Biography
Ann Morton was a coal miner's daughter and an Unemployed Councils organizer in Springfield, Illinois. On April 13, 1934, she led a demonstration at the Sangamon County courthouse against relief cuts and compulsory work in return for relief. Deputies arrested her and took her through the courthouse's rear entrance to jail. That evening, miners and their families held a protest meeting demanding her freedom.
Page 1's Springfield April 16 report recalls the Friday relief demonstration at which deputy sheriffs attacked the meeting and seized Unemployment Councils organizers Ann Morton and Roy Jones. At a subsequent Workers Center meeting a deputized unemployed worker repudiated his role. This corroborates Morton's existing April 13 arrest and identifies a co-detainee; it does not prove a further arrest or an exact physical release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n092-apr-17-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
John L. Spivak’s eyewitness Springfield report describes Morton as a twenty-three-year-old coal miner’s daughter and leader of a relief protest demanding the removal of city relief administrator Nannie Fain. Sheriff Allan Cole ordered her arrest after disputing the demonstration permit. Spivak says deputies held her in the sheriff’s office for more than half an hour while dispersing the crowd, then took her through the rear entrance to jail. At the evening protest, an unemployed deputy identified as Blondy Ryan apologized and offered his four-dollar fee to the unemployed organization. The half hour is the reported office phase, not her complete jail duration; the article does not supply an exact release or birth date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1934/v12n01-jul-03-1934-NM.pdf#page=16
