Biography
Jack Gaveel was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Migrated to England in 1905; returned to the Netherlands in 1910 and emigrated to Canada that same year. Joined the IWW in 1913 in Canada and became secretary of IWW Local no. 339 in Edmonton, Canada the following year. Migrated to the U.S. in 1915. Included in the federal indictment of IWW leaders in 1917, but dropped from the case before it went to trial. Acted as an IWW delegate in Los Angeles, where he was “active in organizing the Austrian and Croatian fishermen.” Arrested in April 1921 and sentenced to 1-4 years under California’s criminal syndicalism law. In San Quentin, refused to work in the prison jute mill, declaring: “I have never scabbed on my class outside of prison, and I won’t do it inside.” He was sent to solitary confinement, sparking a sympathy strike of thirteen other imprisoned IWW members. Deported to The Netherlands on August 1, 1924.
Remained active in labor and anarchist circles in The Netherlands. Into 1951 he resumed contact with the IWW and distributed IWW materials in Europe. In 1960, at age 71, he wrote: “I wish I were in America. I’d join you in the fight then.”
The January 28, 1924 issue of The Daily Worker individually listed Jack Gaveel among the political and class-war prisoners at San Quentin State Prison in California, in an appeal to fund newspaper subscriptions for imprisoned people. This is a contemporary custody observation; the publication date does not establish admission, release, or a total period served.
The February 26, 1924 Daily Worker political-prisoner roster individually prints Jack Gaveel with historical prisoner number 34989. The entry appears under San Quentin State Prison, California. This is a contemporary institutional identifier, not a federal BOP register number. No admission or release date, individual sentence length, actual duration, organizational membership or present status is inferred.
