The 12-story Women’s House of Detention, situated in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City, from 1932 to 1974, was central to the queer history of The Village. The House of D, as it was known, housed such inmates as Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur, Andrea Dworkin, and Valerie Solanas, and was formative in their thinking and writing. On the night of the Stonewall Riots, the incarcerated women and transmaculaine people in the House of D, a few hundred feet away from The Stonewall Inn, joined in, chanting “Gay power!” and lighting their possessions on fire and throwing them out the windows onto the street in solidarity.
Joining me now to help us understand more about the Women’s House of Detention and its role in queer history is historian and writer Hugh Ryan, author of the 2022 book, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Women’s House of Detention, Jefferson Market Courthouse, View Northwest from West 8th Street, at Sixth and Greenwich Avenues, 1943,” Municipal Archives, Department of Public Works Collection.
Additional Sources:
“Prison Memoirs: The New York Women’s House of Detention,” by Angela Davis,The Village Voice, Originally published October 10, 1974.
“The Women’s House of Detention,” by Sarah Bean Apmann, Village Preservation, January 29, 2018.
“Women’s House of Detention,” 1931-1974, by Joan Nestle, Out History, Historical Musings 2008.
“'The Women's House of Detention' Illuminates a Horrific Prison That 'Helped Define Queerness for America',” by Gabrielle Bruney, Jezebel, May 9, 2022.
“Site of the Women's House of Detention (1932-1974),” by Rebecca Woodham and Clio Admin,” Clio: Your Guide to History. February 26, 2021.
“The Queer History of the Women’s House of Detention,” by Hugh Ryan, The Activist History Review, May 31, 2019.
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Episode link: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/house-of-detention
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