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Erica Green, History and Politics

When senior Erica Green started interviewing for co-op positions, she never imagined she'd soon be going to prison. But when she interviewed at Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary — a 19th-century prison-turned-museum known for its bleak history and (reportedly) haunted corridors — Erica couldn't resist.

"I took the Penitentiary's Halloween tour when I was a freshman at Drexel," she says, "and absolutely fell in love with it. As a History and Politics major, I had several options when I went on co-op, but none could compare to Eastern State. In addition to the historical significance of the structure, I also appreciated the size of the administration. It's a small organization, so I had the opportunity to do many things."

Those "many things" have included acting as a tour guide for the facilities, updating the prison's archival databases, and sorting through piles of artifacts. It is this last job that is most interesting for Erica, as she explains.

"Eastern State Penitentiary frequently gets emails from family members who are looking for records of a relative who was imprisoned there. One family wrote in and wanted to get some information on their great grandfather, who had committed suicide while in prison. It was my job to read through the logbooks and see if there was a record of his death. While I was reading the logbooks I started to notice that the different logs used to record prisoner deaths didn't match up. Apparently, discrepancies like this are pretty common for late 19th-century prison records, and it certainly made me wonder if these were just mistakes or if the prison staff back then was trying to cover something up."

Erica admits that the atmosphere at Eastern State Penitentiary gets her imagination going.

"When I started my co-op position here it was September, and the wind would howl and whistle through the cell blocks and make the grass rustle. People ask me all the time if it's scary. Of course it is! But that's part of the fun."