Biography
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of the most consequential American radicals of the twentieth century. As a teenage organizer in the early 1900s she became a leading figure of the Industrial Workers of the World, leading textile, silk, and miners strikes from Lawrence, Massachusetts to Paterson, New Jersey to the Mesabi iron range — Joe Hills 1915 song The Rebel Girl was written for her. She was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920 and remained on its board until 1940, when she was expelled in a closed vote because of her membership in the Communist Party USA, a vote the ACLU formally apologized for in 1976.
In June 1951 she was indicted in the Foley Square Second String — the federal governments second wave of Smith Act prosecutions, which targeted thirteen members of the CPUSA national board after the original Dennis 11. Convicted at trial in early 1953, she was sentenced to three years in federal prison and began her sentence at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, in January 1955 at age 64. She served 28 months and was released in May 1957. Her prison memoir The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner appeared in 1963. She became national chairwoman of the Communist Party USA in 1961, a position she held until her death in Moscow in 1964.
The National Guardian’s 1952 biography describes Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s first arrest: blocking traffic at 38th Street and Broadway while urging a crowd to adopt socialism. It reports that she was sixteen, but supplies no arrest date or custody timeline. This New York event is distinct from her later Northwest free-speech and Smith Act cases; no calendar year is inferred from her age.
The Guardian reports: Judge Ryan rejected cash offered by Flynn’s sister when its borrowed source was withheld. No physical release is inferred. Contemporary account, page 6.
The released FBI file on Claudia Jones, New York file 100-81752, summarizes the federal Smith Act docket and identifies Elizabeth Gurley Flynn as released on bail on July 17, 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 11, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list records Elizabeth Gurley Flynn as representing herself at trial. In a separate contempt episode, the docket records two concurrent thirty-day sentences for refusal to answer questions, actual commitment on December 3, 1952, and release on December 31 upon completion. This was separate from her later Smith Act imprisonment. 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.
