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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.

840Documented
10In custody
552Released
3Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Pennsylvania

Where Pennsylvania’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 260 1700s 79 1910s 76 1920s 73 1960s 69 1800s 61

Documented cases

840 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

R
Renee Claire Blanchard
Released
Renee Claire Blanchard joined the Hatfield’s Ferry smokestack protest against the Bush administration’s energy...
I
Israel Blankenstein
Released
Israel Blankenstein was an organizer for the Communist Party prosecuted in Pennsylvania for underground Commun...
B
Bruna Blaques
Bruna Blaques was named among three people arrested at the Creighton coal-strike picket line in the June 19 Pi...
J
John Marc Blowen
Released
John Marc Blowen appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’1969 current-prisoner lists of d...
R
Rick Boardman
Released
Rick Boardman was listed among imprisoned draft and conscientious resisters in contemporary CCCO reports from...
A
Anna Bogansky
Released
Anna Bogansky joined an unemployed-workers delegation seeking to present demands at the American Federation of...
T
Tom Boich
Released
Tom Boich was a miner imprisoned after the 1931 coal strike in the Pittsburgh district of Pennsylvania. He rec...
T
Thomas Bolch
Thomas Bolch was a defendant in the Washington County, Pennsylvania National Miners Union prosecution in Augus...
D
David Bolton
Released
David Bolton was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the W...
W
William Bonham
Released
William Bonham was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the...
P
Peter Bonsavage
Peter Bonsavage was a 25-year-old active member of the United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania local at Numbe...
T
Tom Borich
Released
Tom Borich was listed on the ILD's 1932 winter-relief roster of Western Pennsylvania class-war prisoners — coa...
L
Louis Borno
Louis Borno was arrested by Bethlehem police while leaving a restaurant during Metal Workers Industrial League...
W
William Boss
Released
William Boss was listed among imprisoned draft and conscientious resisters in contemporary CCCO reports from 1...
H
Harry Boswell
Released
Harry Boswell was a coal striker arrested during the Westland march in western Pennsylvania in 1931. State pol...
B
Benjamin Boyer
Benjamin Boyer is named in Marshall in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsy...
G
George Boyer
George Boyer is named in Marshall in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsylv...
J
Joe Bracco
Joe Bracco was one of the ten Cheswick defendants individually named in Vern Smith’s retrospective article in...
C
Cheryl Branch
In Exile
Cheryl Branch and her husband Theodore traveled from Pennsylvania to the Soviet Union as tourists in November...
T
Theodore Branch
In Exile
Theodore Branch and his wife Cheryl traveled from Pennsylvania to the Soviet Union as tourists in November 198...
S
Steve Bratich
Released
Steve Bratich was the fourth defendant in the Woodlawn (Aliquippa), Pennsylvania sedition case, a group of Com...
S
Sophie Braverman
Sophie Braverman was one of six anti-fascist pickets jailed after a Free Thaelmann demonstration before the Ge...
P
Patrick Brennan
Patrick Brennan was a thirty-four-year-old Wilkes-Barre labor organizer, a former ILGWU organizer and member o...
M
Marko Brigish
Marko Brigish was arrested with organizer Joe Murphy in a police raid on a National Miners Union committee mee...

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