Solitary Sociability

Mapping Prison Labor, in the 1820s

Eastern State Penitentiary’s isolating architecture mandated solitary works and silent meditation as a manifestations of belief, yet it also enabled new relays of contact though malfunctioning building  systems and habitual, condoned collaboration. This series plot the 1836 legislature’s testimony transcripts of ESP’s guards and prisoners, to explore the symbiotic sociability of early, atomizing incarceration.

Deliverables

  • Data extraction/cleaning
  • Print/Web Infographics

Collaborators

  • Project started while interning:
  • Eastern State Penitentiary
  • 2027 Fairmount Ave,
  • Philadelphia, PA 19130
  • Infographics show on:
  • Caleb Smith's site for 'The Prison and the American Imagination'
  • (no longer online)