Scholar, author, and black feminist philosopher Angela Yvonne Davis is one of the most recognized political activists of the 1960s and 1970s. She rose to national attention in 1969 after being removed from her teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles, for her membership in the Communist Party at the urging of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. In 1970 Davis was prosecuted for purchasing firearms used in the armed takeover of a Marin County courtroom. Her arrest sparked an international campaign to gain her release and led to a high-profile trial which culminated in her acquittal in 1972. She was the vice presidential candidate for the Communist Party of the United States in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Davis is an advocate for prisoners' rights and a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to abolishing the prison industrial complex. She writes and lectures on social injustice, social movements, and the intersections of race, gender, and class. Digitized material from the collection is available in the online finding aid for the Papers of Angela Davis.

In 1932, Anna Spicer Gladding began a 42-year association with the Reformatory for Women in Framingham, Massachusetts, where she was involved in the mother-child program and served as prison librarian, organist and choir director, and leader of the literary and nature study clubs. She also directed theatrical productions and was the head of the prison's volunteer organization known as the Friendly Visitors. The collection has been digitized and is available in the online finding aid for the Papers of Gladding and Van Waters. There is related material in the Papers of Miriam Van Waters.

Jessie Donaldson Hodder, penologist, was a matron at the State Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, Massachusetts (1906-1908), an associate of Dr. Richard Cabot in social service work in Boston (1908-1910), and Superintendent of the Massachusetts Prison and Reformatory for Women at Sherborn (1911-1931). This collection consists of Hodder's correspondence with her son Alan; with Elizabeth (Mrs. Glendower) Gardiner Evans, particularly concerning Evans's involvement with the Sacco-Vanzetti case; and with others. It also includes Evans's diary for 1915, 1919, and 1920. Digital material is available in the onlne finding aid for the Papers of Jessie Donaldson Hodder.

This collection is digitized and accessible through the finding aid for the Inez Miholland collection (Call#: MC 308).
Feminist, suffragist, and lawyer (Vassar, B.A., 1909; New York University, LL.B., 1912), Inez Milholland specialized in criminal and divorce practice and was active in the women's suffrage and peace movements, and the effort to abolish capital punishment. She supported the garment workers strike of 1916, and proclaiming herself a socialist, joined the Women's Trade Union League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Fabian Society of England. In 1913 she married Eugen Jan Boissevain, a Dutch businessman living in New York, and as a result became concerned with citizenship rights of married women.

Doris Stevens became active in the suffrage movement in 1913, when the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which became the National Woman's Party, hired her. In 1917 she was one of the women arrested while picketing the White House for women's suffrage. She was sentenced to 60 days in Occoquan Workhouse, but was pardoned by President Wilson after three days. Stevens was a paid organizer for the National Woman's Party through 1920, at which time she published her book Jailed for Freedom, which described the imprisonment of women activists in 1917. Stevens continued to be a member of the National Woman's Party for the next thirty years and served the party in various capacities: as vice president, as chair of the Committee on International Action, and as a member of the National Council. Digital material can be found in the online finding aid for the Papers of Doris Stevens.

Van Waters, a penologist, was superintendent of the Reformatory for Women in Framingham MA (1932-1957). She was also director of El Retiro, a school for delinquent girls in California (1919-1920); referee for the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court (1920-1930); director of the juvenile delinquency section of the Harvard Law School Crime Survey (1926-1930s); consultant on juvenile delinquency for the Wickersham Commission (1928-1931); and secretary of the American Youth Commission (1935-1941). When Van Waters succeeded Jessie Hodder as the superintendent of the Reformatory for Women at Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1932, her progressive penal policies included: emphasizing psychological treatment, allowing mothers to keep their children with them, and broadly interpreting the Massachusetts indenture system to allow for more day work. During her tenure there, several state officials, along with local newspapers, launched critical attacks on Van Waters and her policies. After hearings in 1948, Van Waters was dismissed in January 1949. She was then reinstated by a governor's commission in March 1949, following further hearings and much publicity. She served as superintendent until her retirement in 1957. This collection has been digitized and made freely available in the online finding aid for the Papers of Miriam Van Waters. There is related material in the Papers of Anna Spicer Gladding and Miriam Van Waters.

From Reveal Digital and hosted by JSTOR, the American Prison Newspapers database brings together "hundreds of these periodicals from across the country into one collection that will represent penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions. Development of the collection began in July 2020 and will continue through 2021, with new content added regularly."

Online access to the 1860 Annual Report is available via HathiTrust.

Hill was an English woman who devoted her life to working for prison reform and the extension of primary education to the working classes. The memoir is available online via Google Books.