Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

This is the history of the Women’s House of Detention, a notable place in women’s imprisonment, and offers insights into policing queerness and radical politics in the 20th century.

From 1929 to 1974, the House of Detention in New York City’s Greenwich Village housed tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people. While some, like Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, and Afeni Shakur, were famous, most were incarcerated for poverty and improper femininity. Today, about 40% of women in prisons identify as queer, likely higher in earlier decades. Historian Hugh Ryan explores the crisis and reconstructs the lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a unique case for prison abolition.

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