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Emma Goldman (1869-1940) |
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Emma Goldman was born on June 27 1869 in a Jewish ghetto in Lithuanian and immigrated with 16 years in the USA. Anti-Semitism molds her first experiences there what made her fast become a critic of her new country, just as she was of her old one. But what led her to dedicate her life to political radicalism was the hanging of 4 anarchists in Chicago who were accused of murdering policemen during the Haymarket riot. She worked as a sewing machine operator in a corset factory what made her concluding that the factory owners exploited her and the other workers. She was attracted to anarchism not only because it wanted to replace capitalism with free worker cooperatives but also because stood for free speech, atheism and the freedom from sexual inhibition. Like many other anarchists in her time she was attracted to the idea of political violence. During the Homestead strike she helped her lover and friend Alexander Berkmann with the planning of the attempted assassination of the steel factory owner Henry Frick. Only a year later she was one year in prison because she encouraged unemployed workers to steel bread if they really need to. |
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Between 1908 and 1916 Emma Goldman edited the anarchistic magazine "Mother Earth" and spoke throughout the USA for the anarchist cause. She believed that birth control would decrease the human misery by reducing the burden of large families and giving women of all classes sexual freedom. She was one of the first women who published books about this. She argued that not bearing children is a woman right every woman should have the means to prevent conceptions. Working as a nurse and a midwife and the attendance at a Parisian conference where condoms and other contraceptives were discussed, Emma Goldman knew a lot about modern birth control methods. In 1916 she was arrested for violating a law that forbade the spreading of information about contraceptives. She was also for "free love" what meant for her the sexual and spiritual union of two people who are not married. She believed that the marriage means for women being life-long dependent and sexual objects. Many people saw her as the "New women" - emancipated, unmarried and independent. She opposed every institution of force and exploitation: private property, slavery, religion, marriage, the military and the state. |
| She dreamed of a communistic society where everybody contributes according to ability and takes according to need. During World War I she was arrested because of organizing an anti-draft campaign. In 1919 she was deported back to Russia with other anarchists. Even being first a supporter of the Bolshevik Revolution, she became fast disillusioned with the oppression of free speech and the party rule. Her, in 1923 published book "My Disillusionment with Russia" was one of the first real critiques of the Soviet System. She left Russia and spent the rest of her life in Canada and Europe. She died on May 14th 1940. |  |
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This page was updated March/21/2004 |
