ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Gurley Flyn went from being a socialist child prodigy to a fearless agitator for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) at the center of a brewing battle over free speech. Flynn managed to reach both eastern and western members of the IWW. In the East, she focused on female factory workers, applying her reading on women and socialism. In the West, she drew on her father's stories of work in the Maine granite quarries to relate to migrant workers. On her way back home from Chicago, Flynn crisscrossed Ohio and Pennsylvania, which were then the center of American manufacturing. Fresh from leading the IWW to victory in Missoula, Flynn set out for Spokane, the central city in an inland empire of logging, mining, and agricultural work, where transient workers gathered to find jobs. Flynn had spent weeks raising money for labor defense. Flynn's entire family showed up to greet her at Grand Central Station in New York City.
