Emma Langdon

Emma Florence Langdon was born in Tennessee in 1875. She moved to the gold mining district of Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1903. She was an apprentice linotype operator who wrote that "women's place should be in the home and not in public life." In spite of such sentiments, she played a very visible role during some very turbulent times. She and her husband were working at the Victor Daily Record, a pro-union newspaper, during a 1903-04 strike of miners in the Cripple Creek gold fields that erupted into the Colorado Labor Wars. Along with many other union sympathizers, Langdon was forced to leave in 1904, and moved to Denver.

Republican governor of Colorado James Peabody had sent the national guard into Cripple Creek to suppress the strike. The Daily Record erroneously charged that one of the soldiers was an ex-convict. Its staff was imprisoned by the national guard in a bullpen before a retraction could be published. While Victor Daily Record editor George Kyner and four printers were in the bullpen, Emma Langdon, a linotype operator married to one of the imprisoned printers, sneaked into the Daily Record office and barricaded herself inside. She printed the next edition of the paper, and then delivered it to the prisoners in the bullpen.

Langdon was the only linotype operator in Victor who was overlooked by the national guard. She received a telephone message at midnight about the raid, and rushed to the office, barred the doors, and printed a four-page edition of the morning paper, with the headline across the top — Somewhat Disfigured but Still in the Ring. The next morning Emma Langdon arrived at the bullpen with an armload of papers intended for the prisoners. She was stopped by the guards. She recorded in her 1908 book, Labors' Greatest Conflicts, that the national guard officers were,

...discussing with glee the "great victory in suppressing the paper." Their laughter was soon changed to oaths when they were dramatically presented the papers that were intended for the imprisoned printers.

The Associated Press picked up the story of the apprentice printer who could not be intimidated.

The Daily Record did not miss an issue as a result of the arrests. The printers were held for twenty-four hours, charged with criminal libel, and then were released on bond. When the cases went to court, all charges were dismissed.

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Wikipedia