Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E.T. Kingsley

Eugene T. Kingsley was a railway brakeman in Montana who became a double amputee and a socialist activist. He was considered one of the most dangerous men in Canada and his political journey from San Francisco to prominence in the Socialist Party of Canada is explored in the book Able to Lead.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 16 June 2021
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press

Eugene T. Kingsley led an extraordinary life. Born in mid-nineteenth-century New York in 1890, he was a railway brakeman in Montana. An accident left him a double amputee and politically radicalized, and his socialist activism that followed took him north of the border, where he eventually was considered by the government to be "one of the most dangerous men in Canada."

Able to Lead: The Political Journey of Eugene T. Kingsley explores Kingsley's political journey from a soapbox speaker in San Francisco to prominence in the Socialist Party of Canada. Authors Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt shed light on a figure who shaped a generation of Canadian leftists during a time when it was uncommon for disabled men to lead. They examine Kingsley's efforts for justice against the Northern Pacific Railway and how his life intersected with immigration law and free-speech rights.

Able to Lead brings a turbulent period in North American history to life, highlighting Kingsley's profound legacy for the twenty-first-century political left.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780774865760