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Ohio
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 Ohio.
195Documented
3In custody
189Released
Eras of repression in Ohio
Where Ohio’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 54
1950s 31
1800s 30
2020s 26
1930s 14
2010s 9
Documented cases
195 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
D
DeCourcy Squire
Released
A Quaker antiwar activist and former Antioch College student from Cincinnati, known for a lengthy jail hunger...
M
Marshall Stanley
Released
Marshall Stanley was a conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for ref...
J
Joe Stern
Released
Joe Stern was cited for contempt of the Ohio un-American activities commission in 1954. He was fined $500 and...
S
Shorty Stevenson
Released
Shorty Stevenson was a Steel Workers' Organizing Committee leader arrested with roughly 200 strikers on June 2...
G
George S. Studebaker
Released
George S. Studebaker was a Church of the Brethren conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War...
L
Levi S. Swartzendruber
Released
Levi S. Swartzendruber was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. Court-m...
I
Ignatz Szteklek
Released
Ignatz Szteklek was a conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refu...
A
Alfred Thomas
Released
Co-defendant of Fred Ahmed Evans in the Glenville Shootout — the July 23, 1968 armed confrontation in the Glen...
M
Mourad Topalian
Released
Mourad Topalian, 57, suspected leader of the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG), was sentenced...
M
Mary Topovich
Released
Mary Topovich of Cleveland was a foreign-born radical arrested for deportation in a November 1953 McCarran-Wal...
H
Harry E. Townsley
Released
Harry E. Townsley, a Socialist from Columbus, Ohio, was convicted for distributing literature against the draf...
D
David A. Troyer
Released
David A. Troyer was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. Court-martiale...
C
Caroline F. Urie
Released
Caroline F. Urie was an elderly Quaker who for years refused to pay the war portion of her federal income tax....
D
Dominick Venturato
Released
Dominick Venturato was imprisoned at Ohio State Prison as a class-war prisoner supported by the International...
L
Loring Wadsworth
Released
Loring Wadsworth was a Wellington, Ohio man among the twenty committed to the Cuyahoga County Jail for the 185...
O
Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall
Released
Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall, a Black shoemaker in Oberlin, Ohio and brother-in-law of John Mercer Langston (l...
D
David Watson
Released
David Watson, a Black Oberlin, Ohio resident, was one of the twenty men committed to the Cuyahoga County Jail...
J
John Watson
Released
John Watson, a Black grocer and confectioner in Oberlin, Ohio, was one of the twenty men committed to the Cuya...
R
Rolla L. Wenger
Released
Rolla L. Wenger was a Church of the Brethren conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. C...
R
Rev. Walter A. Werth
Released
Rev. Walter A. Werth, a Lutheran pastor from Winesburg, Ohio, was sentenced to two years in prison. He served...
J
James West
Released
James West was a Communist Party figure named in the 1957 Cleveland Taft-Hartley 'conspiracy' indictment as ha...
E
Edward Wilke
Released
Edward Wilke was a conscientious objector from Ohio imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refusin...
D
Daniel Williams
Released
Daniel Williams, a Black Oberlin, Ohio resident, was one of the twenty men committed to the Cuyahoga County Ja...
R
Richard Winsor
Released
Richard Winsor, an Oberlin College student (indicted under the misstated name "Robert Windsor"), was one of th...
Institutions in Ohio
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Ohio that appear in the census’s case files.
Summit County JailAkron, Ohio
12 cases
U.S. District Court, Northern District of OhioCleveland, Ohio
4 cases
Licking County JailNewark, Ohio
3 cases
Elkton FCILisbon, Ohio
2 cases
Ohio State PenitentiaryYoungstown, Ohio
2 cases
Mansfield Youth Center
2 cases
Canton WorkhouseCanton, Ohio
2 cases
Kemper Barracks military prisonCincinnati, Ohio
1 case