Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Early years

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was born in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1890. The family moved to New York in 1900, where she was educated at the local public schools. Her parents introduced her to socialism. When she was only sixteen she gave her first public speech, "What Socialism Will Do for Women," at the Harlem Socialist Club. As a result, she felt compelled to speak out for social change, making a decision she later regretted, to leave Morris High School before graduation.

A year later, in 1907 she met a Minnesota local organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, J. A. Jones. He was sixteen years older than she, but Flynn stated in her autobiography, "I fell in love with him and we were married in January 1908." The union produced two sons, John Vincent who died a few days after birth, and Fred Flynn, born 19 May 1910 (he died in 1940).

Activist career

In 1907, Flynn became a full-time organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, and attended her first IWW convention in September of that year. Over the next few years she organized campaigns among garment workers in Pennsylvania, silk weavers in New Jersey, restaurant workers in New York, miners in Minnesota, Missoula, Montana, and Spokane, Washington; and textile workers in Massachusetts. During this period, author Theodore Dreiser described her as "an East Side Joan of Arc".

In 1909, Flynn participated in a free speech fight in Spokane, in which she chained herself to a lamp-post in order to delay her arrest. She later accused the police of using the jail as a brothel, an accusation that prompted them to try to confiscate all copies of the Industrial Worker reporting the charge.

Flynn was arrested ten times during this period, but was never convicted of any criminal activity. It was a plea bargain, on the other hand, that resulted in Flynn's expulsion from the IWW in 1916, along with fellow organizer Joe Ettor. According to historian Robert M Eleff, three Minnesota miners had been arrested on murder charges arising from an incident which arose when a group of deputised mine guards, including an alleged gunman by the name of James C Myron and a former bouncer named Nick Dillon, came to the residence of one of the miners, Philip Masonovitch, to investigate allegations of the use of an illegal liquor still on the premises. A confrontation ensued in which Myron and a bystander were shot dead. According to Eleff, some witness testimony seemed to indicate that Myron could have been killed accidentally by one of his colleagues, who fired into the Masonovitch residence from outside, and that the bystander was killed by Dillon. Three IWW organizers were also charged, although all three were elsewhere at the time. Head of the IWW's organizing committee, Bill Haywood seemed confident that Judge Hilton, who had successfully defended George Pettibone when he and Haywood were on trial in Idaho, could win the case for the miners.

However, the main organizers on the scene accepted an arrangement by which the other organizers were allowed to go free, but the three miners, none of whom spoke English fluently, faced time in prison. There was also a mixup in the sentencing; a prior agreement for one year in prison was somehow changed in the courtroom to a sentence of five to 20 years. Haywood held Flynn and Ettor responsible for allowing the miners to plead guilty to charges that they probably did not understand. Haywood wrote in his autobiography that Flynn and Ettor's "part in the affair terminated their connection with the IWW." Haywood's biographer, Peter Carlson, wrote that Ettor left the IWW and that Flynn "remained in the union, but took pains to avoid Haywood and his supporters."

A founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920, Flynn played a leading role in the campaign against the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti. Flynn was particularly concerned with women's rights, supporting birth control and women's suffrage. Flynn also criticized the leadership of trade unions for being male-dominated and not reflecting the needs of women.

Between 1926 and 1936, Flynn lived in southwest Portland, Oregon with birth control activist, suffragette, and Wobbly Marie Equi. Though Flynn was in poor health most of her time in Portland, she was an active and vocal supporter of the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike. In 1936, Flynn joined the Communist Party and wrote a feminist column for its journal, the Daily Worker. Two years later, she was elected to the national committee. Her membership in the Party led to her ouster from the board of the ACLU in 1940.

During World War II, she played an important role in the campaign for equal economic opportunity and pay for women and the establishment of day care centers for working mothers. In 1942, she ran for Congress at-large in New York and received 50,000 votes. In July 1948, a dozen leaders of the Communist Party were arrested and accused of violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the US government by force and violence. After they were convicted in the Foley Square trial they appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld their conviction in Dennis v. United States; two justices wrote in dissent that they were convicted in violation of their Constitutional rights for engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.

Flynn launched a campaign for their release but, in June 1951, was herself arrested in the second wave of arrests and prosecuted under the Smith Act. After a nine-month trial, she was found guilty and served two years in Federal Prison Camp, Alderson near Alderson, West Virginia. She later wrote a prison memoir, The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner.

Later years and legacy

After her release from prison, Flynn resumed her activities for leftist and Communist causes. She ran for the New York City Council as a Communist in 1957, garnering a total of 710 votes.

Flynn became national chairwoman of the Communist Party of the United States in 1961. She made several visits to the Soviet Union and died while there on September 5, 1964, 74 years old. The Soviet government gave her a state funeral in Red Square with over 25,000 people attending. In accordance with her wishes, Flynn's remains were flown to the United States for burial in Chicago's Waldheim Cemetery, near the graves of Eugene Dennis, Bill Haywood and the Haymarket Riot Martyrs.

Flynn left her small estate (books, clothing, and furniture) to Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker house in New York city following her death. Flynn and Day first met in the 1910s and Flynn regularly sent old clothing and blankets to the New York Catholic Worker house.

Flynn's influence as an activist was far-reaching, and her exploits were commemorated in a popular ballad. A popular song, "The Rebel Girl", was written by labor activist and musician Joe Hill in honor of Flynn.

Flynn's statement at her trial in 1952 is listed as #87 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).

A fictionalized version of Flynn is depicted in John Updike's novel In the Beauty of the Lilies in which she is said to have had an affair with the anarchist Carlo Tresca, which is supported by Flynn's letters and memoir. Tresca had also had a relationship with Flynn's sister Bina, and was the father of her nephew, Peter D. Martin.

Quotes

"History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery."

"We believe that the class struggle existing in society is expressed in the economic power of the master on the one side and the growing economic power of the workers on the other side meeting in open battle now and again, but meeting in continual daily conflict over which shall have the larger share of labor's product and the ultimate ownership of the means of life."

Books and pamphlets

Articles