“A New County to Be Called Snyder”

Snyder is a small rural county covering 327 square miles with a population exceeding thirty thou­sand. Situated near the center of the Commonwealth, it is bounded on the northwest by Jack’s Mountain, on the southeast by the Mahantango Creek and on the en­tire eastern end by the beautiful Susquehanna River. Most of the remaining boundaries are unrelated to natural features. Geologically,...
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“Punishment, Penitence, and Reform”: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Controversy Over Solitary Confinement

In 1842, popular British novelist Charles Dickens traveled to Philadelphia to visit the mam­moth Eastern State Penitentiary. What he found caused him to lament the “picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind.” Surrounded by an imposing thirty foot high stone wall joined by castle-like towers at rising at each corner and dominated by a grim, turreted entrance, the prison...
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