The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

While this book is ostensibly about the New York City Women’s House of Detention, Greenwich Village’s forgotten queer landmark, it is also about so much more. Historian Ryan (When Brooklyn Was Queer) contextualizes the notorious prison, which stood from 1929 to 1974, in the realms of criminology, queer theory, women’s history, geography, and many other disciplines. Ryan’s book relies on extensive archival research, especially with the Women’s Prison Association, and engagement with other primary sources; the oral histories, historical and contemporary, that he cites particularly stand out. Ryan describes the Women’s House of Detention as a grueling place—overcrowded and neglected—whose residents (cisgender women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people) were denigrated by nearly all elements of society; the fact that many were held or convicted on sexual offenses only led to further opprobrium. Many of these people were queer; some were famous. Organized chronologically, Ryan’s book integrates interesting academic studies and provokes readers to view the prison in its larger sociocultural context. His lucid writing takes the book out of the academic realm of prison history and opens it to a wider readership that will find many insights relevant to contemporary incarceration.