El panóptico Cúaquero: Eastern State Penitenciary

Inspirado por creencias Cuáqueras, Benjamin Rush (link) 

crease  a principios del siglo XIX (1829) la  Eastern State 

Penitenciary quizás uno de los proyectos Panópticos de 

Bentham de mayor embergadura, obra de un espírito 


magnánimo y ciertamente atroz. 

La arquitectura incorpora una torre central de un edificio circular que se divide en celdas, cada una se extiende por todo el espesor del edificio para permitir que las ventanas interiores y exteriores. Los ocupantes de las células son por lo tanto a contraluz, aislados unos de otros por paredes y sujetos al escrutinio tanto colectiva como individualmente por un observador en la torre que permanece invisible. Con este fin, Bentham no sólo imaginó persianas venecianas en los puertos torre de observación, sino también conexiones laberínticas entre las habitaciones de la torre para evitar destellos de luz o el ruido que pudiera delatar la presencia de un observador

-Ben y Barton Marthalee "Los modos de alimentación en Visuals técnica y profesional". Journal of Business y Technical Communication 7.1 , 1993, 138-62.

Línea del tiempo

http://www.easternstate.org/

Opened in 1829 as part of a controversial movement to change the behavior of inmates through "confinement in solitude with labor," Eastern State Penitentiary quickly became one of the most expensive and most copied buildings in the young United States. It is estimated that more than 300 prisons worldwide are based on the Penitentiary's wagon-wheel, or "radial" floor plan.

Some of America's most notorious criminals were held in the Penitentiary's vaulted, sky-lit cells, including bank robber Willie Sutton and Al Capone. After 142 years of consecutive use, Eastern State Penitentiary was completely abandoned in 1971, and now stands, a lost world of crumbling cellblocks and empty guard towers.

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1776

Walnut Street Jail, built to relieve the overcrowding and scandalous conditions at Philadelphia's Old Stone Jail, receives its first prisoners.

Engraving: Jail in Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 1800. William Birch (1755 - 1834).

1787

Dr. Benjamin Rush (left) founds the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, the first prison reform group in the world. Benjamin Franklin (below) joined the group on August 13, 1787. This group survives today, more than two centuries later. Now called the Pennsylvania Prison Society, it promotes correctional reform and social justice.

Photo: Portrait of Benjamin Rush by Charles Willson Peale, 1818.

1790

A "Penitentiary House," with a capacity of 16 single cells, is built in the Walnut Street Jail, and an experiment with day and night solitary confinement begins.

Photo: Portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Engraved by J. Thomson, 1805. From an Original Picture by J.A. Duplessis.

1821

After many years of lobbying from the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, the Pennsylvania Legislature approves funding to build the Eastern State Penitentiary. The new prison will hold 250 inmates.

Four architects submit designs for the massive new prison. John Haviland (left), a British architect who had settled in Philadelphia, wins the commission. He receives a $100 prize for his design. For more information on John Haviland, readPioneers in Criminology: John Haviland or contact The Independence Hall Association.

Rival architect William Strickland (below), whose design had been rejected, is chosen to oversee the construction.

Photo: Portrait of John Haviland. John Neagle, (1796 - 1865).

1822

Construction begins on the foundations and walls. William Strickland (left) is fired and John Haviland is appointed to oversee the construction.

Photo: Portrait of William Strickland, 1829. John Neagle, (1796 - 1865).

1826

The Marquis de La Fayette (left) visits the unfinished Penitentiary.

1829 April 23

Legislation specifying "separate or solitary confinement at labor" is passed.

Many leaders believe that crime is the result of environment, and that solitude will make the criminal regretful and penitent (hence the new word, penitentiary). This correctional theory, as practiced in Philadelphia, will become known as the Pennsylvania System.

Plans are finalized to prohibit all contact between prisoners at Eastern State, the world's most ambitious penitentiary, now nearly ready for its first inmates.

Masks are fabricated to keep the inmates from communicating during rare trips outside their cells. Cells are equipped with feed doors and individual exercise yards to prevent contact between inmates, and minimize contact between inmates and guards.

1829 October 23

Eastern State Penitentiary opens. Its first inmate: "...Charles Williams, Prisoner Number One. Burglar. Light Black Skin. Five feet seven inches tall. Foot: eleven inches. Scar on nose. Scar on Thigh. Broad Mouth. Black eyes. Farmer by trade. Can read. Theft included one twenty-dollar watch, one three-dollar gold seal, one, a gold key. Sentenced to two years confinement with labor. Received by Samuel R. Wood, first Warden, Eastern State Penitentiary...."

Photo: Original feeding aperture for an individual cell in Cellblock 3.

1831

Work completed on Block Three, the last of the original single-story cellblocks. Work begins on Blocks Four, Five, Six and Seven, all two stories to accommodate the increasing number of convicts. Block Seven (left) completed in 1835.

First female prisoner is received.

French Commissioners Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville visit to study the new correctional system.

Photo: Cellblock 7 corridor at Eastern State Penitentiary, 1890s. From Warden Cassidy on Prisons and Convicts, 1897.

1832

First Escape. An inmate, who served as the warden's waiter, lowers himself from the roof of the front building. Once captured, this inmate will escape in the same manner in 1837.

Photo: Plate showing Eastern State Penitentiary, from a dessert service, c. 1838-42, with views of Philadelphia. Made at the Rihouet factory, Paris (1818-89).

1834

First of several investigations into the prison's finances, punishment practices, and deviations from the Pennsylvania System of confinement.

1836

Original prison completed under the supervision of its architect, John Haviland. Covering an area of eleven acres, with state-of-the-art plumbing, sewage systems, and 450 centrally-heated cells, Eastern State Penitentiary is an architectural marvel.

Governments throughout the world model prisons after Eastern State. Tourists travel by horse and buggy from Philadelphia, more than a mile away, to see the building.

Samuel Cowperthwaite, Convict No. 2954, created this lithograph (left) in 1855 depicting the building from above. Note that Philadelphia has not yet grown to reach the Penitentiary.

Eastern State Penitentiary has cost nearly $780,000, one of the most expensive buildings of its day in the United States.

1842

Charles Dickens visits the United States to see Niagara Falls and the Eastern State Penitentiary. He will later write, "The System is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement, and I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong...."

Engraving: The Solitary Prisoner, 1870s. From Charles Dickens' Pictures from Italy and American Notes for General Circulation.

1854

First full-time school teacher hired. The central rotunda is photographed by William Langenheim and Frederick Langenheim in 1855 (left). Note the change in the central tower in later years (see 1958).

1858

Over 10,000 tourists visit Eastern State Penitentiary, the most in a single year (until historic tours begin in 1994).

Photo: Admission ticket for Eastern State Penitentiary, c. 1835.

1877

Four new cellblocks, without attached exercise yards, are constructed in the spaces between existing cellblocks.

Photo: Cellblocks 8 and 9.

1911

Completed in 1911, Cellblock 12 (left), wedged between Blocks 6 and 7, is drastically different from the blocks that preceded it. Built of light colored reinforced concrete, this block consists of three floors with 40 cells each. There are no arched ceilings and, instead of sky lights, each cell has a narrow window.

Photo: Cellblock 12. From Annual Report, 1912.

1913

The Pennsylvania System of confinement with solitude is officially abandoned at Eastern State. The system had actually broken down decades earlier. Photo: Inmates making shoes in a cell at Eastern State Penitentiary, late nineteenth century.

Photo: From Warden Cassidy on Prisons and Convicts, 1897.

1923

Female prisoners removed to new prison at Muncy.

In July, inmate Leo Callahan (left) and five accomplices armed with pistols successfully scale the east wall after holding up a group of unarmed guards. More than one hundred inmates escaped from Eastern State during its 142 years of active use. Callahan is the only one never to be recaptured. All of Callahan’s accomplices were apprehended, including one that made it as far as Honolulu, Hawaii.

1924 January

Inmates eat for first time in group dining halls. Tablecloths were provided on Sundays and holidays, and the holiday decorations were described as a "morale building factor."

Photo: Interior of one of the two dining halls adapted from former exercise yards.

1924 August 12

Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot allegedly sentenced Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" to a life sentence at Eastern State. Pep allegedly murdered the governor’s wife’s cherished cat. Prison records reflect that Pep was assigned an inmate number (no. C-2559), which is seen in his mug shot. However, the reason for Pep’s incarceration remains a subject of some debate. A newspaper article reported that the governor donated his own dog to the prison to increase inmate morale.

1926

Construction begins on Cellblock 14 (left), Eastern State’s second three-story cellblock. Any space between the cellblocks is now nearly gone. The Penitentiary, intended to hold 250 inmates, now holds 1,700.

Photo: Prisoners constructing the third floor of Cellblock 14. From Annual Report,1926.

Inmates from Eastern State are bussed to work on a new "farm branch" of the prison at Graterford, Pennsylvania.

1929-1930

Chicago gangster Al Capone spends eight months at Eastern State Penitentiary.The Philadelphia Bulletin snapped this photo (left) as Capone was led away.

An article in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, August 20, 1929, describes Capone's cell: "The whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp which stood on a polished desk.... On the once-grim walls of the penal chamber hung tasteful paintings, and the strains of a waltz were being emitted by a powerful cabinet radio receiver of handsome design and fine finish..." (See 2000 for a picture of the restored cell).

1933

Inmates set fires in their cells and destroy workshops in a riot over insufficient recreational facilities, overcrowding, and idleness.

Photo: Front gate surrounded by police officers in 1933.

1934

Inmates at Eastern State riot over low wages. Prisoners short-circuit electrical outlets, start fires, and cause other disturbances. Warden Smith puts down the riot with a strong show of force.

Photo: Portrait of Warden Herbert "Hardboiled" Smith.

1945

Twelve men escape through a tunnel that emerges at Fairmount Avenue and 22nd Street. Prison plaster worker Clarence Klinedinst designed and built most of the tunnel. At the time of the escape Klinedinst had only two years left to serve. Most of the men are caught within minutes.

Klinedinst (after re-arrest, left) is out for two hours, and has ten years added to his sentence for prison break. Bank robber Willie Sutton (below) takes credit for planning the tunnel.

Pennsylvania Legislature recommends abandoning Eastern State Penitentiary.

1953

Eastern State Penitentiary becomes the State Correctional Institution at Philadelphia, or SCI-PHA.

1958

The City of Philadelphia certifies Eastern State Penitentiary an historic property.

1961

Cellblocks are desegregated.

Cuáqueros

El apelativo de Cuáqueros les fue dado como término de vituperio, corno consecuencia de las evidentes convulsiones que sufrían cuando daban sus discursos, porque se imaginaban que eran efecto de la inspiración divina. (http://seminarioabierto.com/iglesia32.htm)

Los cuaquéros se autodenominan “hijos de la luz” pero oficialmente su nombre es “The Religious Society of Friends”.

George Fox (1624-1691) fue un buscador espiritual inglés que recorre toda Inglaterra formando comunidades de creyentes disconformes con elanglicanismo oficial y con los puritanos. Por esta causa fue arrestado varias veces. Su teólogo Robert Barclay (1648-1691) fue el autor de An apology for the True Christian Divinity.

En 1668, escribirá Las reglas para la organización de las reuniones. La expansión del caquerismo en América se debe a Willian Penn (1644-1718), al que el rey Carlos Ii había dado un extenso territorio que se transformaría en la colonia de Pennsylvania, cuaya capital, Philadephia (amor fraternal) define con justicia el espíritu de los Cuáqueros. En 1691, tras la muerte de Fox, William Penn toma la dirección del movimiento.

La Sociedad Religiosa de Amigos, sufrío varias divisiones, la de los Hickistas, en 1840, como consecuencia de influencias evangelistas y la de los Eilburitas, por su apego literal a la doctrina de la “Luz Interior”, en 1850.

El espíritu de tolerancia, simplicidad y tolerancia le ha otorgado a los cuáqueros una excelente reputación mundial. Son pacifistas militantes y tienen a su cargo muchas obras de acción social, educativas y a favor de los derechos humanos. Los cuerpos de voluntarios cuáqueros prestan servicios a diferentes organismos internacionales, en caso de necesidades como catástrofes naturales. Se hallan representados en la ONU como una organización no gubernamental.

En la actualidad se estima la existencia de unos 500.000 cuáqueros, de los cuales, 200.000 viven en EEUU y 30.000 en Gran Bretaña.

Doctrina

De extracción cristiana su fundamento se halla en la tradición bíblica. Rechazan cualquier mediación entre Dios y el hombre, en efecto, la doctrina de la “luz interior” (inner light) afirma que Dios se comunica con naturalidad con sus criaturas. El culto, silencioso, es interrumpido ocasionalmente por el testimonio del algún creyente inspirado en su propia “luz interior”.

http://religion.idoneos.com/index.php/Religiones/Nuevos_Movimientos_Religiosos/Cu%C3%A1queros

La Sociedad Religiosa de los Amigos, generalmente conocida como los cuáqueros o amigos, es una comunidad religiosa disidente, fundada en Inglaterra por George Fox (1624–1691). Aunque ellos mismos se llamaron amigos, el pueblo los llamó Quakers o tembladores(quake significa temblor en inglés), debido a que en sus reuniones era común que temblaran durante el silencio, pero es éste un temblor interno, casi imperceptible exteriormente. Quaker en español se conoce como cuáquero.

Se extendieron en Estados Unidos gracias a William Penn, especialmente en el estado de Pensilvania. No tienen un credo oficial, y los cuáqueros tienen muchas creencias diferentes, en países diferentes además que a escala nacional. A pesar de eso, son considerados una de las Iglesias de Paz históricas.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedad_Religiosa_de_los_Amigos

http://www.quaker.org/