Read and contribute to stories from our sites of prison memory. Our stories feature historical documents, photographs, oral histories, and more.
In the winter of 1970, Rex Weiner—then a 20-year old college dropout—discovered a bundle of letters in an attic he was renting in Westchester County. The letters were addressed to Faye Owens, an incarcerated resident at the NYS Training School for Girls in Hudson, NY. This is the story of what he did with those letters.
Read MorePrison Public Memory Project 2017 intern Sophia Burns takes a deep dive into a fascinating case file from the late 1800s, telling the story of Maud Veach (a.k.a. Sadie Roe), who was incarcerated at the House of Refuge for Women in Hudson, NY in the late 1800s.
Read MorePrison Public Memory Project intern Emma Friedlander reports on the remarkable story of a group of sisters and their effort to understand the complicated life of their grandmother, Hilda Cornell.
Read MorePrison Public Memory Project summer intern Emma Friedlander reports on the discovery of the 1896 case file for Lillie Patch, a prisoner at the House of Refuge for Women in Hudson, NY.
Read MoreFormer PPMP Hudson Site Coordinator Brian Buckley tells the story of the New York State Training School for Girls' closure using primary sources from the offices of Governors Nelson Rockefeller and Hugh Carey (1971-1975).
Read MoreOn May 16th, 2015, Brian Buckley interviewed Mabel Blanks in Hudson, NY. Mabel worked as a teacher at the New York State Training School for Girls in Hudson.
Read MoreFrankie Bailey investigates the fascinating history of the first reformatory for women in New York, the House of Refuge for Women in Hudson, NY, and the main historical players behind it.
Read MoreThe story of a reunion for former employees of the NYS Training School for Girls held in 1981 at a locally owned restaurant in Columbia County, NY and sponsored by the local branch of the NAACP.
Read MoreTobi Jacobi writes about girls at the Training School in the 1920’s caught in “a tangle of circumstance” as they navigated the everyday challenges of adolescence and the pressures of emerging adulthood alongside charges of incorrigibility and immorality.
Read MoreExcerpt from an oral history with Gale Smith, who worked as the assistant superintendent at the NYS Training School for Girls in Hudson, NY.
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