ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn lived her life according to her political ideals. She rejected marriage as an intolerable compromise of freedom, advocated the use of birth control, and insisted on women's equality. Flynn resigned as the chairman of International Labor Defense in 1929, urging the board of directors to give the position "to some active and useful person". She refused to stay on as a figurehead, concluding, "No present prospects of returning East. Decision final". Joe Ettor, who had worked with Flynn in Lawrence and on the Mesabi Range before leaving the labor movement to become a successful wine merchant on the West Coast, drove Flynn to her next destination, Portland, Oregon. Equi's political activism began with progressive causes. She joined the battle for women's suffrage—won in Oregon in 1912. The US attorney for Portland classified Equi as "degenerate" due to her sexual preferences and deemed her "the most dangerous person at large in Oregon".
