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The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography, My First Life 1906-26

by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 57 ratings · 10 reviews

An epic firsthand account of women and labor in the early years of the 20th century. The fiery IWW, labor defense & Communist leader writes vividly of her early life.
Dedication
Preface
Illustrations
Childhood & Early Youth
Socialist & IWW Agitator, 1906-12
The Lawrence Textile Strike
The Paterson Silk Strike
The IWW, 1912-14
World War I & Its Aftermath
Sacco & V ...more

Paperback , 368 pages

Published December 1st 1973 by International Publishers (NYC) (first published 1955)

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Mar 29, 2011 Ken added it · review of another edition

THE REBEL GIRL
An autobiography – My first life 1906 – 1926
By Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

I’ve always had a soft spot for romantic, idealistic, revolutionaries, not the bomb-throwers or advocates of assassination and other forms of violence but those that devoted their lives to fighting for a better life for the working people of the world. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of those indomitable thorns in the side of the Robber Barons during that turbulent period of the labor movement in the early part o THE REBEL GIRL
An autobiography – My first life 1906 – 1926
By Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

I’ve always had a soft spot for romantic, idealistic, revolutionaries, not the bomb-throwers or advocates of assassination and other forms of violence but those that devoted their lives to fighting for a better life for the working people of the world. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of those indomitable thorns in the side of the Robber Barons during that turbulent period of the labor movement in the early part of the Twentieth Century.
She was born into a family of Irish rebels and socialists in Concord Massachusetts in 1890. Her father, a self-educated quarry worker gained entrance to Dartmouth but was unable to finish because he had to support his mother and siblings after the untimely death of his brother. He took a job as a mapmaker and the family traveled with him from job to job until 1900 when they landed in the South Bronx of New York City and her mother, tired of traveling decided to stay there.
While attending grammar school PS she won a silver medal for, “merit in an Essay on the City’s History” from the New York Times and a gold medal on graduation in 1904 in English and one for proficiency in debate. She continued with debating after grammar school and was invited to speak at the Harlem Socialist Club in 1906 where she spoke on, “What Socialism Will do for Women.” This brought her invitations to speak on the street where she learned technique and success can lead to arrest.
While speaking in the theater district of Broadway she attracted the attention of producer David Belasco who invited her to his office and asked if she would like to be an actress in a new production on labor to which she replied; “…I’m in the labor movement and I speak my own piece.” During that same time a young unknown editor of Broadway Magazine named Theodore Dreiser heard her and wrote about her as “…an ardent Socialist orator,” in an article he entitled, “An Eastside Joan of Arc.”
That same year she left school and joined mixed local #179 of the IWW in New York. She spoke on the Russian workers slaughtered and imprisoned after the 1905 Revolution by the Tsar and at fundraisers in defense of Big Bill Haywood, George Pettibone and Christopher Moyer, leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, accused of murdering Idaho Governor Steunenberg. All three were acquitted.
She married Jack Jones, a miner and IWW organizer in 1908 while speaking in favor of the strikers on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. She became pregnant, they moved to Chicago but the baby died shortly after a premature birth. She threw herself back into activity. She did a national tour through the Northwest and Canada then rejoined her husband and they worked the free speech fight in Missoula Montana until she went to Spokane as a speaker in another free speech fight where she was put in charge of the paper The Industrial Worker and spoke only in IWW halls because she was again pregnant. In April of 1909 she determined that she was no longer in love with her husband who had not come the days travel from Missoula to see her and wanted her to give up speaking and “settle down.” She went home to New York and to have her baby. Fred, who later bragged he had been in jail twice in defense of free speech before he was born, arrived the day before Haley’s Comet traversed the firmament May 19, 1910.
E. Gurley Flynn continued speaking and advocating for Socialism and the IWW in fights for free speech, defense organizations for framed labor leaders, strikes and the improvement of life for working people across the country. The final chapter of her first life, which ends in 1926 is the struggle to save Sacco and Vanzetti a year before they were executed in August 1927.
The book is a travelogue through the labor struggles that took place before and during a period more often referred to as the “Roaring twenties” and associated with the flappers in short skirts and rolled down stockings and prohibition than the Ludlow Massacre Where a Rockefeller owned mining company hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to supplement the Colorado National Guard in murdering 19 women and children living in a tent city and the fire in Triangle Shirtwaist fire that killed 146 textile workers in New York. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s Autobiography takes you through all of the struggles and battles that get short shrift in textbooks on U.S. history.
The second half of her Autobiography was never completed. She died shortly after beginning it in 1964 at 74. She had intended it to be a book on the life of an active communist as opposed to the life of an ex-communist of which there several. Her statement was, after being released from Alderman Prison after serving time for “… for attempting to overthrow the government,” “I will never move from where I stand.” She went back to work defending workers and others from the ravages of McCarthyism. We could use more like her.
...more

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Feb 23, 2014 Benjamin rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's always great to read a book critical of the stuff I am into written by someone sympathetic to the stuff I'm into. I also like it that her comments are directed at certain tactics and not at particular isms. Probably because she wrote speeches for uneducated and often migrant workers for 50 years before writing this book, her language is direct and exciting. One great surprise bonus goodness for me was her connections with Irish rebels like James Connolly and James Larkin. Also fun to have c It's always great to read a book critical of the stuff I am into written by someone sympathetic to the stuff I'm into. I also like it that her comments are directed at certain tactics and not at particular isms. Probably because she wrote speeches for uneducated and often migrant workers for 50 years before writing this book, her language is direct and exciting. One great surprise bonus goodness for me was her connections with Irish rebels like James Connolly and James Larkin. Also fun to have cameos from Mother Jones, Eugene Debs and Fiorello LaGuardia.

It's an autobiography, so okay, she's gonna make herself look good, but I admire how she tries to negotiate a path between what she calls the over-centralization of Big Bill Haywood and the 'freaks' who for example march through a very catholic workers' neighborhood to show solidarity with the strikers but are holding a banner that says "no gods, no masters" ... in Gurley Flynn's estimation: a tactical error.

I had previously known her as a big deal IWW orator who quit and became a big deal CP leader, so I was surprised to learn she was practically married to hardcore anarchist Carlo Tresca and was very active in the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti. I like complicated people who don't fit easily into categories.

One question this book raised in my mind was about the relative importance of defense work versus offense. If the IWW got its shit together and was causing the kind of furor today that it did back then, wouldn't it face the same kind of persecution? Vigilantes, frame-ups and mass deportation? By the end of this book, Gurley Flynn is so busy with the ACLU affiliated "Workers Defense Union" and Sacco-Vanzetti, there's no space left for visiting picket lines.

I wish she had gotten around to writing "her second life," the communist party part, because I could stand to read a lot more of her autobiography, but also I wonder if she'd be as honest and direct in criticism of their tactics or if she fell for that whole 'scientific' authority they cloak themselves in. Big Up the Rebel Girl!

This book is full of all these old timey (s)heros of the revolution and it made me wonder, where are the giant professional rebels of today? Without the rank and file fighting unions, the Gurley Flynns of today are not getting out past small rooms of the like-minded. ...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Orion rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book

The Rebel Girl is a memoir by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of her early work as a Socialist labor organizer for the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). The first chapter tells of her life growing up in an Irish-American family. Her mother was an Irish nationalist and a feminist while her father was a Socialist. When she was 16 Elizabeth gave her first speech at a New York Socialist meeting on the rights of women.

She was so good at public speaking that it became her life's work, traveling all over t The Rebel Girl is a memoir by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of her early work as a Socialist labor organizer for the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). The first chapter tells of her life growing up in an Irish-American family. Her mother was an Irish nationalist and a feminist while her father was a Socialist. When she was 16 Elizabeth gave her first speech at a New York Socialist meeting on the rights of women.

She was so good at public speaking that it became her life's work, traveling all over the US while still a teenager. Mining towns in the Rockies and Minnesota, lumber camps in the Northwest, textiles strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey are all places she went to help workers fight for safe working conditions and living wages.

Later on she talks of ideological struggles within the IWW leadership, her two marriages and raising a child, World War I, and the oppressive atmosphere in the US after the war against the Left. The Rebel Girl ends with the trial and appeals for the two Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

The book was meant to be the first volume of her autobiography covering 1906 to 1924, her years before joining the Communist Party, and was first published in 1955. She died before she could complete the second volume which was to cover the 35 years she spent as a Communist.

Flynn is a great writer and tells her story of the early 20th century labor movement well. As a first person account, it is full of detail and personal perspective. At times I longed for a more objective account of some events for balance and this book has encouraged me to read further about the events described. ...more

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Apr 24, 2014 Yvonne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Anyone interested in the history of labor or activism in the U.S. should read this book. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a powerful orator, a dedicated and tireless activist working to make life better for the working class. Her story should also be of interest to those interested in women's history and Irish-American history.

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Jan 17, 2015 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2014 , nonfiction

It's interesting to think that this was meant to be volume 1 of her autobiography. I would have happily dived into a volume 2 if it existed. Yes, sometimes it jumped around where I wanted more detail, but there was so much that Flynn covered that to get the amount of detail I wanted would have required several more volumes. In any case, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was fascinating.

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Jul 21, 2009 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: studies

An ex-IWW writing about Socialist activism pretty much in the hey day of American radicalism, 1906-26.

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Dec 05, 2013 Maxx rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography , history , oppression-studies , politics

a wandering and freewheeling, but fascinating biographical account of an important American labor leader

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Apr 28, 2008 Stephany Joy added it

E.G.B. is such a badass. Dense blow-by-blow accounts of her endeavors from day 1.

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Jun 22, 2007 HeavyReader rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: rebels of all genders

Shelves: life-stories

A classic of radical reading. Inspiring for sure.

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Aug 22, 2007 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: labor history readers, Marxist readers, feminist readers, auto/biography readers

Hurray for the IWW and CPA!!!

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About Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

A labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women's rights, birth control, and women's suffrage. She joined the American Communist Party in 1936 and late in life, in 1961, became its chairwoman. She died during a visit to the Soviet Union, ...more

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Direct Action & Sabotage: Three Classic IWW Pamphlets from the 1910s

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