The history of Minnesota’s only women’s prison, in Shakopee

In the winter of 1915, prominent social worker Isabel Davis Higbee stood and spoke in front of the Minnesota House of Representatives’ prison committee. It was not her first time at the Capitol. She was asking the legislature to open a reformatory just for women, something she and others had been pushing for more than two decades. At the time, women in Minnesota were typically incarcerated either with men or with girls. Higbee pleaded for a place where women could receive training instead of punishment; at the end of her speech, she collapsed and died on the legislative floor. That year, the legislature voted to build a State Reformatory for Women. Above: State Reformatory for Women, Shakopee, ca. 1937.