34 Facts About Elizabeth Dilling

Elizabeth Eloise Kirkpatrick Dilling was an American writer and political activist.

Elizabeth Dilling was among 28 anti-war campaigners charged with sedition in 1942; the charges were dropped in 1946.

Elizabeth Dilling organized the Paul Reveres, an anti-communist organization, and was a member of the America First Committee.

Elizabeth Dilling's father, Lafayette Kirkpatrick, was a surgeon of Scotch-Irish ancestry; her mother, Elizabeth Harding, was of English and French ancestry.

Elizabeth Dilling's father died when she was six weeks old, after which her mother added to the family income by selling real estate.

Elizabeth Dilling had an Episcopalian upbringing, and attended a Catholic girls' school, Academy of Our Lady.

Elizabeth Dilling was highly religious, and was known to send her friends 40-page letters about the Bible.

Elizabeth Dilling studied the harp under Walfried Singer, the Chicago Symphony's harpist.

Elizabeth Dilling left after three years before graduating, lonely and bitterly disillusioned.

The couple were well off financially, thanks to Elizabeth Dilling's inherited money and Albert's job as chief engineer for the Chicago Sewerage District.

Elizabeth Dilling documented her travels in home movies, filming such scenes as bathers swimming nude in a river beneath a Moscow church.

Elizabeth Dilling visited Germany in 1931 and, when she returned in 1938, noted a "great improvement of conditions".

Elizabeth Dilling attended Nazi Party meetings, and the German government paid her expenses.

Elizabeth Dilling showed her home movies of the Soviet Union and made the same speech several times a week to audiences sometimes as large as several hundred, hosted by organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion.

In 1932, Elizabeth Dilling co-founded the Paul Reveres, an anti-communist organization with headquarters in Chicago which eventually had 200 local chapters.

Elizabeth Dilling left in 1934, after rejecting the co-founder Col.

Elizabeth Dilling's sources included the 1920 four-volume report of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, and Representative Hamilton Fish's 1931 report of an anti-communist investigation.

In 1935, Elizabeth Dilling returned to her alma mater to accuse such people as university president Robert Maynard Hutchins, educational reformer John Dewey, activist Jane Addams, and Republican Senator William Borah of being communist sympathizers.

Elizabeth Dilling delivered a frenetic half-hour speech at the Illinois General Assembly, with calls from the audience to "kill every communist".

Elizabeth Dilling later claimed that the House Un-American Activities Committee was founded largely thanks to her two books.

Elizabeth Dilling distributed 5,000 copies at the Republican National Convention, and claimed credit for his defeat.

In 1938, Elizabeth Dilling founded the Patriotic Research Bureau, a vast archive in Chicago with a staff of "Christian women and girls" from the Moody Bible Institute.

Elizabeth Dilling began regular publication of the Patriotic Research Bulletin, a newsletter outlining her political and personal views, which she mailed free of charge to her supporters.

Elizabeth Dilling was paid $5,000 in 1939 by industrialist Henry Ford to investigate communism at the University of Michigan.

Elizabeth Dilling discovered hundreds of books at the university library written by "radicals".

In 1940, hoping to influence the presidential election, Elizabeth Dilling published The Octopus, setting out her theories of Jewish Communism.

Elizabeth Dilling admitted that she was the author at her divorce trial in 1942.

Elizabeth Dilling explained that she wrote the book as a response to B'nai B'rith.

Elizabeth Dilling stated: "It airs their dirty lying attempts to shut every Christian mouth and prevent anyone from getting a fair trial in this country".

Besides relying on a gendered appeal to patriotic duty, Elizabeth Dilling enjoyed portraying herself as a helpless victim confronted by diabolical evil.

Elizabeth Dilling was a central figure in a mass movement of isolationist women's groups, which opposed US involvement in World War II from a "maternalist" perspective.

Elizabeth Dilling spoke at America First meetings, and was involved in the founding of Van Hyning's "We the Mothers Mobilize for America", a highly active group with 150,000 members who were tasked with infiltrating other organizations.

Elizabeth Dilling was arrested when she led a sit-down strike with at least 25 other protesters in the corridor outside the office of 84-year-old Senator Carter Glass.

Elizabeth Dilling later became a Holocaust denier and accused Dwight D Eisenhower of secretly being Jewish.