From: Jeffrey S. Farmer (af369@ACORN.NET)
Date: Fri Jan 15 1999 - 14:49:10 PST
Dear Mr. Dickens, You might be interested to learn, if you do not already know, that Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which you visited in 1842 and described so vividly in your book, American Notes, still stands. It last housed prisoners in the early 70s. (The early 1970s, that is.) After several years of neglect, it has been preserved and reopened as an historic site. The Penitentiary has, like you, a "presence" on the Internet--a website at http://www.libertynet.org/e-state/. Part of the site is a history of the Penitentiary. It describes your visit as follows: [In 1842] Charles Dickens visits the United States to see Niagara Falls and Eastern State Penitentiary. He will write later, "The System is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement, and I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong...." This seems to be a rather incomplete description of your reasons for visiting the United States. Can you please tell us what you expected to see and do there? And tell us, perhaps, how what you saw and did met with your expectations? Thank you, Jeffrey S. Farmer