The Women's House of Detention
A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison
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Narrated by:
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Janet Metzger
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By:
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Hugh Ryan
About this listen
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 more: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.
Winner, 2023 Stonewall Book Award—Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book Award
CrimeReads, Best True Crime Books of the Year
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- The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion
- By: Janet Reitman
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.
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My cup of tea.
- By MWMcCabe on 08-09-11
By: Janet Reitman
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Putin Country
- A Journey into the Real Russia
- By: Anne Garrels
- Narrated by: Anne Garrels
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia, Garrels crafts an intimate portrait of the nation's heartland. We meet ostentatious mafiosos, upwardly mobile professionals, impassioned activists, scheming taxi drivers with dark secrets, and beleaguered steel workers. We discover surprising subcultures, like the LGBT residents of Chelyablinsk who bravely endure an upsurge in homophobia fueled by Putin's rhetoric of Russian "moral superiority" yet still nurture a vibrant if clandestine community of their own.
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Interesting dive into Russia today
- By Keith on 03-25-16
By: Anne Garrels
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No Escape
- The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs
- By: Nury Turkel
- Narrated by: Stewart Lang
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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Powerfully Provocative
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-22
By: Nury Turkel
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The Story of Jane
- The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service
- By: Laura Kaplan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1997, The Story of Jane recounts the evolution of Jane, the underground group in Chicago that performed abortion services before the procedure was legalized. An extraordinary history by one of its members, this is the first account of Jane's evolution, the conflicts within the group, and the impact its work had both on the women it helped and the members themselves.
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Will we need Jane again?
- By kate2010 on 10-28-20
By: Laura Kaplan
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The Eternal Nazi
- From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim
- By: Nicholas Kulish, Souad Mekhennet
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a devastating mark. According to the testimony of survivors, Heim euthanized patients with injections of gasoline into their hearts. He performed surgeries on otherwise healthy people. Some recalled prisoners' skulls set out on his desk to display perfect sets of teeth. Yet in the chaos of the postwar period, Heim was able to slip away from his dark past and establish himself as a reputable doctor and family man in the resort town of Baden-Baden.
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Not certain about this one...
- By Nancy on 11-24-22
By: Nicholas Kulish, and others
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Locking Up Our Own
- Crime and Punishment in Black America
- By: James Forman Jr.
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.
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Outstanding Book
- By Andrew on 12-13-17
By: James Forman Jr.
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Damnation Island
- Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York
- By: Stacy Horn
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Today it is known as Roosevelt Island. In 1828, when New York City purchased this narrow, two-mile-long island in the East River, it was called Blackwell's Island. There, over the next hundred years, the city would build a lunatic asylum, prison, hospital, workhouse, and almshouse. Stacy Horn has crafted a compelling and chilling narrative told through the stories of the poor souls sent to Blackwell's, as well as the period's city officials, reformers, and journalists (including the famous Nellie Bly). Damnation Island re-creates what daily life was like on the island....
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Fascinating!
- By tamborine on 08-06-18
By: Stacy Horn
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Malcolm X
- A Life of Reinvention
- By: Manning Marable
- Narrated by: G. Valmont Thomas
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Of the great figure in 20th-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age 39. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man.
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invites further reading on Malcolm X
- By connie on 05-14-11
By: Manning Marable
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In Our Backyard
- Human Trafficking in America and What We Can Do to Stop It
- By: Nita Belles
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Human trafficking is not just something that happens in other countries. Nor is it something that just happens to "other people," such as runaways or the disenfranchised. Even kids in your own neighborhood can fall victim. But they don't have to.
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A good entry to learning about HT
- By Justicepirate on 12-05-16
By: Nita Belles
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When They Call You a Terrorist
- A Black Lives Matter Memoir
- By: Patrisse Cullors, asha bandele, Angela Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Angela Davis - foreword, Angela Davis, Patrisse Cullors
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When They Call You a Terrorist is the essential audiobook for every conscientious American. From one of the cofounders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic audiobook memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love.
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Everyone should listen!
- By Mary J. Bunker on 01-26-18
By: Patrisse Cullors, and others
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Unspeakable
- The Story of Junius Wilson
- By: Susan Burch, Hannah Joyner
- Narrated by: Corey Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Junius Wilson (1908-2001) spent 76 years at a state mental hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina, including 6 in the criminal ward. He had never been declared insane by a medical professional or found guilty of any criminal charge. But he was deaf and Black in the Jim Crow South. Unspeakable is the story of his life.
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Nuanced look at a complicated case of injustice
- By Karla on 08-06-24
By: Susan Burch, and others
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The Savage City
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
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In the early 1960s, uncertainty and menace gripped New York, crystallizing in a poisonous divide between a deeply corrupt, cynical, and racist police force, and an African American community buffeted by economic distress, brutality, and narcotics. On August 28, 1963 - the day Martin Luther King Jr. declared "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial - two young white women were murdered in their Manhattan apartment. Dubbed the Career Girls Murders case, the crime sent ripples of fear throughout the city, as police scrambled fruitlessly for months to find the killer.
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I Highly Recommend This Book!
- By R on 05-15-13
By: T. J. English
What listeners say about The Women's House of Detention
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-20-22
As promised, a stunner of a book.
Rave reviews by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, smart magazines, and scholars all agreed. The book is one of those rare cross-genre works of impeccable research that reads like a page-turning best-seller you just can’t put down. Metzger’s reading is on key, her intonations in tune with the outrageous history of this notorious jail, balancing sympathetic notes in providing the stories of women whose lives were marred not only within its walls but by aftereffects for years.
Who knew there was a time in New York when police cracked down hard on women for the crime of wearing pants? Hugh Ryan has brought to light in stunning detail a slew of societal crimes committed through generations by a homophobic and misogynistic culture. Everyone who cares about human rights and government-sponsored cruelty and bigotry should read this book, as well as those concerned about flaws in the justice system in America.
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- Timothy D. McMath
- 07-13-22
A moving history of a forgotten women’s prison
Ryan tells the story of the Women’s House of Detention, a prison that was in the center of Greenwich Village for most of the 20th century. Along the way, he tells the surprisingly moving and queer story of incarcerated women in our criminal legal system. I learned a lot but was never bored.
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- Jillian
- 01-15-24
Thought provoking and Important
An important book about Queer history and the incarceration of women and trans masculine people. Overall it’s a stunning book, but painful topic to read and explore.
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- Robert F. Madaras
- 04-04-23
Illuminating.
I learned so much. Read this to understand the black and gay rights movements. Loved the book
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- Andy
- 10-23-24
Every Queer Woman and Trans Masc should read
It is the history of our people. Surviving the best way they knew how. There is a depth, richness and complexity to our history. Understanding it is so grounding.
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- JP
- 12-19-23
essential herstory!
incredible insights into a chapter in Greenwich Village history that demands to be studied and not forgotten. also a vital part of US carceral system and queer relationships and development of identity
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- Oliver
- 07-03-22
absolutely stunning
this book, was enthralling. I found it entirely engaging and it left me wanting more history on the women and trans mascs of Greenwich village.
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- Madrona Bellerose
- 05-24-22
very interesting
a good lesson in queer history before the Stonewall riots. I am glad I picked up this book after the NPR interview.
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- Shana
- 06-24-22
excellent excellent book
The information presented was thorough and captivating. I will recommend to others queer and straight alike
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- maria Martinez
- 02-23-23
Moving and an important education for all
This book changed my view of New York landscape and I will forever view with deference and respect my elder queer sisters of Greenwich Village . Women House of Detention is reflection of chilling, forgotten history that need to be told to everyone and not cemented over . History does repeat itself .
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