Interview by Lucy Taksa in 1987 with Edna Ryan for the NSW Bicentennial Oral History Collection.
Born in Pyrmont, Sydney, Ryan speaks of her early life ; going to school ; clerical employment ; studying at business college ; different homes in Sydney ; strikes ; family life ; memories of and attitudes during World War I ; memories of the 1917 general strike ; the working classes ; International Workers of the World (IWW) ; politics of 1910-1930 ; her political interests ; street corner meetings ; family reading material ; memories of the Domain ; life as a Socialist, meeting places and haunts ; favourite speakers ; socialists being framed for crimes ; socialist/working class communication ; social conditions, her own research of the period ; the War Precautions Act ; socialism and the Labor Party ; her interest in, and reading of Lenin and Russia ; Justice Beeby and working class leaders.