Thread by @egavactip

It's Friday, so let's Learn about Extremism! Today I want to tell you a little about one of the many women who played important roles on the far right in the United States.

I present to you Mary Lyrl Van Hyning (1892-1973), who was a prominent far right activist from the 1930s

through the 1950s, as the editor of an antisemitic and conspiratorial publication, Women's Voice, as a publisher and distributor of a variety of right-wing tracts, and as a speaker and conference organizer.

She also could rock a hat.

Van Hyning got her start with the isolationist Mother's Movement in the years before World War II. She and other far right women in Chicago formed the group known as "We, the Mothers, Mobilize for America, Inc."

In early 1941, Van Hyning began what would be a 20 year career of

editing and publishing Women's Voice, the main outlet for her extremism and antisemitism. It wasn't particularly subtle in its message.

She hated Jews and Freemasons the most (linking them together), and of course hated Communists. She was also anti-Catholic but was not so explicit about it. The Jews were the real problem.

Here in one typical issue, two of her lead articles were about the United Nations being Jewish and promoting fake antisemitic quotes from Benjamin Franklin.

One source alleges WV had a circulation of around 3,000, but its reach may have been broader, because in addition to

subscribing, many supporters bought additional copies to pass out or send to other people. In addition to newspaper, she also published stand-alone pamphlets, like this one.

Here's a little article in one issue calling for Congress to "OUTLAW all minority groups, or place them under close supervision and control" as well as to investigate Jewish control of the government behind the scenes.

Her publication was filled with little snippets of antisemitism, like this one from a Swedish man asserting that "the whole world" is crying "away with the Jews." This just after World War II when "away with the Jews" nearly became a thing.

Other works were also advertised, like those of Ayn Rand.

Here's some of the literature she sold, including pieces by Austin App, one of the earliest Holocaust deniers, and an item by Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the "Little House on the Prairie" books.

This list from a later issue includes numerous works by George W. Armstrong--subject of a recent thread I made, cousin to this one.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, FBI offices around the country were sent letters warnings them about Van Hyning and her extremism, often accompanied by an issue of WV that they had encountered or that someone had put on their doorsteps. It

She eventually amassed an FBI file hundreds of pages long, though I don't think it ever investigated her for a crime.

Among other things, Van Hyning was also anti-vax, being a vocal opponent of the polio vaccine. "Jews Poison American Children" was the title of one of her anti-vaccine pamphlets.

During World War II, her daughter ran unsuccessfully for public office. After World War II, her son ran--also unsuccessfully--on an extreme platform. Here's a promotion for him in Women's Voice.

The Chicago office of the ADL kept close tabs on her because of her poisonous antisemitism and sometimes warned the FBI about her. Here ADL documented the increasing role noted antsemite Eustace Mullins was playing in the late 1950s.

In addition to her publications, Van Hyning spoke around the country and also organized her own conferences and events.

In 1960, Van Hyning's husband died. In her late 60s, she decided to move to New Mexico to be with other family, and this basically ended her activism. She died in 1973 of breast cancer, leaving behind a decades-long legacy of hate, prejudice and extremism.