The exhibition is at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington Street) through July 8th.

Morbid Curiosity

The Bone Chilling Catacombs of the Capuchin Monks

Thanks to Bill for the link.

Click on this close-up for a larger image:

First of all, here is Maria Rossi who died in 1920 in all her coffin-bound glory:

Mummies Of The World

If you’re in the Bay Area, don’t miss this new nonprofit attraction.  We loved it, and were sorry to leave at closing time.  Fortunately I live in the area.  It has lots of scary-creepy sideshow monsters and freaks of nature, and a terrific “Slayland at the Beach”  model diorama, of about 8  windows, with lights and moving parts.   Even better if clowns scare you.  Regular admission is $15.00 but you can play pinball and many carnival games for free. There were many games I never heard of, although I’ve been to San Francisco’s Musee Mechanique.  One 3-D pinball room is dark, and you appear to float on a many layered floor.  There are spider-women and other creepy images, and a mummy in a case.  This place has a lot of association with Anton LaVey, as he lived near and loved Playland and the Sutro Baths, as well as working at carnivals that have featured exhibits, such as Sells-Floto.  Don’t forget your camera – there are no restrictions on photos.

Playland Not-At-The-Beach

More California sightseeing suggestions can be found at The Morbid Sightseer.

A few years ago I wrote up a travelogue about my visit to Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville, Georgia. The main reason I went there was because I had read an article about the slave graves and how they had distinctive markers that consisted of 1-3 metal chain links. The article stated that a grave with one link indicates a slave was born into slavery but was freed as an adult and died free. Two links indicated the slave was born into slavery, lived most of their life in slavery, but died free. And three links indicated they died in slavery as well. I found this an absolutely heartbreaking and fascinating piece of southern history.

However, Adam Selzer has written me to advise me that this story may not be accurate. His version of the meaning behind the three links:

The three links of chains are often said to signify being born, living, and dying in bondage around town, but it’s not quite accurate. There are certainly slave graves in Memory Hill, but the three links of chain are actually symbols denoting that the buried person was a member of the Odd Fellows, the secret club that workers joined while their bosses joined the Freemasons or Shriners.

Are there any other Georgian historians out there who can corroborate Adam’s disappointing story?

Here’s the Memory Hill Cemetery travelogue in all its sullen southern glory:
Trudging Up Memory Hill

Designed in 1821 by Philadelphia architect John Haviland, Eastern State Penitentiary was born from the fusion of Quaker social conscience with the Enlightenment’s faith in reason. Its innovative form arose from humanitarian concern for the treatment of prisoners and from philosophical speculation about the cause and cure of crime. Traditionally, prisons were squalid places, where people were thrown together in common rooms, often regardless of sex, age or the severity of their offenses. They were places of disorder and social neglect. By contrast, “penitentiaries” like Eastern State were places of discipline. They were built on the theory that criminals are psychological slobs, people who failed to acquire discipline early in life. Within the penitentiary’s controlled environment criminals would reform themselves through penance – hence the name. The Pennsyvlania Plan, as solitary confinement was called, took the theory a step further: Criminals would acquire discipline more readily if they were isolated from other undisciplined souls.

Instead of constant surveillance, Eastern State relied on the power of the invisible. On arriving at the prison, prisoners were hooded before being led to their cells, to prevent them from seeing where they were going. Each cell measured 8 by 12 feet and was equipped with a flush toilet and running water. A walled yard outside the cell permitted solitary exercise. An 1831 report explained: “No prisoner is seen by another, after he enters the wall. When the years of his confinement have passed, his old associates in crime will be scattered over the earth, or in the grave… and the prisoner can go forth into a new and industrious life, where his previous deeds are unknown.”

The roots of the Pennsyvlania Plan lay in monastic architecture and in the solitary life of Carthusian monks. Inmates at Eastern State were provided with Bibles and were expected to work at weaving and other crafts. They received regular visits from members of the Philadelphia Prison Society, the Quaker organization that had championed the creation of Eastern State. It is as if, by emulating a monastic structure, the prison could convert a criminal calling into a religious one, sinners into saints.

But to Charles Dickens, who visited the prison in 1842, the system was infernal, precisely because of its reliance on the unseen. Prisoners were invisible to the world as well as to one another, and their punishment left no visible scars. Society did not have to witness the consequences of confining people here. Dickens thought public flogging preferable to this “slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain.”

Culled from:

What do you suppose it says about me that I think this type of prison sounds infinitely preferable to modern prisons, where you actually have to interact with other people. Incidentally, I visited this marvelous treasure back in 2001 and wrote a travelogue on it.  I can’t wait to go back again one of these days… I highly recommend you add it to your morbid bucket list immediately!