Biography
Theodora Pollok was a social worker and the only woman among the "Sacramento 46" IWW defendants tried in early 1919 in the Northern District of California. The defendants had been arrested in late 1917 in the wake of the December 17, 1917 bombing of the California governor's mansion (which they were not charged with). 46 convicted of Espionage Act conspiracy after a one-hour jury deliberation. Pollok received a suspended sentence.
The March 1920 One Big Union Monthly prisoner roster provides a contemporaneous procedural account. The roster dates the Sacramento federal indictment to February 8, 1918, and reports that no sentence had been imposed and a new trial was pending at the roster date; this contemporaneous procedural report is retained alongside later disposition accounts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/one-big-union-monthly/v02n03-mar-1920_One%20Big%20Union.pdf#page=17
White dates Pollok’s arrest to December 29, 1917 and describes a humiliating compulsory physical examination while she was assisting the Sacramento defendants. He reports a January 1919 verdict and a later $100 fine, rather than a completed penitentiary term. These details conflict with inherited arrest and disposition dates and do not independently support the stored January-to-February prison interval.
Ahmed White, Under the Iron Heel (University of California Press, 2022), physical PDF pages [138, 139, 140, 141] (printed page = physical minus 11); source193 SHA256 7c24fb0ba336fcbf379fb9720f70dcdbf754d796a50dee77b39e38e0f9bd2868.
