Caroline Lowe

Caroline A. Lowe (1874–1933) was a Canadian-American labor and civil liberties lawyer and Socialist activist for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Early life On November 28, 1874, Caroline Lowe was born in Cottom, Essex County, Ontario, Canada. Lowe's family descended from British loyalists from the American Revolutionary War. Lowe's father was an itinerant lumberjack. Lowe grew up in Oskaloosa, Iowa. At age sixteen, Lowe moved to Kansas City, Missouri.

During April to August 1918, she supported George Vanderveer in the Chicago trial of 101 "Wobblies" (IWW members), including co-founder Bill Haywood.

In December 1919, she co-defended 28 Wobblies in Kansas City, Kansas. In March 1918, a Wichita, Kansas grand jury had accused them of violating the Espionage Act and the Lever Act for interruption of petroleum flow. Legal flaws led to a special grand jury in June 1919, which indicted them again under the Espionage and Lever Acts. Despite the efforts of the defense team (Lowe, George Vanderveer, Fred Moore, and Otto Christensen), the jury found 26 guilty (after one of the 28 pled guilty and the last remained at large). Sentence ranges from three to nine years in prison.

Works "A Letter from Our Attorney on the Wichita Case", One Big Union Monthly (September 1919) The Wage-Earning Woman and the Ballot (Chicago: Socialist Party, undated) The New Social Structure (Oakland: International Press, 1920)