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

by Hugh Ryan

This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century. The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. Historian Hugh Ryan explores the roots of this crisis and reconstructs the little-known lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a uniquely queer case for prison abolition—and demonstrating that by queering the Village, the House of D helped defined queerness for the rest of America. From the lesbian communities forged through the Women’s House of Detention to the turbulent prison riots that presaged Stonewall, this is the story of one building and much the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.

Winner, 2023 Stonewall Book Award—Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book AwardCrimeReads, Best True Crime Books of the Year

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Queer, LGBT, Feminism, Politics, Social Justice

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2022

About the author

Hugh Ryan is a writer and curator. His new book, THE WOMEN'S HOUSE OF DETENTION, is a queer history of the prison that was once in Greenwich Village. His first book, WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER, won a 2020 New York City Book Award, was a New York Times Editors' Choice in 2019, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. He was honored with the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association, and residencies or fellowships from Yaddo, The Watermill Center, the NYPL, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2019-2021, he worked on the Hidden Voices: LGBTQ+ Stories in U.S. History curricular materials for the NYC Department of Education.

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Necessary reading for all butches, femmes, feminists, lesbians, and prison abolitionists. A history unlike any other that examines a space in Greenwich Village that has been taken over by the rich and propertied, which once belonged to the working class queer women and trans people who congregated there. Thoroughly researched with fascinating historical documents examined all throughout, this book should be on every queer American history course syllabus. From the 1940s prostitutes to the big name activists like Angela Davis and Andrea Dworkin, Hugh Ryan tracks the lives and loves of the women and transmasculine people whose lives were shaped by the House of D. Thank you to my friend Ripley who recommended this book, and Stephen Spotswood’s Dead In The Frame, both things that compelled me to finally listen to the prison documentation of all the women and queers who’ve fallen through the cracks of history.

[Sarah Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly radical, moral and exciting history that will blow your mind. Ryan argues that it was the creation of a women's prison in the West Village, that helped center lesbian life in that area. Since lesbians are poorer (no men's incomes), de facto marginalized, and more often deprived of family support, lesbians and queer women and trans men have always been over-represented in prisons. Using records documenting poor, white, Black, and Latina women incarcerated for criminalized lives, Ryan shows us the profound injustice of prisons themselves, and how lesbians have been demeaned and yet tried to survive. The book ends with queer takes on Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur, and Angela Davis, all of whom were incarcerated at #10 Greenwich. A game changer from a community-based historian.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first glance, this seems like a narrow focus typical of a very academic book. But as each chapter looks at the prison through the decades, we see how this is a microcosm of broad social issues at the time. The story of The Women’s House of Detention is the story of LGBTQ liberation, and it also illustrates how prison abolition is a necessity.

Since each chapter focuses on personal stories as a window into the lives of queer women and transmasculine people during that time period in New York, it makes this accessible and readable. We also get a look into queer communities in each decade, including how the people in The Women’s House of Detention participated in Stonewall and previous protests, even if few people saw or heard about it.

I haven’t read as much queer history as I would like, but this is one of my favourite books I’ve read on the topic, and I highly recommend it. The discussion about prison abolition versus reform is relevant to the conversations we’re having today, and seeing a timeline of how this push and pull has played out over a 50-year time period is helpful background. Both for the personal stories and the overall message, you should definitely pick this one up.

Full review at the Lesbrary.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugh Ryan's The Women's House of Detention is a little bite of queer history that opened my eyes to a whole world I didn’t know existed.

The "Women's House of D" was constructed in Greenwich Village in New York City at the twilight of the Great Depression. From the beginning this jail acted as an avatar for the push and pull of prison reformers fighting institutional governments: the jails 400-bed capacity would be overwhelmed continuously throughout the life of the jail. In the 50 years that the Women's House of D. stood in the middle of the (queer) cultural capital of the world - Greenwich Village -, and it would host sex workers, drug addicts, Angela Davis, butches, femmes, and everyone in between. And in playing host to these victims of a violently inequitable society, Greenwich Village and a women's jail would become intertwined playing a central role in the development of radical queer politics, the Black Panthers, and Stonewall.

In The Women's House of Detention Hugh Ryan establishes himself as an essential queer historian not only because of his impressive archival knowledge and well-written prose, but because he is able to spot pieces of queer history that lay under layers of dust, forgotten by most. A book about the queer history of a women's prison is just such a perfect project for Ryan. For lovers of queer history, feminist history, legal history, and stories of fighting against the carceral system: don't miss one of the best nonfiction reads of 2022.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Greenwich Village, which was, throughout the twentieth century, the epicenter of women's incarceration in New York, and the epicenter of queer life in America. These two histories twine around each other like grape vines—twisting, interconnecting, and reinforcing one another, until it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins."

A breathtaking and exhaustingly researched look into the history of Greenwich Village's Women House of Detention over its 44-year history.

Did you know that fingerprinting was pioneered on sex workers, and that's why it was so easy to track their past convictions and punish them more harshly?

Did you know that prisoners released from prison left with only a dime, then a quarter, and now a whopping $40 to their name, unless they had a savings account somewhere?

Did you know that white middle-class women were the leading users of opiates through the early 1900s?

Did you know that in 1927, the Supreme Court authorized the forcible sterilization of people considered "unfit to procreate," which impacted over 70,000 women in America?

Did you know that women entering the House of D were forced to undergo a brutal vaginal exam and enema that left them with physical scars and mental trauma?

Did you know that the House of D was literally a stone's throw away from Stonewall, and that during the big Stonewall Riots the women imprisoned there also rioted for gay rights?

Did you know that not having enough furniture could be considered an acceptable reason to be kicked out of public housing?

Did you know that today about 55% of juvenile detainees are rearrested within a year of release?

Did you know that 1931 was the most active year for skyscapers being built in NYC? A whopping 32!

I highlighted so many parts of this book.

"In the eyes of the law, men were people and women were vehicles for the creation of people and the temptation of man."

"Our criminal justice system punishes white men for what they have done, and everyone else for what they might do to white men."

"Each woman had her complaints dismissed for one reason or another: she was an addict; she was a whore; she had a record the length of my arm. The city seemed to require a perfect victim, one who could not be silenced, swept aside, or deemed to have deserved the treatment she got."

"But to look at prisons historically is to see a monstrously efficient system, doing exactly what it was designed to do: hide every social problem we refuse to deal with."

"These are the questions abolitionists ask: who is harmed, who is cared for, and where is the state putting its thumb on the scale?"

[Nev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just give me all the queer history books. I really enjoyed Hugh Ryan’s previous book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, so I was excited to learn that he was publishing another book in the same vein. The Women’s House of Detention traces the history of the prison of the same name that was in use in Greenwich Village from 1929 through 1974. The book shows the horrors of what went on in the facility, mostly through the eyes of the queer women and transmasc people who were imprisoned there.

This book was an excellent mix of learning about the lives of queer people in the early 20th century in New York and also learning about the injustices that they faced in the legal system and the harsh ways they were treated after being released. The archives and files that Hugh Ryan had access to provided so much information into the lives of everyday people and not just famous women who were able to publish their own books about their experiences.

It was illuminating to read about the ties between the prison and the Black Panthers, feminist, and the gay liberation movements and how women like Angela Davis and Afeni Shakur were impacted by their time in the House of D. Also, learning about how the prison was just down the street from the Stonewall Inn and that the people inside the prison rioted alongside the people at Stonewall was fascinating.

I feel like anyone interested in queer history or learning more about how awful the prison and criminal legal systems are should read this book. It doesn’t shy away from showing the true horrors in these institutions. And while the book is mainly focused on the past, Hugh Ryan does include facts about how many of the issues at the House of D are still issues that people face today.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Tamara-Jo Schaapherder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful wonderful book! Truly has been taking up quite a large segment of my brain since I finished it. One thing that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is the very intentional modern day construction of prisons in rural areas as a means of limiting the witnesses to the violence and negligence we inflict on incarcerated people. This placement is often framed as an effort to make it “safer” for surrounding populations by not building them in densely populated areas BUT the impact of the prison riots on the consciousness and popular culture of the surrounding community in New York when this prison was used shows that it was never about protecting anyone but rather about hiding the cruelty of incarceration. Anyways, been thinking a lot about Clarinda and my role as a free citizen of a prison town :(

[Leah Tyler]

From 1929 to 1974, there was a prison in Greenwich Village called The Women's House of Detention. Ryan opens up the records and inflates the history of the people housed there into stories about human beings.

"To look at prisons historically is to see a monstrously efficient system doing exactly what it was designed to do, hide every social problem we refuse to deal with."

Once again I learned astronomical truths about the history of my country and how we got into the mess we're in today. Ryan doesn't just recreate human stories, he builds the ethos of the times and wow did we do a doozy on our citizens after World War II. The propaganda machine of the American 1950s linked communism with queerness and the "lavender scare" became a whole new way to punish people for stepping outside the established norms.

Women were arrested for prostitution, not men, because it was the offer of sex that was illegal. Not the act. Women with STDs were arrested and imprisoned to prevent the spread to men.

Ryan effectively demonstrates how easy it was for a woman to slip through the cracks of society, and once she did it was nearly impossible to crawl out from the underbelly.

"Three interrelated forces would dominate and ultimately ruin Anne's life. The stigma of her incarceration, the lack of treatment for her mental health, and her inability to find and keep a good job."

The conditions in the prison were atrocious. The physical exam the women were subjected to was abuse. It was illegal to prescribe drugs to an addict so the addicted we're forced to go cold turkey, yet everyone was drugged with excessive amounts of thorazine.

Yes this was a hard book. It's a hard history to learn. An even harder one to have survived. Now a private park and a plaque memorialize this prison, the relic of a system far more interested in punishment than reform.

[bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

incredibly annoying read, in that i want all the information, and the narrative voice delivering it is beyond grating-- incurious, unfunny, preaching when none is needed, when the history and the women and trans people's stories themselves are producing the arguments, if one could only stand back and let their picture form. there's a bit where he clarifies from one given line of supporting text that a historic and, to his mind, good social worker is critically EMpathetic rather than SYMpathetic-- what is this, 2010 tumblr? is this the analysis? i really hadn't pinpointed before reading this, particularly in juxtaposition with "let the record show," how specific is a certain kind of smug, grasping, don't-you-dare-interpret-this-the-wrong-way online millennial political voice that writes, more than anything else, from both exceeding caution and exceeding certainty. all that to say: you, senator,

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the running for my favorite non-fiction book of the year. Anyone can write a book about a subject everyone already knows about - what Hugh Ryan has proven he is so passionate about and adept at, first with When Brooklyn Was Queer and now with The Women’s House of Detention, is exploring the forgotten but essential pieces of New York City’s queer history.

This book is as much an exploration of the prison itself and the people who populated it as it is a narrative about our country‘s broader criminal “justice” system and its relationship to race, gender, and sexuality. Mere feet away from the Stonewall Inn on the night of what is known as the birth of the modern gay rights movement, The Women’s House of Detention was a much earlier intersection of many of the overlooked people to whom today’s queer community owes their fragile rights. A must-read for queer New Yorkers and NYC history buffs!

[josie · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully researched and written, just a really stunning example of a seemingly narrow focus telling a story much, much larger than a single space. the last few chapters were a little lacking for me — would have liked more context on other prison riots, incoming fiscal crisis in NYC, etc — but a gem nonetheless

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

Incredibly informative. Every bit of our queer history that's not lost to time is a gift.
That being said, the structure and form of this wasn't outstanding. The writing wasn't particularly impactful or beautiful.

The special part of Women's House of Detention is our history and our elders honoured.

content warnings:
Graphic: Confinement, Homophobia, Medical trauma, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, and Classism

[Lüdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like a new gut punch every single paragraph. Hugh Ryan has become one of my favorite authors through this and his other book, When Brooklyn was Queer. I am so grateful to him for sharing the story of the women and trans masc people whose history has been forgotten and purposefully erased.

While this book is heavy, it is also compelling and easy to read. Highly recommend, even to people who don't enjoy non-fiction.

[Claire Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars! incredibly eye opening and heartbreaking account of a place i never knew existed, let alone knew what it meant to queer history. the only thing that would have made this 5 stars for me is if i had a personal knowledge of greenwich village and queer life in new york today, but having never been it was hard for me to understand thoroughly the culture there.

will recommend this book to everyone!

[Candace Ladd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow. Should be required reading, especially for anyone in the prison abolition, social work, or public health spaces.

[cacio e petal · Rating 2 out of 5]

i broke my rule about not reading any men in 2022 for this book, it wasn't worth it. i really enjoyed reading about the lives of queer women from pre world war two, especially the narratives reconstructed from WPA documents, and the first two thirds or so of the final chapter "gay lib and black power" was excellent. but most of the analysis from the author was uninteresting, and felt like stuff i already knew, understood, and agreed with. he quotes Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, and Virginia McManus repeatedly in this book, and i wish i'd been reading them instead of this.

edt: a year later eye remember t more fondly than eye expected; +1 star

[sydney s · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think people are scared to be critical because of the subject matter but I have no issue doing so. Really fascinating premise (in general but also to me specifically as a Black nonbinary lesbian who will probably work in criminal defense), but the most revelatory/interesting parts of this book are the quotations from other sources….sad. The narrator’s voice borders on infantilizing at certain moments and the chronological structure works against the book. Being presented with like 20+ mini-biographies and then being expected to actively recall who was where and when does not work without a central voice or thesis anchoring everything together, and Hugh Ryan has neither the voice nor the thesis. The microhistory structure also makes it difficult to care about any individual specifically because you know another 10 names will be thrown at you after until the book reaches an abrupt end.

The last three post-1950s chapters were by far the best and I appreciated how he discussed the arbitrariness of what constitutes criminality, and how this has changed over time. However, I learned a dissatisfying amount about the queer experience in prison, with most of my “takeaways” being emotional generalizations about queerness and marginality rather than concrete/specific information about the time periods - even though Ryan clearly has access to a good amount of sources (relative to the subject matter). I feel bad saying this because Ryan is clearly a leftist of some kind but his writing just oozes 2016 Tumblr Democrat too often. I enjoyed this read because prison abolition and racial/queer justice are highly important to me. But I could see it feeling meandering or incoherent to others. If interested, I would genuinely recommend trying to find his sources, especially for the interviews, before reading the book.

[Benjamin Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a titan of a book detailing queer history through the lens of women & GNC AFAB people - truly eye-opening & gave a much more rounded view of 20th century gay NYC

[Emily Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Desire is like a river. Build a dam, try to stop it- maybe you buy yourself a few decades. But the water is waiting, and one day, it will rise.”

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautifully written and incredibly researched exploration of a women’s prison that, until 1971, sat in the center of Greenwich Village. But it’s also so much more than that. This is a book about queer women and transmasculine individuals that shaped the queer rights movement, often without recognition. This is a book about the unique ways in which the American carceral system has always positioned itself as directly contrary to the livelihood of Black women, especially poor Black women, and especially poor Black queer women. It is also a book that tells dozens of deeply personal and inspiring stories that demonstrate how powerful queer and Black resilience can be in the face of extreme adversity.

Hugh Ryan does a wonderful job of writing a nonfiction book that is compulsively readable and accessible in its language without being overly simplistic or surface level. Most of his sources are primary sources, taken from prison archives and the records of the Women’s Prison Association, as well as a handful of personal accounts and interviews. From these records, many of them very biased and limited in their insight into these women’s lives, Ryan pulls deeply personal portrayals of the individuals housed in the Women’s House of Detention, from its inception up until its closure.

Obviously this is a heavy book, as it deals with the topic of incarceration but also related topics, such as drug addiction and mistreatment of drug users, extreme homophobia and racism, and the myriad ways in which prisons prevent rehabilitation. But as a queer woman, I found this book to be inspiring in its capacity to tell stories that often go forgotten, even within queer spaces. Ryan continually asserts that queer liberation and activism in the United States is built largely on the work of lesbians, despite the media and historical focus being primarily on gay men. There is an incredible sense of community and mutual aid depicted here, and I found myself very touched (and to be learning so much!).

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about the women’s carceral system in the United States and the history of queer women and identity in America prior to the late twentieth century, especially if you’re looking to focus on the lived experiences of real people. I think Ryan sums up the book nicely when he writes, “[The Women’s House of D] was just a cage, a collection of sticks and stones and broken bones. It was never the queer people it held, or the queer communities they created, or the queer communities they are still creating.”

[Bucketsofbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lately, since before even starting this book, I’ve been haunted thinking about how so many things are lost to history. Civilizations and art and neighborhoods and people we will just never know. It scares the hell out of me, not because I think the idea of individual legacy is important, but because I think the knowledge of how we used to live, the variety of it all and pattern of the human condition is absolutely invaluable. In a way it’s slightly reassuring, knowing that this is all ephemeral, and it puts the emphasis on the here and now just to love and be loved and work for a better world around you. But it is also scary.

And while a lot of this history is simply lost to time through no fault of any group, a large amount of it is suppressed. Much of this can be seen in urban planning, think of the disappearance of the neighborhoods that were razed to create Central Park, or the numerous towns and neighborhoods destroyed for the sake of interstate freeways, all in the name of commerce or “safety” (for the rich and white, based on nothing more than racism and classism).

This book gets to the heart of that. It is both uplifting in its reconstruction of the queer history, and terrifying in its depiction of how these things are just wiped away the second it is decided that they are too uncomfortable to think about. This history is uncovered only through chance, what if the WPA hadn’t kept records like they did, or certain prisoners weren’t compelled to write letters and tell their stories. All of this would be lost to nothing, to the suppression of the ruling class.

How much else has been lost? What else don’t we know, and likely just never will? A full Library of Alexandria full of queer history that has either been lost or willfully destroyed. We might never know how much.

Save what you can.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

4/7. This was OVERFLOWING with information, and I can't tell if it was a good thing or not. The stories from formerly incarcerated women/queer folks were scandalous to read, especially with Hugh Ryan piecing many together using nothing but old file notes.

While its intersectionality was a selling point for me (and important to many of the stories!), it also made the book quite dense. I felt like I was trying to digest historical information, dozens of names, legal details, AND messages about prison abolition, communism, systemic racism, and homophobia/transphobia all at the same time. I don't know if there would be a way to tell the story of the House of D WITHOUT all of those components, but I found myself lost along the way.

Overall, I learned a lot and this opened my eyes to a whole world of queer history for me to read up on!

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I applaud the enormous undertaking of research Hugh Ryan did in the writing of this book, which becomes a massive compilation of important, underdiscussed/unknown historical information. I did struggle with the actual reading of the book at times, though, because it is so SO dense. I'm not sure if there's a different approach one could take to writing about this subject, but it did have the same feeling of overstuffedness that I've come to expect of academic monographs.

[Sab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to know where to start with this book. Hugh Ryan uncovers a history of queer people in the NY criminal legal system that was systematically erased and rewritten and in doing so begins to share the stories of a century's worth of queer women and transmasc people. This book charts the historical formations of criminality around queerness, the evolution of the surveillance state (with roots in the policing and surveillance of queer sex workers), the tight relationship between the DSM and testing psychiatric "care" in prisons, use of prisons for STI quarantine that lay the foundations for social security (STIs were seen as a national security threat (i kid you not) and any person who could potentially be a prostitute (any women who spent time outside the home in the early 1920s were assumed to have an STI) so were sexually violated and incarcerated to quarantine from men.), and the ways criminality have always been based on race, class, and gender-noncomformity . I could go on and it feels like I am missing how powerful this book is if i do not but i want you to read it because it literally implicates so much shit in our society as a case for prison abolition and makes a pretty strong case for it.

( i go on ) The Women's House of Detention is a critical part of Queer history and Ryan did a fantastic job at comprehensively detailing the historical development of our society through the forces of white supremacy and anti-Blackness, cis-hetero patriarchy, trans and homophobia, and misogyny. If you did not already know it... the US prison systems continues to be barbaric by nature and in Ryan's writing he unfolds the ways incarcerated people found ways to survive and resist. We think of Greenwich village as the site of queer activity in the 60s around Stonewall but if not for the Women's house of D and the thousands of queer women, transmasc, and enby ppl who were pulled into the sphere of the prison this neighborhood would not be known as what its reputation offers today and stonewall may not have happened. Carcerality (specifically at the house of D ) has been a divisive and unifying force in the history of activism in the US. From the Communist party to gay liberation to the Black Panthers and anti-Vietnam war. Notable activists including Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur, Joan Bird, and Claudio Jones have all gone through this prison.

Towards the end Ryan makes a strong case against the bail system which i 10000% agreee w because the bail system as we know it is objectively fucked up because it privileges wealthy people, people with support systems that do not have stigma around incarceration, and people with secure jobs. In 1963, 60,000 people were held in maximum security prisons PRE-TRIAL because they could not afford bail. This "ruins the accused person's financial health and ability to have a fair trial" (298). Despite starting up the Manhattan Bail Project that later was adopted by the Vera Institute for Justice through which in one year a study was done where 65% of the people given bail were considered innocent and acquitted, the state soon after abandoned the program because it would mean the state would not be able to collect bails and bond — a primary source of cash flow ! In fact in 1963, the department of corrections collect $500,000 from bails and bonds at the House of D.

Ahhh (again) there is so much here i want to share but this is getting long af and you really need to read this so we can talk about it.

Hard to say I loved this book because it is dark af in the ways it describes how fucked up the criminal legal system has always been and continues to be but i love the ways that Ryan holds and shares these stories. He has a die hard commitment to telling the truth and describes it as a "daily practice, like hope or abolition". And I learned So So much from reading this and will be returning to it no doubt.

[b (tobias forge's version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Women's House of Detention is an exhaustively-researched and richly-detailed history of the eponymous women's prison that once operated in Greenwich Village, but its focus sprawls beyond the walls of the building itself as Ryan explores the lives of the cis women and trans men who passed through it. He argues convincingly that the Women's House of D served as a crucial center of queer culture in the Village, and in the process also makes the importance of prison abolition abundantly clear.

It's as fascinating, harrowing, and infuriating as you likely expect just from the subject matter. It feels very solid from an academic point of view, but Ryan's prose reads well and makes the book fine for slightly heavy pleasure reading. I have a couple of personal quibbles: The book does become a bit repetitive and I found it difficult to keep some of the individuals profiled clear in my mind, and the oft-repeated phrase "women and transmasculine people" stuck in my craw a little the way it always does when people say "women" but mean "cis women."

However, this feels like an important chronicle of queer history, and I do recommend it.

[agata · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Women’s House of Detention tells the true story of a Greenwich Village prison that held women, transgender men, and gender non-conforming people for decades. Hugh Ryan reconstructs the history of the prison and its inmates, and tells the stories of the ones who suffer the most from injustice. He gives a voice to the ones who are so often pushed to the margins of society, especially People of Color and queer people. Ryan is truly the master of rebuilding queer history from scraps and pieces of information, and presenting them in a fascinating, thought-provoking way. I loved the way he connects different threads of history - The Black Panthers, Stonewall - and weaves them together with the almost forgotten ones - like the prison itself. I was also impressed with the case Ryan makes for abolition, and I felt it worked perfectly with this book.

TLDR: The Women’s House of Detention is a brilliant glimpse at a piece of queer history that not many know about.

[Ted Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not really sure what to say about this one.

It is really good, please go read it. Actually, that's a good start. As an audiobook, this is very digestible, comprehensive and flows very well. As a book, I'm told this is a slog, detailed and packed with information. However, with the audiobook you're sacrificing comprehension for readability. I struggle now to remember all the names, dates or particular stories. I flew through the audiobook and felt it was a lot lighter than if I'd chosen to read the book.

Hugh Ryan has written a dazzling history here. Working from the archives of the Women's Prison Association, Ryan traces the history of a prison housing tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people. It stood between 1929 to 1974, in New York. There is a smattering of local politics here that was particular to New York and might be more appealing to Americans. For the most part, it is a superb approach to this type of history. Ryan is meticulous, never overstating facts where he does not have them, or guessing at people's motives or feelings without basis.

Ryan does fall on the side of more academic than popular non-fiction. It has plenty of stories, heart and intrigue, but Ryan also demonstrates an expertise in historical analysis. Therefore, it is not a light read and the subject matter will be distressing to readers. Because of the lighter audiobook format, I may well go back to this at the end of the year, to mop up the finer details I missed. Each story Ryan tells is particular and shows a new aspect to the US criminal legal system. The arguments are layered and if one had the time, a perfect reading suggestion would be to begin with the audiobook, then go over the physical copy for detail.

On the whole, it is really good, go read it. But only if you do actually like history books to begin with. This is not an introduction to the genre; it is one of its finest examples.

[Geo · Rating 5 out of 5]

it only took me this long to finish this book because i only read it on my phone during my commute. it was SUCH an interesting book. extremely informative without flowery language and with enough personal anecdotes about the women and trans masculine people it covered to feel fresh and interesting throughout. i really feel like i learned SO much about the prison system in general, especially, of course, the women’s house of detention. it makes me wanna learn more about the specific people it mentioned, especially angela davis and afeni shakur. it really emphasized that (to paraphrase a quote in the last chapter) the prison system has neither evolved nor devolved. it has just grown and grown and grown. it’s always been this bad and the only answer is abolition. gotta read more about abolition next!

[Andrew Eder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good and fine and I’m glad I read it! But I was expecting more about the inmates themselves and the relationships formed within and beyond, but it was more about the building itself, which is fine and nice! I liked the history and the role it’s played in developing the neighboring areas, especially Greenwich. It was awfully long and awfully dense, so I got winded often and had to take many breaks.

Definitely recommend for those who love nonfiction! Wouldn’t recommend it for a novice nonfiction reader because I think they’d lose interest.

[Sarah Gehres · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure how to rate this. I think it was well-written and contains extremely important information about how much prison history and queer history overlaps. However, I genuinely did not enjoy the reader in the audible—it felt like I was listening to an older documentary, and was a chore to get through. Still, I think the actual book was very good, interesting, and informative!