For more than six decades following statehood, Wisconsin women inmates were incarcerated at the state prison in Waupun. Planning for a separate women¿s facility began in 1911, and when a site in Taycheedah, in Fond du Lac County, was found in 1913, the Legislature established there the Wisconsin Industrial Home for Women. Convicts from the Wisconsin State Prison at Waupun were sent to the site in Taycheedah, then known as Camp Woodward, to build the women¿s home. World War One and other obstacles delayed construction, however, and the first inmates were not admitted until 1921. The Home for Women was a reformatory for women between the ages of 18 and 30 who had committed misdemeanors for the first time. In 1933, a separate State Prison for Women was constructed on the grounds at Taycheedah, adjacent to the Home for Women. Until 1945, women convicted of lesser crimes were housed at the Home while more serious offenders were confined in the Prison. In 1945 the two were merged, administratively, to create the Wisconsin Home for Women. In 1976, the Home for Women was renamed the Taycheedah Correctional Institution. Official reports by supervisors of the Wisconsin prison system and reformatory facilities contain more information; these can be found in the Wisconsin Blue Book, published every two years since the 1850s and online at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.

A Brief History of the Department of Corrections (http://www.wi-doc.com/DOC_History.htm). (Madison, Wis.?: Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections, 2002?)

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