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Pennsylvania

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Pennsylvania.

836Documented
12In custody
544Released
4Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Pennsylvania

Where Pennsylvania’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 257 1700s 79 1910s 76 1920s 72 1960s 69 1800s 59

Documented cases

836 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

D
David Bolton
Released
David Bolton was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the W...
W
William Bonham
Released
William Bonham was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the...
P
Peter Bonsavage
Peter Bonsavage was a 25-year-old active member of the United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania local at Numbe...
T
Tom Borich
Released
Tom Borich was listed on the ILD's 1932 winter-relief roster of Western Pennsylvania class-war prisoners — coa...
L
Louis Borno
Louis Borno was arrested by Bethlehem police while leaving a restaurant during Metal Workers Industrial League...
W
William Boss
Released
William Boss was listed among imprisoned draft and conscientious resisters in contemporary CCCO reports from 1...
H
Harry Boswell
Released
Harry Boswell was a coal striker arrested during the Westland march in western Pennsylvania in 1931. State pol...
B
Benjamin Boyer
Marshall names Benjamin Boyer in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsylvania...
G
George Boyer
Marshall names George Boyer in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsylvania....
J
Joe Bracco
Joe Bracco was one of the ten Cheswick defendants individually named in Vern Smith’s retrospective article in...
C
Cheryl Branch
In Exile
Cheryl Branch and her husband Theodore traveled from Pennsylvania to the Soviet Union as tourists in November...
T
Theodore Branch
In Exile
Theodore Branch and his wife Cheryl traveled from Pennsylvania to the Soviet Union as tourists in November 198...
S
Steve Bratich
Released
Steve Bratich was the fourth defendant in the Woodlawn (Aliquippa), Pennsylvania sedition case, a group of Com...
S
Sophie Braverman
Sophie Braverman was one of six anti-fascist pickets jailed after a Free Thaelmann demonstration before the Ge...
P
Patrick Brennan
Patrick Brennan was a thirty-four-year-old Wilkes-Barre labor organizer, a former ILGWU organizer and member o...
M
Marko Brigish
Marko Brigish was arrested with organizer Joe Murphy in a police raid on a National Miners Union committee mee...
J
Joe Brill
The February 11 Philadelphia dispatch reports their arrest that morning while speaking at the unemployed meeti...
E
Edith Briscoe
Edith Briscoe was elected youth organizer at the October 18, 1931 Pittsburgh district steelworkers’ conference...
L
Louis Briskey
Louis Briskey, 22, was arrested during a Pittsburgh taxi-strike clash reported January 29. No exact admission...
J
James Brislin
James Brislin was a 28-year-old compensation secretary of the United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania local a...
E
Emma Brletic
Released
Emma Brletic participated in the 1933 Ambridge steel strike in Pennsylvania. She was convicted of inciting to...
A
Albert Brown
Released
Albert Brown was arrested with Anna Burlak in the 1929 red raid on a May-Day meeting of the Ukrainian Workingm...
E
Elijah Brown
Released
Elijah Brown was a Philadelphia Quaker shopkeeper and conveyancer and the father of the novelist Charles Brock...
G
George Brown (Pittsburgh eviction defense, 1931)
George Brown was a young Black worker in Pittsburgh. Carl Price’s account in the Daily Worker, July 25, 1931,...

Institutions in Pennsylvania

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Pennsylvania that appear in the census’s case files.

Fort MifflinPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
48 cases
Allegheny County WorkhouseBlawnox, Pennsylvania
34 cases
Walnut Street JailPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
20 cases
Philadelphia GaolPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
18 cases
United States Penitentiary, LewisburgLewisburg, Pennsylvania
14 cases
Butler County PrisonButler, Pennsylvania
11 cases
FCI AllenwoodWhite Deer, Pennsylvania
10 cases
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas / SCI Pennsylvania state prisonsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
9 cases