Skip to content
Learn More → State by State

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.

D
Douglas Pope
Released
Douglas Pope was listed among imprisoned draft and conscientious resisters in contemporary CCCO reports from 1...
V
Vasa Popovich
Vasa Popovich was one of the foreign-born workers identified as jailed pending deportation in an International...
R
Robert Porter
Released
Robert Porter was a captain and one of twenty men arrested during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvani...
J
Joseph Posey
Released
Joseph Posey was among the western Pennsylvania men taken into federal custody during the suppression of the W...
J
John Powers
Released
John Powers was a major and one of twenty men arrested during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania an...
A
Albert B. Prashner
Released
Albert B. Prashner was from Scran ton, Pennsylvania. Albert B. Prashner was convicted at the mass IWW trial in...
H
Helen Prescelic
Released
Helen Prescelic was listed on the ILD's 1932 winter-relief roster of Western Pennsylvania class-war prisoners...
K
Kitty Preselac
Kitty Preselac was a labor prisoner held in the Allegheny County Workhouse at Blawnox after the 1931 coal stri...
H
Helen Preselic
Helen was a National Miners Union strike prisoner held at Allegheny County Workhouse in Blawnox. The November...
T
Theresa Presillac
Released
Theresa Presillac was a militant picket-line leader at Wildwood serving two years at the Blawnox Workhouse, on...
R
Richard Price
Richard Price had worked for twelve years in a Fitzwater Street garage. A July 11 worker’s account says police...
J
John Prince
Released
John Prince appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’1969 current-prisoner lists of draft...
J
Jacobus Quigg
Released
Jacobus Quigg was named in the later exile records as one of the men sent to Virginia with the Philadelphia pr...
T
Tom Quinn
Released
Thomas Quinn was a field representative of the United Electrical Workers cited for contempt of Congress after...
J
John Rasefske
John Rasefske was arrested with organizer Joe Murphy in a police raid on a National Miners Union committee mee...
A
Anna Rasefsky
Released
Anna Rasefsky was a miner's wife jailed at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in the strike during the National Miners'...
M
Mary Rasefsky
Mary Rasefsky was arrested with her mother and sister during the Canonsburg miners’ strike, according to Worki...
S
Stephen Reid
Released
Stephen Reid appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’ 1968 lists of imprisoned draft and...
J
John Reider
John Reider is named in Marshall in his list of people arrested and confined from Clearfield County, Pennsylva...
J
Joseph Renalovich
Joseph Renalovich was an immigration detainee actually held in Allegheny County jail in 1933. The June 15 Dail...
A
Anita Ricci
Released
Anita Ricci, a Philadelphia native, was twenty-two at the Camden 28 indictment. She had graduated near the top...
T
Theodore Richards
Theodore Richards, also called Ted Richards in the same issue, was prosecuted for inciting to riot in an April...
J
Jason Robbins
Released
Jason Robbins, ARA/Antifa member; LOVE Park 4 co-defendant in the July 23, 2007 FBI SUV damage. Convicted only...
J
Joseph Roberts
Released
Joseph Roberts was one of nine Communist Party organizers prosecuted in the Philadelphia Smith Act case. He wa...

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