34 Facts About Lizzie Holmes

Lizzie Holmes was an American anarchist, writer, and organizer of Chicago's working women during the late 19th century in the United States.

Lizzie Holmes was a key figure in Chicago's labor movement in the years just preceding the Haymarket affair, during which she worked with and played a leading role in a range of unions including the Knights of Labor and the International Working People's Association.

Lizzie Holmes worked as the assistant editor of The Alarm, and she published articles in Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, Freedom, and Free Society.

Lizzie Holmes published articles on a diverse array of topics, including free love, marriage, gender inequality, and economic injustice.

Lizzie Holmes published multiple works of fiction, including a full-length novel entitled Hagar Lyndon; or, A Woman's Rebellion.

Lizzie Holmes has been recognized as an early pioneer of anarchist feminism, and an influence on more prominent thinkers like Emma Goldman.

Lizzie Holmes was under constant pressure from law enforcement following the Haymarket affair, serving a short time in jail with Lucy Parsons for agitation and anarchist organizing.

Lizzie Holmes continued to write for both radical and mainstream labor newspapers and magazines until 1908, when she retreated into a private life.

Lizzie Holmes was the daughter of Jonathan Hunt and the radical feminist Hannah Jackson Hunt, an occasional contributor to the free love journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer.

When Lizzie Holmes Hunt was four years old, her family moved to a "free love" commune in Berlin Heights, Ohio, which is where she spent her remaining childhood years.

Lizzie Holmes received a relatively early and advanced education, which allowed her to start teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Ohio by the time she was fifteen.

At the age of 17, Holmes married her first husband, Hiram J Swank.

Lizzie Holmes continued teaching despite her marriage, insisting at an early age on some form of economic independence.

Lizzie Holmes gave birth to two children by Swank, a son in 1868, and a daughter in 1873.

The Swank family remained in Ohio for 12 years before Lizzie Holmes left for Chicago in 1879, inspired to get involved in the labor movement after reading about the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

The census records at the time do not confirm Swank's death, and it is possible that Lizzie Holmes left Swank in Ohio and constructed a new public persona as a widow in Chicago.

The Working Women's Union at the time was launching a campaign for an eight-hour work day, and Lizzie Holmes became heavily involved in the effort.

Lizzie Holmes was fired from her work as a seamstress due to her efforts to unionize her workplace, but Holmes remained undeterred in her affiliation with the union.

Lizzie Holmes gave multiple public addresses at union meetings, and the popularity of her speeches eventually landed her a job as the union secretary.

Lizzie Holmes played a prominent role in organizing garment industry workers in Chicago throughout her time as secretary, and by 1886, Lizzie Holmes and her affiliated women activists had organized three different Knights of Labor assemblies representing garment industry workers.

Lizzie Holmes became a prolific writer of both non-fiction articles and works of fiction throughout the 1880s, publishing stories and educational material in a variety of radical newspapers and magazines.

Lizzie Holmes wrote multiple articles decrying the horrific labor conditions she experienced in the garment factories, and her stories were picked up by newspapers like the Anti-Monopolist, Labor Enquirer, and Nonconformist.

Lizzie Holmes eventually served as the assistant editor of The Alarm, the newspaper of the International Working People's Association.

Lizzie Holmes re-established herself as a school teacher in Geneva, but neither she nor William gave up on anarchist organizing.

Lizzie Holmes returned to Chicago the day before the Haymarket affair.

On May 3,1886, Lizzie Holmes led a march of several hundred sewing women, demanding an eight-hour workday.

Many of the anarchist organizations and institutions previously built up by Lizzie Holmes came under both legal and public scrutiny following the Haymarket Affair, as public opinion turned against anarchism.

Lizzie Holmes was investigated by the authorities on multiple occasions, and under the threat of legal duress, she moved away from the level of radical organizing that had occupied so much of her life in previous years.

Lizzie Holmes would write for other radical newspapers, including the newly formed Free Society, which she contributed to with her husband.

Lizzie Holmes did not shy away from radical politics in the stories she wrote for the American Federationist and in subsequent years, the stories have been praised by labor scholars as interesting encapsulations of the labor movement that Lizzie Holmes inhabited.

Lizzie Holmes continued to write for various radical newspapers until 1908, after which she quietly left public life.

Two years later, in 1928, her husband William Lizzie Holmes followed her at the age of 78.

Lizzie Holmes was instrumental in building the labor movement in Chicago, and many of the ideas that she advocated for only came to fruition following her death.

Lizzie Holmes was a constant figure in the fight for the eight-hour workday, a demand that would become federal law in the United States in 1938 under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.