Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (born August 7, 1890 in Concord , New Hampshire , † September 5, 1964 in Moscow ) was an American activist of the labor movement and communist politician .

At the age of seventeen, Gurley Flynn joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded in 1905 .

After joining the Communist Party in 1937 after years of commitment to the trade union movement , a period of marginalization, persecution and imprisonment began.

In 1961 she became the first woman to be elected chairman of the National Committee of the Communist Party of the United States. When in 1964 a 14-year lawsuit over the refusal to issue passports was won, Flynn traveled to the Soviet Union. There she died on September 5, 1964; she received a state funeral in Red Square. However, she was buried at her own request in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago , not far from the memorial for the Haymarket Riot on May 1, 1886.

While in prison in Salt Lake City, Joe Hill wrote the song The Rebel Girl for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn .

Fonts (selection)

  • Sabotage - the conscious withdrawal of the workers' industrial efficiency . IWW Publishing Bureau, Cleveland 1916. German edition: Sabotage. The conscious reduction in industrial efficiency . Trikont Duisburg Publishing House and Dialog-Edition Publishing House, Duisburg 2016.
  • I speak my own piece. Autobiography of "The Rebel Girl" . Masses & Mainstream, New York 1955. German edition: The rebel girl. An autobiography . Dietz, Berlin 1958. (further editions until 1978)

literature

  • Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall (Ed.): Words on Fire: The Life and Writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn . 1987
  • Helen C. Camp: Iron in Her Soul . 1995
  • Elizabeth G. Flynn , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 41/1964 of September 28, 1964, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  • Victor Grossman : Rebel Girls: Portraits of 34 American Women . Cologne: Papyrossa, 2012, pp. 144–157

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Gurley Flynn  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American labor movement activist and communist politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Concord , New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1964
Place of death Moscow