I recently visited Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia with my family. Although we didn’t see any ghosts, and can’t find any that we captured in our photos, I want to share some of the photos we took while we were there.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but thinking back on it, the visit was a sobering experience. Just knowing that I was walking on ground where God knows what horrors occurred, and now I’m touring it with my family. It gave me chills to think about.
We were there for just two hours, more than enough time to see the bulk of the site, but not enough to listen to all of the exhibits. However, Eastern State Penitentiary is a model still in use today around the world, and in a lot of ways was the start of the industrial prison complex in the United States (a point that is reinforced in many of the exhibits present), and I was left numb by the end of the two hours.
The exhibit that hit me the most is the feature on Prisons Today. The rate at which we incarcerate people in the United States when compared to every other county in the world is staggering. Take 12 minutes and watch the video below on how we got here.
To learn more about the site, and the current exhibits, visit the website
easternstate.org.
