Skip to content
Learn More → State by State

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.

H
Hugh Sinclair Williams
Hugh Sinclair Williams was a member of the Philadelphia Black liberation group known as the Revolutionaries. H...
M
Mary Williams
Released
Mary Williams was a Philadelphia member of the International Labor Defense. Police arrested her during May 193...
J
James Wilson
Released
James Wilson was a Black Philadelphia worker imprisoned for picketing the German consulate during the campaign...
G
George Wisegarver
Released
George Wisegarver was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of...
G
George J. Wolf
Released
George J. Wolf was a conscientious objector from Pennsylvania imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed f...
S
Sol Wollin
Released
Sol Wollin was a fur workers’ organizer who joined an unemployed-workers delegation at the American Federation...
F
Frederick E. Woltman
Frederick E. Woltman was identified as Pittsburgh secretary of the American Civil Liberties Union. The Novembe...
D
David Wood
Released
David Wood appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’ 1968 lists of imprisoned draft and co...
T
Thomas Woodman
Released
Thomas Woodman was a World War II conscientious resister imprisoned at Lewisburg. He joined fellow prisoners i...
J
Joe Yelenics
Released
Joe Yelenics was arrested with Anna Burlak in the 1929 red raid on a May-Day meeting of the Ukrainian Workingm...
H
Henry Yoas
Marshall names Henry Yoas in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. Th...
L
Lawrence Young
Released
Lawrence Young was arrested during a second raid on labor and Communist offices in Scranton, Pennsylvania in J...
Z
Zaldokas
Zaldokas was arrested by Wilkes-Barre police during a textile-mill strike in the summer of 1929. Phil Frankfel...
A
Alexander Zazem
Alexander Zazem, also printed as Hazem or Sazem, was arrested while attending a Communist Party meeting in Phi...
J
John Zigon
The November 24, 1931 report individually lists this National Miners Union strike prisoner at Allegheny County...
J
John Zilic
John Zilic was an unemployed steel worker and International Labor Defense organizer. Page 3 reports his arrest...
A
Anton Zilich
Released
Anton Zilich was a Pennsylvania coal-strike defendant in the Bulger Block case. He was convicted of assault an...
O
Omar Zimmerman
Released
Omar Zimmerman appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’ 1968 lists of imprisoned draft an...
M
Morris Zucker
Released
Morris Zucker was a Socialist from Brooklyn, New York. Morris Zucker was sentenced to fifteen years in prison...
M
Manuel Ávila
Released
Manuel Ávila was a Puerto Rican Nationalist prosecuted with Julio Pinto Gandía and other party members in the...

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