EDITORS: Julie Herrada, an associate librarian at U-M’s Special Collections, is available for interviews at (734) 764-9377. Photo of Inglis available electronically.
ANN ARBOR—Student bohemian, social worker, Wobblie, anarchist and librarian—Agnes Inglis transformed a love for radicalism into a lifelong work and a 1911 donation of photographs, letters, books, pamphlets, posters and other artifacts into the foremost archive of radical literature in the country.
Inglis (1870-1952), first curator of the University of Michigan’s Labadie Collection within the University’s Special Collections Library, used her network of friends and associates in the world of anarchism and socialism to build upon the collection of books and papers donated to U-M by her fellow anarchist, Joseph Labadie. Labadie was a Michigan-born labor leader, activist, and printer by trade. He printed many of his own essays and much of his own poetry as well as the writings of others.
What began in 1924 as preparation for a paper on the struggle for the eight-hour working day, culminated in a 28-year career with the U-M Library and the Labadie Collection for Inglis. Thrilled by accounts of a golden, hopeful age of radicalism found in the collection, Inglis augmented and updated the writings of Ralph Chaplin, Emma Goldman, Ben Reitman, Mary Gallagher, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Joseph Ishill, for her paper.
Her warm-hearted personality won the enduring friendship of many in radical political circles leading Inglis to ferret out family papers from the likes of Voltairine de Cleyre and John Francis Bray, and to investigate every possible trail leading to additional material for the historical record of radicalism.
Insights into Inglis’s life are profiled in an exhibit at U-M’s Special Collections Library on the 7th floor of the Hatcher Graduate Library. The exhibit, open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.-noon, continues through Sept. 3. Admission is free. A 40-page catalog is available at the exhibit at no cost.

Special Collectionsdonated to U-MHatcher Graduate Library