Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [22]
Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the world’s first true penitentiary. Eastern State opened in 1829, and was designed to inspire penitence in the criminals incarcerated there. The idea was to reform criminals through a Quaker-inspired system of strict isolation, which would allow for deep thought and remorse. It was from this philosophy of spiritual penitence that the term “penitentiary” was born. The medieval castle-like structure was intended to present a forbidding and haunted facade.
As a prison, Alcatraz would become a modernized and less barbaric form of the pillory. From its humble beginnings as a small military jail, it would eventually silence the most feared public adversaries, in the interest of maintaining the good order of society. It became both an icon and a societal pillar, a symbol of firm justice for America’s worst offenders.
The Early Years as a Military Prison
In August of 1861 the U.S. Military began sending Civil War prisoners to Alcatraz Island, which seemed perfect for this purpose because of its natural isolation. At this stage the island had no formal prison facilities, and prisoners were housed in a large damp cell located in the basement of the Guardhouse. Living conditions for the inmates were grim. Their jail was a crude structure, similar in many ways to a medieval dungeon and accessible only through a fortified ceiling hatch via a small ladder. The primitive cell was unheated and it accommodated approximately fifteen soldiers. There was no plumbing, and the inmates were forced to use buckets to relieve themselves. By day, the prisoners were assigned to exhausting hard-labor details, and by night, they were generally forced to sleep in cramped conditions on the ground, side-by-side. In a 1969 historical military report to the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, Herbert M. Hart described some of the problems that the commanders at Alcatraz were faced with in 1862.
A period photograph of the sallyport entrance. The support beams along the ceiling include both the base floor of the library and the distant passage is situated under the lower prison cellblock. At least one historical reference indicates that the gunroom on the immediate left was used as a dungeon cell for troublesome prisoners who were housed in the original jail, which was accessible through a hatch panel on the floor of the guardhouse.
An exterior view of the entrance leading to the lower prison in 1902. The blacksmith shop is seen on the right.
A modern view of the sallyport entrance as it appeared exactly 100 years later.
A 1903 photograph showing the blacksmith shop, the tool house under the wooden stairs, the library situated above the guardhouse, and an open latrine suspended over the water’s edge on wharf pilings. The “Overseer’s Squad Room” (seen here with the door ajar) is located on the upper floor above the sallyport entrance. Also visible is an armed sentry standing ready at the edge of the catwalk in the foreground.
He wrote:
The problem of prisoners was a pressing one from the early days of the war as pointed out on September 10, 1862, by Captain William A. Winder. He wrote to department headquarters that the “... caponiere at the entrance of the fortification, defending approach from the wharf, is occupied by the guard and prisoners; the latter being so numerous they entirely fill the casemate on the right of the entrance, rendering it necessary