Silence is Reforming.

Yesterday we went to Eastern State penitentiary. It was different experience from the other museums we went to. Linda didn’t consider the penitentiary a museum she said it was a historical site, which made me think back to the beginning of the class when we came up with the definition of a museum…“Power, knowledge and meaning,”. This historical landmark conveys these words. Power is being conveyed through the design of the building; the walls are 30ft high and 10ft deep.  The building is considered to be a panopticon because when you stand in the middle of it you can see everything that is going on.  The Panopticon was remarkable invention because cameras weren’t invented yet, and this design gave the warden a way to watch the guard. This concept can be considered conveying power as well.    Meaning is conveyed because the penitentiary was built to reform the criminals that were sent there and in the 1913 it was meant to punish criminals. Knowledge is presented in this museum because of the tour we went on, and the different signs that were posted throughout the building.  There were different pieces of artwork that were in the museum as well.

Eastern state penitentiary opened in 1829 and closed in 1971. Between 1829 and 1913 it was a place of reform, a place to show penance. There are many religious themes that are through the penitentiary my favorite was the skylight that was sought up to be as the Eye of God. It started out as a reform institution, they were getting educated, and planting their own food.  Nick said that the penitentiary is like a city; it has a hospital wing, it has police, a school and a “prison” for the prisoners that were too bad to be near others. In 1913 the penitentiary changed dramatically from a reform institution to a corrections center. There was more than one prisoner per cell; it was kind of going back to the older days where criminals weren’t paying for their crimes. There were problems with the 1829 edition people were going insane from being detained in a room by themselves for years.

This week’s reading expressed the ideas of a museum focusing more on the aesthetics and universal value than the artifacts themselves. In the reading it focused on the Pow Wow museum in Brittan; it emphasized on the story of Pocahontas than the historical context.  This museum is a bit different; the public is very much involved but doesn’t exclude the historical context of the penitentiary. Our tour guide Nick gave us a very vivid tour of the penitentiary, went through the history and showed us the display figure of the penitentiary.  

My favorite parts of the museum were the tunnel and how we could go into the room where it was built, being able to look in a cell where one of the inmates lived and looking into Al Capone room.  I know that the lamp and chairs were not his real things but the way it was set up gave an idea on how he lived there.  The question that bothered me was how they knew where Al Capone cell was. I wish I’d asked.  I also wish that we could walk through the tunnel. My favorite pieces of art were the bones in the “yard” and the picture that showed how prisoners were before the penitentiary was built. It made me think of the aesthetic values of the museum.  I liked how in the cells there were sculptors of how the different prisoners lived.