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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.

E
Ercole Morreti
Released
Ercole Morreti was one of the Cheswick protest defendants whose Oakmont hearing before Justice of the Peace Bl...
A
Aaron Morton
Released
Marshall identifies Morton as a Maytown, Lancaster County brickmaker and former Union volunteer. He had been d...
C
Caleb Mountz
Released
Caleb Mountz was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the W...
B
Benjamin Moye
Released
Benjamin Moye was a co-editor of the Harrisburger Morgenrothe, also recorded as Benjamin Moyer or Benjamin May...
F
Frank Mozer
Frank Mozer was a Communist candidate for governor arrested at a Philadelphia waterfront meeting organized by...
J
John Munn
Released
John Munn was one of twenty men arrested during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania and marched in c...
J
Joe Murphy (Washington County organizer)
Joe Murphy was the Communist Party section organizer in Washington County, Pennsylvania, for about six months...
T
Tom Myerscough
Released
Tom Myerscough, also known as Thomas Myerscough, was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1891. He worked in...
T
Thomas Nabried
Released
Thomas Nabried was one of nine Communist Party organizers prosecuted in the Philadelphia Smith Act case. A jur...
C
Charles Nemitz
Charles Nemitz was a striking miner from Nanticoke. The Daily Worker, February 21, 1935, page 2, continuing a...
S
Santiago Nieves Marzán
Released
Santiago Nieves Marzán was a Puerto Rican Nationalist prosecuted with Julio Pinto Gandía and other independenc...
X
Xavier Nolley-Hall
Released
Xavier Nolley-Hall, 20, was with Raphael Shaw entering the West Philadelphia Wells Fargo with intent to steal...
J
John Novak
The Chester February 11 dispatch individually names them among three workers arrested the preceding day for sp...
S
Samuel Nye
Released
Samuel Nye was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the Whi...
C
Casper Oberstadt
Released
Casper Oberstadt was listed in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecut...
A
Andy Ogando
Released
Andy Ogando was a union steelworker arrested during the 1937 Little Steel strike against Bethlehem Steel's Cam...
S
Stephen Olshefski
Stephen Olshefski was a 30-year-old grievance committeeman of the United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania loc...
A
Andrew Onda
Released
Andrew Onda was a western Pennsylvania Communist Party organizer prosecuted under both Pennsylvania’s state se...
R
Richard Panza
Richard Panza, a Harmar Township farmer, was jailed for refusing a $51 wage-tax payment he called unconstituti...
G
George Papcum
George Papcum, also printed Papcun, was a Young Workers League organizer born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The J...
B
Benjamin Parkinson
Released
Benjamin Parkinson was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of...
W
William Parson
Released
William Parson was a Slovan striker shot in the arm and arrested during the National Miners' Union coal strike...
J
John Patsik
Truck driver John Patsik was beaten with blackjacks and arrested with ILD organizer Fred Bell at the Blawnox w...
T
Thomas Patterson
Released
Thomas Patterson was named in the later exile records as one of the men sent to Virginia with the Philadelphia...

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