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Iowa
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 Iowa.
41Documented
1In custody
37Released
Eras of repression in Iowa
Where Iowa’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 16
1800s 5
2020s 4
1980s 4
2000s 3
1930s 3
Documented cases
41 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
C
Carl Martin
Released
Carl Martin was one of the 'Sioux City six' — Communists seized in Sioux City, Iowa in September 1939 and char...
D
Dr. Walter A. Matthey
Released
Dr. Walter A. Matthey, a Davenport, Iowa physician, helped arrange a July 25, 1917 meeting at which Daniel H....
H
Henry H. Miller
Released
Henry H. Miller was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Iowa imprisoned during World War I. Court-martiale...
R
Richard Miller
Released
Richard Miller was engaged in work with the poor in Des Moines, Iowa, at the time of his solo Pantex action. H...
W
Walter W. Oliver
Released
Walter W. Oliver was a World War I conscientious objector who refused military service and was court-martialed...
P
Peter Rasmussen
Released
Peter Rasmussen was a conscientious objector from Iowa imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refu...
J
Joseph Selzer
Released
Joseph Selzer appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions a...
E
Edward T. Sheldon
Released
Edward Thompson Sheldon was an Underground Railroad operative in southwest Iowa. In February 1860 he and Newto...
S
Stephen L. Smith
Released
A University of Iowa student who burned his draft card on October 20, 1965, at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa...
L
Laro Sorenson
Released
Laro Sorenson was a conscientious objector from Iowa imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refusi...
B
Bernard Stenzel
Released
Bernard Stenzel, from Dubuque, Iowa, began serving a prison sentence in Leavenworth Penitentiary on May 2, 191...
L
Lee E. Swartzendruber
Released
Lee E. Swartzendruber was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Iowa imprisoned during World War I. Court-ma...
B
Brian Terrell
Released
Brian Terrell is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and lives at the Strangers and Guests Catho...
J
John Volpe
Released
John Volpe was a father and member of the Davenport Catholic Worker in Iowa. Published Plowshares chronologies...
D
Daniel H. Wallace
Released
Daniel H. Wallace was arrested under the Espionage Act for delivering a speech critical of World War I before...
F
Frank Wensil
Released
Frank Wensil, an fWW organizer and a delegate from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in...
W
W. Theo. Woodward
Released
W. Theo. Woodward appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutio...
Institutions in Iowa
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Iowa that appear in the census’s case files.
Iowa Department of Corrections
2 cases
U.S. District Court, Cedar RapidsCedar Rapids, Iowa
1 case