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Podcast: New Books in Women's History
Episode: Hugh Ryan, "The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison" (Bold Type Books, 2022)
Description: The Women’s House of Detention stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village from 1929 to 1974. Throughout its history, it was a nexus for tens of thousands of women, trans men, and gender nonconforming people. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were detained for the crimes of being poor or gender nonconforming. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. In The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison (Bold Type Boo...