Description
In 1906, fifteen-year old Elizabeth Gurley Flynn mounted a soapbox in Times Square to denounce capitalism and proclaim a new era for women's freedom. Quickly recognized as an outstanding public speaker and formidable organizer, she devoted her life to creating a socialist America, "free from poverty, exploitation, greed and injustice." Flynn became the most important female leader of the Industrial Workers of the World and of the American Communist Party, fighting tirelessly for workers' rights to organize and to express dissenting ideas. Weaving together Flynn's personal and political life, this biography reveals previously unrecognized connections between feminism, socialism, free love, and free speech. Flynn's remarkable career casts new light on the long and varied history of radicalism in the United States.
About the Lives of American Women series: Selected and edited by renowned women's historian Carol Berkin, these brief biographies are designed for use in undergraduate courses. Rather than a comprehensive approach, each biography focuses instead on a particular aspect of a woman's life that is emblematic of her time, or which made her a pivotal figure in the era. The emphasis is on a 'good read', featuring accessible writing and compelling narratives, without sacrificing sound scholarship and academic integrity. Primary sources at the end of each biography reveal the subject's perspective in her own words. Study questions and an annotated bibliography support the student reader.
Author: Lara Vapnek
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 01/27/2015
Pages: 242
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9780813348094
ISBN10: 0813348099
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | 20th Century
- Social Science | Gender Studies
- Biography & Autobiography | Women
About the Author
Lara Vapnek teaches at St. John's University, in New York City. She specializes in the history of gender, labor, and politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century United States. Her previous publications include Breadwinners: Working Women and Economic Independence, 1865-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), as well as several articles on women's labor history. She is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.
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