Queer Author Talk: Hugh Ryan with Jennifer Love Williams on The Women's House of Detention
Hear Hugh Ryan speak with Jennifer Love Williams about his newest book The Women's House of Detention, winner of the 2023 American Library Association's Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award.
This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century.
The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine.
Historian Hugh Ryan explores the roots of this crisis and reconstructs the little-known lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a uniquely queer case for prison abolition—and demonstrating that by queering the Village, the House of D helped defined queerness for the rest of America.
Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator in New York City. He is the founder of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, a grassroots organization dedicated to helping local communities create engaging exhibitions rooted in their own experience.
Jennifer Love Williams is a organizer with Black & Pink NYC and a formerly incarcerated Black trans woman. She is the founder of the Jen Love Project, helping formerly incarcerated LGBT community members come home.
Registration is recommended but not required.
Hear Hugh Ryan speak with Jennifer Love Williams about his newest book The Women's House of Detention, winner of the 2023 American Library Association's Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award.
This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century.
The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine.
Historian Hugh Ryan explores the roots of this crisis and reconstructs the little-known lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a uniquely queer case for prison abolition—and demonstrating that by queering the Village, the House of D helped defined queerness for the rest of America.
Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator in New York City. He is the founder of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, a grassroots organization dedicated to helping local communities create engaging exhibitions rooted in their own experience.
Jennifer Love Williams is a organizer with Black & Pink NYC and a formerly incarcerated Black trans woman. She is the founder of the Jen Love Project, helping formerly incarcerated LGBT community members come home.
Brooklyn Public Library - Brooklyn Heights Library, Multipurpose Room MM/DD/YYYY 60