You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 29, 1908
Providence, Rhode Island – Miss Flynn Speaks to Textile Workers
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 28, 1908:
The Flynn Lectures
Enclosed find clipping from Providence Journal giving report of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s lecture. The Providence Tribune printed her picture and a full column report of the meeting, but the editor’s fine Italian hand shows clearly throughout the article; it is evident that in his opinion the kind of talk dealt out by Miss Flynn is not good reading, unadulterated, for readers of the Tribune. This was the bumper meeting of a series of lectures run every Sunday evening by Textile Union 530, I. W. W. The first one, with Organizer Thompson as speaker, drew a large audience, and it grows larger at every meeting, rain or shine. The last meeting taxed the seating capacity of the hall. The speakers are limited to an hour and a quarter, after which the floor is thrown open for questions and remarks, with a five-minute limit, and no one is given the floor twice until all who wish to speak are done. There is no doubt that it is this feature of the meetings that draws the crowd. As speakers we have had, so far, two professors from Brown University, a lawyer with “radical” ideas, a high school principal who believes in Socialism, a couple of single-taxers, two Socialist party men, Frank Bohn, who gave a fine lecture, “The Working Class in American History,” and Miss Flynn. I understand that Organizer Thompson is on the docket for next Sunday, with the “Materialistic Conception of History” as the subject.
The following is from the Providence Journal:
Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addressed a large gathering in Textile Hall, Olneyville square, last evening under the auspices of Textile Local 530 and spoke on “Industrial Unionism.” Her coming had been the topic of discussion of local textile workers for several days and the hall was filled in spite of the disagreeable weather. She was received with enthusiasm. After her address several of those present plied her with questions and there was a general debate on the labor question.
Today Miss Flynn will start on an extensive lecture tour through the western and Pacific coast states under the auspices of the Industrial Workers of the World. As now arranged, the tour will be through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming.
F. MILLER.
———-
[Photograph added, not known if same photograph mentioned above.]
From The Buffalo Enquirer of March 25, 1908:
Bebel Club.
Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn lectured under the auspices of the Bebel Club at Odd Fellows’ Temple in William Street last evening.
Miss Flynn is the girl high school orator of New York City, whose lectures on the “Labor Question,” in Chicago and New York have created much discussion. It was Miss Flynn’s first appearance in Buffalo. Her subject was “The Present Panic, Its Cause and Remedy.”
SOURCES
The Industrial Union Bulletin
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Mar 28, 1908, page 1
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v2n05-mar-28-1908-iub.pdf
The Buffalo Enquirer
(Buffalo, New York)
-Mar 25, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/325492365/
IMAGE
EGF, ab Sept 1907, LOC
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005686058/
Note: the photo above of EGF from LOC appears frequently on the net and in various books. Note the same outfit, hairstyle and rolled-up paper in her hand in photo below which appeared in various newspapers in Sept of 1907:
EGF, DEN p21, Sept 21, 1907
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045555/1907-09-21/ed-1/seq-21/
See also:
Category: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
https://weneverforget.org/category/elizabeth-gurley-flynn/
Tag: Panic of 1907
https://weneverforget.org/tag/panic-of-1907/
Panic of 1907
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907
Note: wiki article focuses mostly on the effects upon the ruling class of the Panic of 1907. The Panic turned into a depression for the working class, esp the lowest paid of the working class, who suffered unemployment and wage cuts. The source below provides a picture of same:
The Pittsburgh Survey:
Women and the Trades, Pittsburgh, 1907-1908
-by Elizabeth B. Butler. 1909
Charities Publication Committee, 1909
(search: depression 1907 1908)
https://books.google.com/books?id=O17tAAAAMAAJ
American Political Prisoners:
Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts
-by Stephen Martin Kohn
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994
https://books.google.com/books?id=-_xHbn9dtaAC
Note: F. Miller who signed IUB article above is most likely Francis D. Miller, from Kohn, page 118:
Francis D. Miller, a member of the IWW’s General Executive Board at the time of his arrest [Sept. 1917], came from Providence, Rhode Island. He was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentenced to ten years in prison and fined $30,000. He served in the Cook County Jail and Leavenworth Penitentiary from September 2, 1917, to March 1918, from September 1918 to July 1919, and from April 1921 to October 31, 1922. He had a wife and two children.
Note: Organizer Thompson: most likely James P. Thompson, from Kohn page 136:
James P. Thompson, one of the founders of the IWW, from Seattle, Washington, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentenced to ten years in prison and fined $30,000…Thompson helped write the IWW’s constitution and also served as an organizer and a lecturer.