She became a political activist and advocated civic and economic reforms, including women's right to vote and an eight-hour workday.

She was born the fifth child and fifth daughter in a large working-class family in New Bedford, the former whaling capital of the world that became a textile manufacturing powerhouse during Equi's early years.

In 1892 Equi escaped a grim future in the mills and joined her high school girlfriend, Bessie Holcomb, on an Oregon homestead along the Columbia River.

She undertook the longest lesbian relationship of her life in 1905 after meeting a younger woman, Harriet Speckart, the niece of Olympia Brewing Company founder Leopold Schmidt.

"[8][9] Equi's intimate relationships with Holcomb in the 1890s and with Speckart in the early 1900s established her as the first publicly known lesbian on the U.S. West Coast.

On July 21, 1893, a local newspaper, The Dalles Times-Mountaineer, reported the sensational ruckus earlier that day that drew crowds of merchants and shoppers to the town center.

[11] Equi paced back and forth in front of the office of the Reverend Orson D. Taylor, a land developer and also the superintendent of the Wasco Independent Academy.

Many people in The Dalles regarded Taylor as a crook who peddled fraudulent land deals, and they applauded Equi's assault.

Her role as a physician became widely known to the public once she volunteered to join a group of doctors and nurses who provided medical care to people stricken during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Equi's courageous volunteer work was hailed by California's governor, San Francisco's mayor, and the U.S. Army, which awarded her a medal and a commendation.

Although city and state authorities frequently tried to halt the practice of abortion with prosecutions, Equi never faced legal consequences for her services.

[19][20] In 1913, Equi visited the site of a strike by cannery workers in east Portland at the Oregon Packing Company.

Once socialists and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined the strike in support of the women, the struggle expanded to include the right to free speech.

She regularly marched with jobless men, demanded better working conditions for them, and engaged in the IWW's free speech fights and support for lumber workers in the region's forests.

She protested a pre-war campaign in downtown Portland and unfurled a banner reading "Prepare to die, workingmen, JP Morgan & Co. want preparedness for profit."

The US government believed that Equi was a dangerous threat to national security and charged and convicted her of sedition under the newly revised Espionage Act.

Equi served her time in San Quentin State Prison in northern California, beginning her term on October 19, 1920, as inmate number 34110.

She shared the women's quarters with thirty-one other inmates, many of them serving sentences for homicide, theft, and performing abortions.

[24] Americans tried to forget the war years in the 1920s, but they nevertheless were swept into a heightened fear of radicals, labor unionists, and communists that became known as the "Red Scare."

Equi re-entered public life with her political comrades imprisoned or greatly restricted from protest activity.

[25] In 1930, Equi suffered a heart attack, sold her medical practice, and asked Flynn to assist her for several more years.