Helen Lynch biography research papers

Helen Gertrude Lynch was born on August 22, 1900 in Mishawaka, Indiana. Her father was a boot maker and lunch wagon owner, but later became an insurance salesman while her mother was a homemaker. Due to his new job and ability to sell insurance, the family moved around the country living in Connecticut, Kentucky, and then finally to Muncie, Indiana. Helen attended St. Mary's Boarding School in South Bend and then high school in Muncie. In the fall of 1919 she enrolled at the University of Michigan, and in 1923 graduated.

After graduating from Michigan, Helen moved to New York City to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer. In 1924, she wrote a novel and had it ready to be published but at the last minute had it destroyed. From 1923 to 1929 she lived in New York City jumping from jobs and apartments while she was writing. In 1929, Helen had her initiation into the unemployment movement when she was caught in a crowd of protesters and then struck on the head by a police officer when the protest turned violent. This began her unemployment movement activity that stretched from 1929 to 1938.

While in the movement she participated in protests, job marches, and hunger marches to win the demands of New York City's unemployed. She went to court several times on charges raging from inciting a riot to contempt in court and was jailed, according to her count, thirty times during her activities. In latter part of February of 1938, Helen was taken to the hospital for pneumonia and later died on February 28, 1938.