William S. Flynn

Who was William S. Flynn?

William Smith Flynn of Providence, Rhode Island was the 54th Governor of Rhode Island from 1923 to 1925. He was a Democrat.

Flynn graduated from the College of Holy Cross in 1907 and Georgetown Law School in 1910. He served as a state representative from 1912 to 1923. As a legislator, he sponsored the Townsend-Flynn Act, which guaranteed Kosher food to Jewish inmates in state prisons, the first such law in the United States.

In 1924, while Flynn was governor, the Ku Klux Klan held an illegal meeting at the state owned The Old Arsenal, the Providence Marine Corps of Artillery building, 176 Benefit St. Later, Flynn denounced the KKK and forbade the group from meeting on state property.,

Flynn was the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1924, but lost to his Republican Jesse H. Metcalf.

Flynn later led the advisory board for the Public Works Administration from 1933 to 1934 and served as division director for Providence Civilian Defense during World War II.

He was married to Virginia H. Goodwin.