Research Guides
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964) joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1907 and became a full time organizer soon after. Nicknamed the IWW's “Rebel Girl”, Flynn was a strong activist who participated in the 1909 Free Speech Fight in Spokane, Washington where she chained herself to a lamp post to delay her arrest. Throughout her career she was arrested 10 times but was never given a criminal charge. Not only did she advocate for labor rights and organization but she also was for women’s rights, women’s suffrage, and birth control. Later in life, she was a member and later chairwoman of the American Communist Party.
Some of her notable writings are:
These images are part of the University of Washington Special Collections Portrait Collection
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and imprisoned IWW songwriter Joe Hill became friends after Hill's "frame-up" became a labor cause célèbre. Flynn and Hill corresponded and she visited him in jail on several occasions, advocating for his justice. Hill wrote the song "Rebel Girl" in her honor. When Flynn came to Spokane, Joe Hill had asked a youn IWW musician---Katie Phar--to help Flynn sing the song. Phar, who was nicknamed the "IWW songbird", shared a love of music with Hill and they corresponded from his prison cell.
The Rebel Girl : an autobiography, my first life (1906-1926)
Autobiography of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Letters of IWW songwriter Joe Hill. The book includes correspondence between Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Hill from his prison cell.
Preliminary Guide to the Freda La Mar Pamphlet Collection 1907-1922
Finding aid to a pamphlet collection in UW Special Collections, containing "Sabotage" (1916), by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Iron in Her Soul; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the American Left