When Alice Foley, a young cotton-spinner from the Northern English town of Bolton, was somehow convinced by her sister Cissy to attend a meeting on the ideas of William Morris, her disgust at the evident atheism of the proceedings was so violent that she left the meeting, fleeing to a church in order to pray for her sister’s soul.

Like her mother, Alice was deeply prejudiced against socialism, convinced that the cultural and economic tracts her sister voraciously consumed were nothing but a cynical attempt at social climbing. When Cissy joined the Bolton Socialist Club, a small social club in the town’s center, she became the black sheep of the family.

But, over time, Alice began to notice significant changes. Cissy’s intellectual fluidity was clear, and was earning her respect from the upper-class Suffragettes she associated with. She became influential on the factory floor, where her ability to lead her fellow workers with tactical prowess assured her rise through the male-dominated leadership of the local cotton workers’ union.