In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont were sent on a mission to the United States to study the penitentiary system. For nine months, they traveled from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi Valley. Tocqueville draws from his observations "On Democracy in America", which remains one of the most illuminating studies on the United States and democratic societies. Almost two centuries later, “Le Figaro” takes you in the footsteps of Tocqueville, through an America in the midst of a political crisis.
Special Envoy to Philadelphia
The enclosure looks like a movie set with its false medieval towers, incongruous in the city of Philadelphia.
Today, the iron gate of the old Eastern State Penitentiary opens to a ticket booth.
The prison was transformed into a museum in the 1990s. The vaulted corridors and whitewashed walls have retained a somewhat sinister atmosphere, and the cells have been preserved, with their small wooden doors with locks.
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