11 Facts About Agnes Inglis

Agnes Inglis was a Detroit, Michigan-born anarchist who became the primary architect of the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan.

Agnes Inglis was born on December 3,1870, in Detroit, Michigan, to Agnes and Richard Inglis.

Agnes Inglis was the youngest child in a conservative, religious family, and educated at a Massachusetts girls' academy.

Agnes Inglis's father died in 1874, her sister died of cancer some time later, and her mother died in 1899 before Inglis was thirty years old.

Agnes Inglis left the university before graduating, and spent several years as a social worker at Chicago's Hull House, the Franklin Street Settlement House in Detroit, and the YWCA in Ann Arbor.

In 1915 Agnes Inglis met and befriended Emma Goldman, and shortly thereafter, Goldman's lover and comrade Alexander Berkman.

Agnes Inglis befriended Joseph Labadie and in 1924 discovered the materials on radical movements he donated to University of Michigan in 1911 had hardly been cared for.

Agnes Inglis began volunteering full-time, carefully organizing and cataloguing what would be known as the Labadie Collection.

Agnes Inglis helped many in their research and publications, such as Henry David with The Haymarket Tragedy and James J Martin with Man Against the State.

Agnes Inglis' work was known around the US, and after many anarchists died decades later, their families would donate their collections to the Labadie Collection.

Agnes Inglis died on January 30,1952, in Michigan, leaving an expansive and comprehensive library on radical social movements.