have no evidence that support the convictions, their learning of the criminal record might cause erroneous convictions. This source illustrates people’s subjective biases derived from the presence of defendants’ criminal records in the courts, which accentuates how our dataset — criminal records might have strongly influenced the sentencing of recidivists. When we see recidivists in our data, we could compare their records with other convicts’ of the same offense to locate the prejudiced pattern.    

At the time Eastern State Penitentiary was established, religion played an influential role in defining how prisons were organized, punishments determined, and reform principles, leading to Eastern State Penitentiary being the first penitentiary concept entirely based on Christian beliefs. The source recounts the history and cultural context of the time Eastern State Penitentiary through first person accounts, such as Charles Dicken’s American Notes, and other papers on prison systems as evidence. It is important because it demonstrates the historical and social context that Eastern State Penitentiary was established in and the religious influence Christian beliefs had on its solitary confinement punishment. The article relates to our thesis because it furthers our understanding of why the data within its records were written as they were. It also shows why in the description category religion and the prisoners’ religious views were frequently noted and why religion and ethnicity were its own category.

The source argues that although most discourses focus on the authority figures’ establishment of the penitentiary, the prisoners themselves were actually an influential role in shaping the administration of Eastern State Penitentiary. As evidence, it analyzed first person sources like punishment logs, warden’s journals, ministers’ journals, and guard logbooks. This is important because it provides an alternate perspective into Eastern State Penitentiary and how the prisoners’ mental illness problems and overcrowding forced its administration to reconsider its solitary isolation standard. This relates to our project because the problems it was experiencing with prisoners overcrowding and mental illness could explain the unstandardized sentencing for similar crimes for the later years. Maybe the administration was looking for ways to keep Eastern State running when they realized they could not hold and control all these prisoners. 

Eastern State Penitentiary lasted a long time despite its negative backlash because the prisons’ administrators adamantly defended its institution. The article argues that the prison became more than a prison to the administration, it was a status identity, especially in a time when they were receiving controversial criticism. The source uses historical analyses of archival materials that include various primary sources about Eastern State Penitentiary. It’s important because even with problems such as mental illnesses and overcrowding, the prison continued its institution for as long as possible. It provides a potential new insight into the prison’s longevity.

This obituary notice is apart of, “The Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy” which argues for the solitary system at the Eastern State Penitentiary. They argue in the obituary that John Haviland was a mastermind in helping to create this prison system. The source uses historical accounts of those close to Haviland who were fellow members in, “Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons” which he helped co-found to write the obituary. This source is important because it is a source from a time period shortly after that of our dataset. It lends insight into the influences behind the architecture of the penitentiary which could give us more perspective on the history behind the prison.

This source argues that the Eastern State Penitentiary implemented the solitary confinement system. It is important because it has additional information on the history and philosophy of prisons at the time. There are different prison systems that were adopted at the time and the one that was adopted in Pennsylvania at the time is called the solitary system. Records of the building commissioners were used alongside the history of the Eastern State Penitentiary prison that was being written by Dr. Negley K. Teeters. The resource is important because it talks about the prison history and the different prison philosophies that they implemented whether it was solitary. It is a resource that can be used to explain how the prison philosophies that were implemented the education levels of the inmates when they were admitted and when they left. 

This source argues for the system of solitary confinement at the Eastern State Penitentiary. The source uses the opinion of the author himself who was present and alive during the era in which there was controversy surrounding this topic, as evidence. In addition, this publication includes a relevant warden report and physicians report in the appendix. This serves as a primary source as well since it was written during the time of the dataset. This source is important to our research because it gives us a look into the mind of a person who was alive during the time period we are studying. This can specifically be used to aid our thesis by giving us a historical lense into why the system was put in place and what it sought to do, which we can then compare to our data to see if it was an effective system.