Eastern State Penitentiary: How it serves the community

The Fairmount community in Philadelphia has undergone many transformations since the 19^th century. Most recently it has enjoyed a renaissance as a desirable residential area, complete with businesses and restaurants to support its neighborhood population. The added attraction to outside visitors of the neighborhood to the Eastern State Penitentiary Museum and its special programming has helped to secure a future of continuous growth potential. While tourism undoubtedly plays a large part in the attraction to the site, it is the added attraction of local Philadelphians to the entertainment provided by the Haunted House that gives Eastern State its added focus. The very important question of the true function of a Museum within its surrounding community becomes more complex with the addition of programming that might not be comfortably accepted by the academic or intellectual community that is the traditional arbiter most often accepted by the Museum community. 

Eastern State Penitentiary is, within itself a fascinating addition to the rich museum heritage that exists in Philadelphia. It stands in contrast to the more formalized, preserved House Museums. There is no attempt to restore the site to its former existance. The presentation of its structures, and grounds is as is. The very nature of its crumbling and aging structure only adds cache to its identity as a historical site. While it is clearly a 20th century establishment, it also recalls a sense of the importance of ruins within a city or country that help to heighten the sense of timelessness and cultural significance that define it as an institution.

The Importance of the House Museum; Reflections on Powel House

Having spent my childhood school-years in the historic Germantown neighborhood in Philadelphia, my familiarity with House Museums is something that I take for granted. Most of my grade school History lessons involved a visit to a Colonial household, or some famous Revolutionary War site. The Architecture that remains throughout Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill is in itself a sort of exhibit of Historic Philadelphia in much the same way that Society Hill and Old City have been re-created to represent Historic Philadelphia. Having learned that Philadelphia boasts the greatest number of House Museums in the United States the question presents itself as valid; do we really need another House Museum

I believe that the answer is Yes, we do. One of the most important things we learned from our visit to Powel House is that the interior of the house itself is a carefully arranged re-creation of what it may have looked like. The reason it is important for us to preserve a physical manifestation of the past in this way is so that we can experience firsthand what it could have been like to be a contemporary, visiting one of the places of power and influence that defined our society in that time. The House Museum allows us to erase the barrier of time passed, or distance traversed. When we walk around inside, we become the actors in a type of "living-history" experience. Seeing the everyday lifestyle, or objects of a past era placed in historical context enables us to more closely relate to the individuals that inhabited the space. This, in turn informs us about human society in an almost anthropological way.

Another observation which was revealed about Powel House was the lack of representation of the African-American peoples who dwelt there during Colonial times. So many American Historical endeavors have a long, and critical history of exclusion or under-representation when it comes to African-American's presence in the founding days of our country. The issue of Slavery has made it difficult for many a Museum to present it in a matter-of-fact, quotidian way. Sensitivity and insight must be brought into an approach that visitors will not find offensive. I think that Powel House should renovate it's top two floors, and represent the spaces that were once inhabited by Philadelphia's enslaved blacks. I think there is more room for the House Museum in our society to represent the previously un-represented populations in an effort to document the development of a wider range of humanity. Most Historical sites focus only on the famous and the wealthy, illustrious figures of our past. I see the role of the House Museum as broadening to exhibit a more humanistic story. A story in which we could all be represented.