Walnut Street Prison was a city jail and penitentiary house in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, from 1790 to 1838. Legislation calling for establishment of the jail was passed in 1773 to relieve overcrowding in the High Street Jail; the first prisoners were admitted in 1776.Skidmore, Rex J.
"Penological Pioneering in the Walnut Street Jail, 1789-1799"
''Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology'', Vol. 35, no. 2, p. 167, 1948-1949. It was located at Sixth and Walnut Streets, where it acquired its original name Walnut Street Jail. The penitentiary house, built in 1790, is considered to be the first in the United States, as it was built to use individual cells and work details. The word "penitentiary" came from the Pennsylvania Quakers' belief in penitence and self-examination as a means to salvation. This was made a new and permanent form of combating crime through the practice of solitary confinement, which was later adopted at the

Eastern State Penitentiary The Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) is a former American prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located at 2027 Fairmount Avenue between Corinthian Avenue and North 22nd Street in the Fairmount section of the city, and was operational from ...

Background

In 1773, in

, a new jail was opened to receive the overcrowded prisoners of High Street Jail. It was located on Walnut Street on a lot bounded by Walnut Street, Sixth and Prune Street (now Locust), where it acquired the name Walnut Street Jail.

Architecture

WALNUTSTREETPRISON HISTORICALMARKER 20141014

The jail was designed to hold groups of

inmates The Inmates are a British pub rock band, which formed after the split of The Flying Tigers in 1977. In 1982, they had a medium-sized international hit with a cover of The Standells' " Dirty Water", and a UK Top 40 hit with their cover of Jimmy ...

in large rooms. It was designed by Robert Smith, a prominent Philadelphia architect. The building was in the typical U-shape designed to hold large numbers of inmates. There was little regard for their physical well-being, and none for their rehabilitation. The prison was overcrowded and dirty, and inmates attacked each other regularly. A new cellblock, called the "penitentiary house," was added in 1790. Built within the courtyard of the existing structure, it included a series of small cells for individual prisoners. The cells and the corridors connecting them were arranged to prevent prisoners from communicating with each other. Windows were high up (the cells had ceilings) and grated and louvered to prevent prisoners from looking onto the street. Each cell had a mattress, a

water tap A tap (also spigot or faucet: see usage variations) is a valve controlling the release of a liquid or gas. Nomenclature United Kingdom * Tap is used in the United Kingdom and most of the Commonwealth for any everyday type of valve, parti ...

, and a

privy Privy is an old-fashioned term for an outdoor toilet, often known as an outhouse and by many other names. Privy may also refer to: * Privy council, a body that advises the head of state * Privy mark, a small mark in the design of a coin * Privy Pur ...

pipe. As a penitentiary, solitary confinement was the goal, but such facilities were available for about a third of those admitted. Other prisoners were made to sleep naked in a common room.

Balloon flight

The first manned balloon flight in the Western Hemisphere was made by

Jean-Pierre Blanchard Jean-Pierre rançoisBlanchard (4 July 1753 – 7 March 1809) was a French inventor, best known as a pioneer of gas balloon flight, who distinguished himself in the conquest of the air in a balloon, in particular the first crossing of the Englis ...

on January 9, 1793. He launched his balloon from the prison yard of the jail, before a crowd of spectators that included President

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

, Vice-president

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...

, and

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...

. Blanchard crossed the Delaware River and safely landed in

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

.Blanchard, Jean-Pierre-François
" ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'' Online. Retrieved 2009-10-17.

Success of the jail

The Walnut Street Jail was to be converted into a penitentiary in 1790. But because of political reasons (and the resistance of the jailer, John Reynolds) the transformation did not occur till 1795. As a penitentiary, solitary confinement was the goal, but such facilities were only available for about a third of those admitted. Other prisoners were made to sleep naked in a common room. Overcrowding undermined the goal of solitary confinement of serious offenders, and more than one inmate was placed in each cell. The isolation had a terrible psychological effect on inmates. Eventually inmates were given in-cell

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on which they worked up to eight hours a day. Despite these difficulties, similar institutions were constructed in New York (Newgate in 1797) and

( Trenton in 1798).

Background

Architecture

Balloon flight

Success of the jail

References

Further reading