Eastern State Penitentiary Trivia Quiz

Answer: Philadelphia

Benjamin Franklin, who was instrumental in many of the famous firsts of Philadelphia, was one of the reformers to help make Eastern State Penitentiary.

Answer: It was the first "penitentiary" -- meant to inspire penance or remorse rather than to punish.

Prior to the building of Eastern State Penitentiary, prisoners were merely held in jails to await punishment, which was often brutal and humiliating. Eastern State was founded on the idea that everybody, no matter what hideous things he or she might have done, had a divine spark of goodness.

The idea of the penitentiary was to give the prisoner a chance to reflect on his or her crimes, to become penitent, and to reform.

Answer: It was the first large public building with flush toilets and central heating.

When the Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829 it was the world's most expensive and 'high-tech' prison. Eastern State Penitentiary had flush toilets in every cell -- at a time when even the President of the United States was still using an outhouse and a chamber pot. Each cell block had a heat plant located at the end. Lighting was primarily via skylights in every cell.

Answer: The facility was built on a radial design, with all cell blocks visible from a central hub area.

The panopticon design has a central tower, surrounded by cells around the perimeter of the outside wall. Eastern State Penitentiary's isolation system wouldn't allow for such viewing. Eastern State Penitentiary also originally had solid hatches between the prisoners and the guards. And though mirrors were used for monitoring cell blocks, these were added later, when additional cell blocks were added that did not radiate from the hub.

Answer: Total solitary confinement

Prisoners entered their cells through individual exercise yards. There was no door into the cell block hallway, just a hatch that food and tools could be passed through. Prisoners spent 23 hours a day indoors, and were let out for 1/2 hour each morning and evening, with no adjacent prisoners to be in their high-walled exercise yards at one time. Guards wore socks over their shoes to muffle their footsteps, and the food cart's wheels were covered with leather to reduce sound.

The walls were 18 inches thick. Prisoners were allowed no visitors or letters, and the only reading material was a King James Bible. Attempts to communicate were punished severely.

In his "American Notes", Dickens wrote, "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body...."

Answer: Al Capone

A newspaper article described 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."

Answer: Willie Sutton

The breakout was actually the brainchild of mild-mannered Clarence Klinedinst, with help from his cellmate, William Russell. Various other prisoners provided support in the form of materials or acting as lookouts. Klinedinst, a mason by trade, managed to build a tunnel fifteen feet down and ninety-seven feet over, equipped with lights and shored with wood bracing. A dozen prisoners made it through the tunnel and out onto Fairmount Avenue. Eleven were recaptured. The twelfth, James Grace, came knocking on the prison door days later, asking to be let back in.

Sutton, by the way, denies ever telling anybody that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." But, he admitted, he would have said it had he thought of it.

Answer: He served time there in the 1870s.

Yerkes was convicted of larceny and sentenced to thirty-three months in Eastern State Penitentiary. He tried blackmail to avoid prison, but was locked up anyway. After serving seven months he was able to gain a pardon by agreeing to deny some of the accusations he had made against prominent politicians.

Answer: He was a dog, and the cat belonged the the Governor's wife.

Governor Gifford Pinchot sentenced his black Labrador retriever, Pep, to life at Eastern State. The sentence appeared to be part of a publicity stunt. Pep accompanied guards on their rounds, and was taken to live at the new Graterford Penitentiary when it was opened in 1929. His inmate number, C2559, was never given to a human prisoner.

Answer: The ladder was made from sections disguised as small tables, which the inmates kept in their cells.

Callahan was one of five inmates who took part in a plan masterminded by inmate George Brown in 1923. The tables seemed innocent enough in the cells or in the exercise yard, where prisoners would play chess or checkers. The six sections snapped together.

They held up well enough for the men to make it over the wall, even though they were coming apart even as the men climbed up. There is still a warrant out for Callahan's arrest, though he'd be over 100 years old.