A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning History Book 1)

by Michael Bronski

Marie Equi was born to Irish and Italian immigrant parents in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1872. At the age of twenty-one she moved to Portland, Oregon, with her partner, Bess Holcomb, who had a job offer there. Several years later they moved to San Francisco, where Equi studied medicine. Her disaster relief work after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake earned her a commendation from the United States Army. In Portland, she performed abortions and worked with Margaret Sanger, with whom she may have had a sexual relationship. A member of the Wobblies, Equi was known for her suffrage and labor organizing. She later became an anarchist. In 1915, with her partner Harriet Speckart, she adopted a child named Mary, who referred to her mothers as “ma” and “da.” In 1920, convicted under the Sedition Act, Equi began serving a three-year sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Her crime was protesting against the United States’ entry into World War I; during a rally in Portland supporting preparedness for war, she had unfurled a banner that read “PREPARE TO DIE, WORKINGMEN, J. P. MORGAN & CO. WANT PREPAREDNESS FOR PROFIT.”