Biography
Betty Gannett was a Communist Party USA organizer and a member of the partys National Education Department. She was indicted in the Foley Square Second String in June 1951 and convicted alongside Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the rest of the CPUSA national board in January 1953. She was sentenced to two years in federal prison and served at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, alongside Flynn.
A June 1929 Warren, Ohio report, printing her surname Gannet, identifies the Communist Youth League district organizer as held incommunicado for twenty-four hours with steelworker Pete Sturgeon after they asked about arrested leaflet distributors at an American Legion parade. Both were fined on leaflet-permit and suspicious-person accusations. This is an earlier episode than her Smith Act imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n089-NY-jun-20-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Page 3's April 1 Cadiz report names her with Zorki Yoki as convicted of criminal syndicalism the previous day for antiwar leaflets and released on $1,000 bail supplied by the ILD. An appeal was being pursued. The five-to-ten-year term is threatened exposure, not documented actual service. This is distinct from her 1929 Warren detention and later Smith Act imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n334-NY-apr-02-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
National Guardian, October 19, 1953, national page 16: The second Foley Square defendants were reported on restricted liberty awaiting appeal, and Alexander Bittelman, Claudia Jones and Betty Gannett had begun a test case of the Walter-McCarran law in the Foley Square federal court. This reports a legal challenge and appeal status, not a fresh arrest or completed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/national-guardian/1953-10-19-5-52-nat-guardian.pdf
The report prints a five-to-ten-year sentence to the Women’s Reformatory for distributing shop papers at Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, under criminal syndicalism law. It says the prosecutor offered dismissal if Gannett and Zorki Yoki stayed out of Belmont County, which they refused; the ILD was appealing. The range is nominal punishment, not measured service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n05-may-1930-LD.pdf#page=12
Daily Worker, April 2, 1930; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The July 4, 1951 National Guardian individually named Betty Gannett among the New York Smith Act defendants who had been released on bail after their recent arrests. This pretrial release is distinct from any later sentence service; the report does not establish this person’s exact release day or a measured custody total. National Guardian, July 4, 1951, p. 5.
The released FBI file on Claudia Jones, New York file 100-81752, summarizes the federal Smith Act docket and identifies Betty Gannett as released on bail on July 23, 1951, during the 1951 bail proceedings. It separately records remand after the January 21, 1953 guilty verdict and actual release on appeal bail on February 10, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list identifies Mary M. Kaufman as defense counsel for Betty Gannett. Source: FBI, released Claudia Jones file, New York 100-81752, sections on bail and sureties, counsel and trial proceedings. The file supplies these individual procedural phases without establishing a new complete custody total.
