258 107 9MB
English Pages 187 Year 1995
EMMA GOLDMAN A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources
CANDACE FALK
Editor STEPHEN COLE
Associate Editor SALLY THOMAS
Assistant Editor
• • • Chadwyck-Healey
© 1995. Chadwyck-Healey Inc. All rights reserved. No pari of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from Chadwyck-Healey Inc. First published 1995 by: Chadwyck-Healey Inc. 1101 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314 USA Distributed outside the USA by: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd The Quorum Barnwell Road Cambridge CB5 8SW England
ISBN 0-89887-084-4
THE EMMA GOLDMAN PAPERS PROJECT
E ditors
Candace Falk, Ph.D. Editor and Director Î 980-1994
Daniel Cornford, Ph.D. Stephen Cole, Ph.D.
Ronald J. Zboray, Ph.D.
Alice Hall, J.D.
Microfilm Editor
Associate Editor, Government Documents
Associate Editor, Correspondence Series
1987-1993
1989-1990
1984-1990
A dministrative
and
Associate Editor 1991-1994
P rogram S taff
Ami Samuels
Susan Wengraf
Administrative Assistant
Sally Thomas
Exhibition Associate
1990-1991
A dministnative Analyst
1989-1993
1985-1991
Jennifer Collins
Steve Masover
Assistant Editor
Administrative Assistant
Administrative. Assistant
1992-1994
1989-1990
1992-1993
R esearch A ssociates
Sarah Crome
Robert Cohen, Ph.D.
Barbara Loomis, Ph.D.
1980-1985
1987-1991
1988-1989
Dennis McEnnerney
Tom Peabody
1985-1991
1990 P roduction E ditors
Kurt Thompson
Jennifer Smith
Ellen Ratcliffe
Michael Katz
1987-1990
1988-1990
1986-1989
1990-1992
E ditorial A ssistants
Brigida Campos
Robert Geraci
Sherry Katz
1990-1991
1991
1987-1988
1989-1990
Colleen Cotter
Susan Grayzel
Maxine Leeds
Raehel Rivera
1990-1991
1987-1989
Oz Frankel
Marilynn Johnson
1990-1991
Christopher Gales 1990-1991
1989-
19891990
Leigh Anne Jones 1990-
1991
1990
Joanne Newman 1985-1989
Kristin Penner 1990-
1991
I nternational S earch C oordinators
Brenda Butler
Karen Hansen
1986-1990
1985-1986
Julia Rechter
1989-
1991
Françoise Vergés 1990-
1991
Jessica Weiss 1989-1990
To those who, inspired by Emma Goldman’s ideals, continue to meet the challenges necessary' to uphold the fragile right o f dissent, to imagine a more just and sane world, and to devote themselves to the cause o f freedom.
The publication of the microfilm edition and its companion volume, Emma Goldman: A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources, would not have been possible without the unwavering sup port of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives. We dedicate the Correspondence series to the N I1PRC’s Deputy Director, Roger Bruns; and the Government Documents series to the memory of Sara Dunlap Jackson, the NHPRC’s long time archivist. With their historical, archival, and administrative guidance combined with goodnatured friendship, we launched the Emma Goldman Papers Project. The Goldman Writings series, which includes translations of Goldman’s work, is dedicated to the memory of the Project’s European and Asian search coordinator, Brenda Butler, who died at the age of thirty-seven, just after completing five years of work on the Project. Much of the collection’s material tracing Goldman’s international significance is in tire collection because of Brenda Butler’s persistence and her sensitivity to the distinct cultures and polities of the many contributing archives and research associates around the world. The late Sarah Crome, cofounder and first research associate of the Emma Goldman Papers Project, was an inspiration to all of us for her untiring commitment to the cause of freedom. An unsung heroine in her own time, Sarah never sought public praise, but The Emma Goldman Papers would not have been the same without her.
Contents L ist of Illustrations ...................................................................................................................................... xi F oreword
by
L eon F. L it w a c k ......................................................................................................................
1
Part I Emma Goldman
E ditor’s Introduction: Reconstructing by
the
D ocumentary H istory
of a
V ibrant L ife
C andace F a l k .........................................................................................................................................
T he W orld
of
E mma G oldman: A B ibliographical E ssay
C hronology (1869-1940)
by
............................
21
S ally T homas, Stephen C ole, and C andace T alk .......................
37
by
Stephen C ole
7
11.LUSTRATIONS .................................................................................................................................................. 117
Part II The Microfilm Edition
C opyright and P ermissions ........................................................................................................................
135
E ditorial P rinciples
R onald J. Z boray ...........................................................
137
C andace F a l k .....................................................................................................
163
A cknowledgments
and
by
P rocedures
C ontributing Institutions
by
...............................................................................................................
C ontributing S cholars, A rchivists, G oldman A ssociates
and
L ibrarians ..............................................................
185
H eirs .....................................................................................................
189
and
Financial S upporters ................................................................................................................. R eel L ist (C ontents
by
Introductory E ssays
R eel N umber)
to the
171
191
.................................................................................................
197
R eels ........................................................................................................
199
fixl
Indexes
C orrespondence ............................................................................................................................................
263
G oldman W ritings: D rafts, P ublications,
S peeches ...............................................................
441
P eriodical A r t ic l e s ................................................................
455
G overnment D ocuments: C ross R eference L ist ................................................................................
491
G overnmen t D ocuments: K ey to A bbreviations
529
G oldman W ritings: N ewspaper
and
and
for
N ames In d e x ...............................................
G overnment D ocuments: N a m e ...............................................................................................................
531
G overnment D ocuments: T itle ..............................................................................................................
601
G overnment D ocuments: S ubject ..........................................................................................................
633
E rrata
691
............................................................................................................................................................
[xj
List o f Illustrations
Goldman, ca. 1910 (Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace) .......................... frontispiece Family portrait (Emma Goldman Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Section, New York Public L ibrary).................................................................................................. ......... 118 Goldman at seventeen (International institute of Social H istory)......................................... ......... 118 Goldman as a young activist (Culver P ictures)...................................................................... ......... 118 Die Dreiheit announcement (New York Public Library')....................................................... ........... 119 Baltimore Critic clipping (Library, State Historical Society of W isconsin)....................... ........... 119 1893 mug shot (Department of Records, City Archives of Philadelphia)....................................... 119 Goldman, ca. 1890 (International Institute of Social History)............................................... ........... 120 “What Is There in Anarchy for Woman?” (courtesy of St. Louis Post-D ispatch).............
120
Voltairine de Clevre, 1897 (Joseph ishill Papers, University of Florida)
120
Caricature of Goldman (courtesy of Chicago Daily T rib u n e)...........................................
121
Chicago Inter Ocean article....................................................................................................
121
1901 mug shot (Library of C o n g ress)...................................................................................
121
Portrait of Goldman (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe C o lleg e)...........................................
j 22
Mother E a r th .............................................................................................................................
122
Letter from Goldman to Alexander Berkman (International Institute of Social History) .
I22
Portrait of Berkman (Labadie Collection, University of Michigan Library).....................
122
Letter from Goldman to Ben Reitman (University of Illinois at Chicago Library)...........
123
Letter from New Haven police chief (Record Group 60, U.S. National Archives)...........
123
Reitman and Anna Baron (Newspaper Enterprise Association/Clcveland Public Library)
123
1915 lecture handbill (Holzwarth Collection, University of California at Santa Barbara)
124
Letter from Goldman to Helen Keller (Keller Archives, American Foundation for the Blind). . . 124
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Goldman at Union Square rally {International Institute of Social H istory).................................... 124 Goldman and Berkman (UPI/Belimann Newsphotos)...................................................................... 125 Prison letter to Stella Baliantine (International institute of Social H isto ry ).................................. 125 Letter from J. Edgar Hoover (Record Group 60, U.S. National A rchives).................................... 126 Goldman with Harry Weinberger before deportation (UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos)..................... 126 Questions to Lenin (Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Moscow). . . 127 Goldman at Peter Kropotkin funeral (courtesy of Paul A v ric h )..................................................... 127 Goldman with Arthur Leonard Ross and Weinberger at Versailles (International Institute of Social H istory)................................................................................................................................ 128 M. Eleanor Fitzgerald and Pauline Türkei (Box 8, M. Eleanor Fitzgerald Papers, Manuscripts Collection, Gokla Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).................................. 128 Goldman and Emily Holmes Coleman, St. Tropez (UPI/Bettmann N ew sphotos)....................... 128 Portrait of Goldman, inscribed to “Fitzi” (Box 8, M. Eleanor Fitzgerald Papers, Manuscripts Collection, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).................................. 128 Rudolf Rocker (photograph by Scnya Fleshin, courtesy of William Fishman).............................. 129 Max Neitlau (International Institute of Social H istory).................................................................... 129 Goldman with Modest Stein, Berkman, and Mollie Steimer (photograph by Senya Fleshin, courtesy of Paul A v ric h )................................................................................... ( ..............’
¡79
Goldman and Stella Baliantine (AP/'Cleveiand Public L ib ra ry )..................................................... 130 1934 speaking announcement (International institute of Social H istory)...................................... 130 Goldman press conference (UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos) ................................................................ 130 Letter from Goldman to H.G. Wells (Wells Collection, Rare Book Room, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)................................................................................................................... 'll Goldman speaking in Hyde Park (courtesy of Jean F a u lk s)........................................................... 13 i Goldman with Spanish comrades (International Institute of Social H isto ry )................................ 131 1938 speaking announcement (International Instituteof Social H istory)..................................... 131 Goldman's grave s i t e ........................................................................................................................... 132 Memorial announcement (American Civil Liberties Union Archives, Princeton University L ib ra ry ).......................................................................................................................................... 132
[xii]
The World o f Emma Goldman: A Bibliographical Essay
In 1969, nearly sixty years after it first appeared, Dover Publications published a paperback edition of Emma Goldman’s Anarchism and Other Essays. Almost a quarter-century later Dover still sells fifteen hundred copies annually, and its 1970 paperback edition of her autobiography, Living My Life (1931), also remains in print—testimony to the continuing interest in Goldman’s life and ideas. With the publication of the microfilm edition of The Emma Goldman Papers, research ers will be able to supplement these volumes and other collections of Goldman’s work with facsimi les of her correspondence, government surveillance and legal documents, and other published and unpublished writings on an extraordinary range of issues. The purpose of this essay is to assist users of the microfilm who are unfamiliar with Goldman’s historical milieu by alerting them to books—secondary sources identified in the course of the Project’s fourteen years of research— that will provide context for the documents in the collection. It is not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography; it is confined for the most part to books, excluding, for example, articles in scholarly journals as well as anarchist newspapers and pamphlets. Included, however, arc accounts by Goldman and her associates of the movements and conflicts in which they participated that are essential for an appreciation of the flavor of their culture and of the world they attempted to build. Over the years, many of these sources have been reprinted; others have remained out of print for decades (for example, Alexander Berkman’s Bolshevik Myth). Wherever possible the fullest publishing history has been provided to aid readers in locating books that, despite occa sional reprintings, can still be difficult to find. For more extensive bibliographies, readers should consult Paul Nursey-Bray, Jim Jose, and Robyn Williams, eds., Anarchist Thinkers and Thought: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992); the unannotated compilation by Robert Goehlert and Claire Herczeg, Anarchism: A Bibliography (Monticello, 111.: Vance Bibliographies, [1982]); and the catalogue of the anarchist collection at the Institut Français d ’Histoire Sociale, Paris: Janine Gaitlemin, MarieAude Sowerwinc-Mareschal, and Diana Richet, eds., V anarchisme: Catalogue de livres et bro chures des XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris and Munich: K. G. Saur, 1982), An especially thorough bibliography can be found in David DeLeon, The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indig enous Radicalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). O f historical interest is one of the earliest bibliographies of anarchism, compiled by the anarchist historian Max Nettlau, a frequent correspondent of Goldman’s. See Bibliographie de l ’anarchie (Brussels: Bibliothèque des “Temps Nouveaux,” 1897; rpt. ed., New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), with a preface by Elisée Reclus. Finally, always valuable are the bibliographies in the books by Paul Avrich (see below).
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
G oldman's Whitings The starting point for anyone interested in Goldman is her thousand-page autobiography, Liv ing My Life, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931; ipt, ed., Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Company, 1934), which covers her life thoroughly through her departure from Soviet Russia in 1921 but devotes comparatively little space to her activities during the 1920s. Three years in the writing, Living My Life did not sell as many copies as Goldman had hoped, a victim of the depression and the high price of $7.50 for the two volumes. Still, Goldman was buoyed by the generally favorable reviews of her work. Friends compared the book to Rousseau’s Confessions; reviewers saw her life’s story as an antidote to complacency. The central theme of the book is the passionate intensity of Goldman’s commitment to her “beautiful ideal” of anarchism and her parallel quest for love and intimacy. When the book appeared, however, some readers and reviewers were shocked by Goldman’s candor in discussing her personal life, missing its centrality to her political convictions. Her attempt to reconcile the personal and political, however, found a strong resonance in the revitalized women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Living My Life has been reprinted many times. A two-volume paperback edition is still in print (New York: Dover Publications, 1970). Other modern reprints include a two-volume edition, with an introduction by Sheila Rowbotham (London: Pluto Press, 1986); a one-volume unabridged edition, with an introduction by Candace Falk and a remembrance by Meridel Le Sueur (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1982); a facsimile reprint of the 1931 Knopf edition (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970); and a one-volume abridged edition that ends with Goldman’s deportation from the United States in 1919, edited with an afterword and bibliographical essay by Richard and Anna Maria Drinnon (New York: New American Library, 1977). The editors of this edition performed an especially useful service by compiling a new and far more comprehensive index to replace the hopelessly inadequate original. In addition to its serialization in Yiddish in the Forward in 1931 (see reel 52 of The Emma Goldman Papers microfilm), Goldman’s autobiography has been published in other languages: for example, in German as Gelebtes Leben, 3 vols., trans. Renate Orywa and Sabine Vetter (Berlin: Karin Kramer Verlag, 1978-1980); in an abridged French edition, Epopee d u n e anare.hisle: New York 1886-Moscou 1920, trans. Cathy Berriheim and Annette Levy-Willard (Paris: Hachctte, 1979); and in Italian, Vivendo la mia vita, 3 vols., trans. Michele Buzzi (Milan: La Salamandra 19801986). Goldman s monthly magazine, Mother Earth, which she published in New York from March 1906 to August 1917, is an important source for those interested in her ideas and the anarchist
movement of the period. Often the day-to-day operation of the magazine was in the hands of others, most notably Max Baginski and for many years Alexander Berkman, freeing Goldman to spread anarchist ideas, build a readership, and raise money for the magazine through nationwide lecture lours. But Mother Earth bore the stamp of its founder, especially in its melding of art and politics, in addition to her essays— many of them revisions of lectures- -and articles on different aspects of anarchism, Mother Earth published original poems and short stories; excerpted works by writers such as Tolstoy, Maxim Gorki, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Oscar Wilde and reprinted poems by Will iam Morris and Walt Whitman; reported on labor and civil liberties disputes; kept its readers abreast of developments in the international anarchist and labor movements; and often featured striking graphics on its cover.
22
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Mother Earth helped to revitalize the anarchist movement in the United States, acting as a hub for its intellectual life and attracting readers and supporters from beyond the ranks of the movement by its eclectic contents and especially its unflinching defense of free speech. Its pages provided countless local groups with a forum to advertise meetings and lectures and for endless fund-raising appeals. Each issue carried advertisements for books and pamphlets on anarchism and other top ics—advertisements that are a valuable resource for researchers trying to recover the political and cultural locus of the movement. Finally, the magazine’s offices also served as a publishing house: The Mother Earth Publishing Association published some of the most important anarchist books of the period, including Goldman’s Anarchism and Other Essays and Berkman’s Prison Memoirs. Ail twelve volumes have been reprinted in the “Radical Periodicals in the United States, 1890 I960” series (New York: Greenwood Reprint Corporation, 1968). Unaccountably the reprinted volumes appeared under the title, Mother Earth Bulletin, the name of the journal that succeeded Mother Earth after the latter was banned from the mails under a provision of the wartime Espionage Act. Mother Earth Bulletin was published from October 1917 to April 1918, when it met the same late as its predecessor. After Goldman’s imprisonment and the suppression of the Bulletin, Stella Ball anti nc tried to keep her aunt’s voice before the public through a mimeographed newsletter with the wonderfully ironic title, Instead o f a Magazine (recalling Benjamin R. Tucker’s In s te a d o f a Book). The newsletter, however, lasted just one issue (a copy of it can be found on reel 61 of The Emma Goldman Papers microfilm). Goldman revised many of her early lectures and essays and collected them in Anarchism and Other Essays (New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1910). The book includes “Anar chism: What It Realty Stands For,” “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty,” and “The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation, among other essays, as well as a forty-page biographical sketch of Goldman by Hippolyte Havel. A reprint of the third revised edition (1917), with a new introduction by Richard Drinnon, is still in print (New York.: Dover Publications, 1969). Other modern reprints have ap peared in German as Anarchismus, seine wirkliche Bedeulung, trans. Sabine Wolski and Ulrich Schwalbe (Berlin: Eibertad Verlag, 1978); and in Italian as Anarchia, femminismo e attri saggi. Rails. Roberto Massari (Milan: La Salamandra, 1976). In addition to political topics, trom the early 1900s Goldman wrote and lectured on modern European drama. Her essays on playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Gerhart I lauplmann, George Bernard Shaw, and Anton Chekhov were revised and published as The Social Significance o f the Modern Drama (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1914), which has been reprinted (New York: Applause—Theatre Book Publishers, 1987). Goldman’s accounts of her experiences in Soviet Russia and what she saw as the Bolsheviks’ betrayal of the revolution were translated into many languages (see reel 49 of The Emma Goldman Papers microfilm). When her book, My Disillusionment in Russia (Garden City, N.Y.; Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923), appeared, Goldman was dismayed that Doublcday, Page & Company had replaced her title, “My Two Years in Russia,” without her knowledge. Even worse, the publisher cut the last twelve chapters of the manuscript, omitting her account of crucial events such as the Kronstadt rebellion and an afterword in which she reflected on the trajectory of the revolution after the Bolshe viks seized power. The publisher attempted to rectify the situation by publishing the omitted chap ters as a separate volume: My Further Disillusionment in Russia (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
23
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Page & Company, 1924). The complete text in one volume, with an introduction by Rebecca West, appeared the following year: My Disillusionment in Russia (London: C. W. Daniel Company, 1925). With the resurgence of interest in Goldman in the 1960s and 1970s, a new edition of the complete text, with Frank Harris’s biographical sketch of Goldman from his Contemporary Portraits (see below), was published (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, Apollo Editions, 1970). A useful anthology of Goldman’s essays and speeches drawn from the entire span of her career, arranged topically under “Organization of Society,” “Social Institutions,” “Violence,” and “Two Revolutions and a Summary,” is Alix Kates Shulman, ed., Red Emma Speaks: Selected Writings and Speeches by Emma Goldman (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), which has been reprinted (New York: Schocken Books, 1982). Two collections of Goldman’s letters from her years in exile from the United Stales have been published. Richard and Anna Maria Drinnon, eds., Nowhere at Home: Letters from Exile o f Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), is an outstanding, often moving collection of letters. Arranged thematically— under “Communism and the Intellectuals.” Anarchism and Violence,” “Women and Men,” and “Living the Revolution”—the letters are distin guished by the candor and passion with which their authors engage issues and by the deep bond of affection between two lifelong comrades. David Porter, ed., Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution (New Paltz, N.Y.; Commonground Press, 1983), includes letters on all aspects of the anarchist struggle in the Spanish civil war. The historical context is established by extensive introductions and commentaries, and the texts of the letters are thoroughly annotated.
B iographies
of
G oldman
There are now a number o f scholarly biographies of Goldman. The earliest, Richard Drinnon’s Rebe1 in Paradise: A Biography o f Emma Goldman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, 1982), remains indispensable and has been reprinted (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970); and (New York: Harper & Row, 1976). For full documentation of his sources, see “Emma Goldman: A Study in American Radicalism” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1957). Two biographies explore the intersection of Goldman’s public and private lives. Candace Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Gold man (New' York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984; rev. ed., New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univer sity Press, 1990), offers a challenging view of the theory and practice of anarchism, and Goldman’s relation to it, through the prism of her personal life. (Published in German as Liebe und Anarchie dr Emma Goldman: Ein erotischer Briefwechsel; Eine Biographie, trans. Dita Stafski and Helga Woggon [Berlin: Karin Kramer Verlag, 1987].) Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life (New York: Pantheon Rooks, 1984)—reprinted as Emma Goldman in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986)—which covers Goldman’s career through her deportation in 1919, and Wexler’s sec ond volume, Emma Goldman in Exile: From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), concentrate especially on the character of Goldman’s anarchism. A brief survey of Goldman’s life focusing on the American years with little attention to her years in exile is John Chalberg, Emma Goldman: American Individualist (New' York: HarperCollins, 1991). Martha Solomon, Emma Goldman (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987), focuses on Goldman as a writer and rhetorician. Marian J. Morton, Emma Goldman and the American Left: “Nowhere at
24
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Home ” (New York: Twaync Publishers, 1992), leans heavily on secondary works, intending to place Goldman’s activities in the context of the broader Left during her lifetime. Fuller coverage of Goldman’s work on behalf of the Spanish anarchists during the civil war can be found in a biography by veteran anarchist and chronicler of the movement José Pcirats. See Emma Goldman: Anarquista de ambos mundos (Madrid: Campo Abierto Ediciones, 1978); reprinted as Emma Goldman: Un mujer en la tormenta del siglo (Barcelona: Editorial Laia, 1983). An issue o f the journal Itineraire: Une vie, une pensée (no. 8, 1990), published in Chelles, France, is devoted to Goldman and her circle. Other issues of the same journal have focused on Peter Kropotkin, Rudolf Rocker, and Errico Malatesta.
A lexander B erkman
Anyone interested in Goldman must also consult works by Berkman, her “chum of a lifetime.” Their friend and comrade Mollie Steimer described them as “inseparable emotionally and spiritually. Neither of them ever wrote a major article or a book without consulting the other.” Berkman’s editorial skills were considerable, as evidenced by his work on Mother Earth and in the substantial contribution he made to shaping Living My Life. Berkman was also a writer of grace and power, as his three major works testify-. Regrettably, he never wrote an autobiography, though in the early 1930s he sketched an outline for one through 1919. See Drinnon and Drinnon, eds., Nowhere at Home, xxv-xxvili. Writing his first book, Prison Memoirs o f an Anarchist (New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1912), introduction by Hutchins Hapgood, finally enabled Berkman to slay the ghosts that had haunted him since his release. It has been reprinted, with a new introduction by Paul Goodman (New York: Schockeo Books, 1970); and in another edition, with an afterword by Kenneth Rexroth (Pittsburgh: Frontier Press, 1970). An account of his fourteen-year imprisonment for at tempting to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, the book is a classic of the genre o f prison writing, chroni cling the brutality of the prison regime and the evolution of his attitudes toward his fellow prison ers—including a sympathetic discussion of homosexuality—with compelling honesty. The book also appeared in Yiddish: Gefengenen erinerungen fun an anarchist, 2 vols., ed. M. Katz and R. Frumkin (New York: M. E. Fitzgerald, 1920 -1921). Berkman loaned Goldman the diary he kept in Russia to help her write My Disillusionment in Russia, though he always believed that her free use of it detracted considerably from the impact of his subsequent account of the two years they spent in Russia, published as The Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920 -1922) (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925). The publisher rejected the final chapter of his manuscript “as an ‘anti-climax’ from a literary standpoint,” prompting Berkman to publish it separately as The “Anti-Climax”: The Concluding Chapter oj My Russian Diary; “The Bolshevik Myth ” ([Berlin]: n.p., [1925]). The complete work has recently been republished, with a new intro duction by Nicolas Walter (London: Pluto Press, 1989). Berkman’s earliest essays on Russia were published in three pamphlets— The Russian Tragedy, The Russian Revolution and the Communist Parly, and The Kronstadt Rebellion—in Berlin in 1922. They have been collected and reissued as The Russian Tragedy (Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press, 1976), with an introduction by William G. Nowlin. Jr.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Commissioned by the Jewish Anarchist Federation of New York to prepare a primer on anar chism that would be accessible to the average reader and help dispel the popular myths surrounding the topic, Berkman found the book excruciatingly difficult to write (see his letters to Goldman in the summer and fall of 1927 on reels 18 and 19 of this collection). Nonetheless, Paul Avrich, the leading historian of anarchism, considers Now and After: The ABC o f Communist Anarchism (New York: Vanguard Press/Jewish Anarchist Federation, 1929), “a classic, ranking with Kropotkin’s Conquest o f Bread as the clearest exposition of communist anarchism in English or any other language.” A recent republication, with a new introduction by Avrich and Goldman’s preface to the 1937 edition, appeared under the title What Is Communist Anarchism? (New York: Dover Publications, 1972). An abridged edition, ABC o f Anarchism, first published in London in 1942 and reprinted many times, is still available (London: Freedom Press, 1971), with an introduction by Peter E. Newell. Following the untimely death ofVoltairine de Cleyre in 1912, Berkman edited a collection of her writings: Selected Works ofVoltairine de Cleyre (New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1914), with a biographical sketch by Hippolyte Havel. The collection has been reprinted (New York: Revisionist Press, 1972). His relationship with de Cleyre was less conflicted than was Goldman’s. He held her in high esteem as a writer and fellow anarchist. A faithful correspondent while Berkman was imprisoned, de Cleyre provided emotional and intellectual support after his release and espe cially while he was writing Prison Memoirs. Berkman’s labor weekly, The Blast, which he edited and published in San Francisco from Janu ary 191.6 to May 1917 with the assistance of M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, has also been reprinted in the “ Radical Periodicals in the United States, 1890-1960” series (New York: Greenwood Reprint Cor poration, 1968). Under the auspices of the International Committee for Political Prisoners, Berkman compiled and edited a valuable collection of material documenting the Bolsheviks’ proscription of civil liber ties and persecution of revolutionary groups and parties in the early years of the Soviet state. Com prising correspondence, testimonies, affidavits, and interviews of political prisoners and exiles, Let ters from Russian Prisons (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1925), has also been reprinted (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1977). A useful selection from Berkman’s major works plus letters and articles from The Blast is Gene Fellner, ed,, Life o f an Anarchist: The Alexander Berkman Reader (New York: Four Wails Eight Windows, 1992). Berkman will finally receive the attention he deserves when Paul Avrich completes the biography he is currently writing.
A narchism
The best surveys to date of anarchism are James foil, The Anarchists, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980); George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History o f Libertarian Ideas and Movements (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1962; rpt. ed., Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1963); and Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History oj Anarchism (London: HarperCollins, 1992). A useful brief introduction that ranges from Michael Bakunin to Murray Bookchin and social ecology is Richard D. Sonn, Anarchism (New York: fwayne 26
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL BSSAY
Publishers. 1992). For the scope and vital ity of anarchist thought, see the selections in the following anthologies; Irving Louis Horowitz, ed., The Anarchists (New York: Dell, 1964); Daniel Guerin, ed., Ni dieu, ni maître: Anthologie historique du mouvement anarchiste (Paris: Editions de Delphes, [1965]); Leonard I. Kri merman and Lewis Perry, eds., Patterns o f Anarchy: A Collection o f Writ ings on the Anarchist Tradition (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1966); Marshal S. Sbatz, cd.. The Essential Works o f Anarchism (New York: Bantam Books, 1971; rpt. cd., New York: Quad rangle Books, 1972); and George Woodcock, ed., The Anarchist Reader (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1977). Goldman wrote at length in her autobiography about the formative influences on her political ideas, from the Russian populists and nihilists of her adolescence— apotheosized for her in the char acter of Vera in Nikolai Cherny she vsky’s novel What Is to Be Done?-—-to the Haymarket martyrs and her mentor Johann Most. As important an influence as the Russian anarchist theorists Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin were, Goldman could also draw upon a native radical tradition in the United States of communitarianism and resistance to government authority—a tradition that found political expression in the utopian and abolitionist movements before the Civil War and resonated especially in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. The execution of the Haymarket anarchists was the catalyst for Goldman's decision to devote her life to their ideal of anarchism. The best account of the affair is Paul Avriclrs magisterial The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). Still useful is Henry David, The History o f the Haymarket Affair: A Study in the American Social-Revolutionary Tradition, 2d ed. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1958). Dave Roediger and Franklin Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1986), is an excellent compilation of contemporary accounts of the affair and its aftermath, remembrances, scholarly articles, and illus trations. On the condemned men themselves, see Philip S. Foner, ed., The Autobiographies o f the Haymarket Martyrs (New York: Humanities Press, 1969). The diversity of the social and cultural milieu of anarchism in Chicago is demonstrated in Bruce C. Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History o f Chicago's Anarchists, 1870 -1900 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988). On Johann Most, see Memoiren, Etiebles, Erforschtes und Erdachtes (New York: Seibstverlag des Vcrfassers, 1903-1907); Rudolf Rocker, Johann Most: Das Leben eines Rebelled (Berlin: tlDer Syndikalist,” Fritz Kaler, 1924); and Frederic TrauUnann, The Voice o f Terror: A Biography of Johann Most (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980). For a survey of American anarchist thought from the earliest years of the Republic through the mid-twentieth century, see William O. Reichert, Partisans o f Freedom: A Study in American Anar chism (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976); Ronald Creagh, Histoire de l ’anarchisme aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique: Les origines, 1826-J886 (Grenoble: Editions La Pensée Sauvage, 1981); and Eunice Minette Schuster, Native American Anarchism: A Study o f Left-Wing American Individualism, Smith College Studies in History, vol. 17 (Northampton, Mass.: Department of History, Smith College, 1932), which has been reprinted twice (New York: AMS Press, 1970) and (Port Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics Unlimited, 1983). On individualist anar chists, sec James .1. Martin, Men Against the State: The Expositors o f Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908 (DeKalb, 111.: Adrian Allen Associates, 1953; rev. cd., Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles, 1970); and Michael E. Coughlin, Charles H. Hamilton, and Mark A. Sullivan, eds., Ben jamin R. Tucker and the Champions o f “Liberty”: A Centenary Anthology (St. Paul: Michael E. 27
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Coughlin and Mark Sullivan, 1986). David DeLeon advances the bold thesis that, as manifested in different forms of libertarian radicalism characterized by a hostility to centralized power, anarchism represents the most significant radical tradition in American history. See DeLeon, American as Anarchist, The intellectual foundations of communist anarchism were laid in the nineteenth century by the Russians Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Multivolume collections of Bakunin’s works have been published in French and German, and most of his major works are available in English transla tion. Useful anthologies include Sam Dolgoff, ed., Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder o f World Anarchism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), which was reprinted as Bakunin on Anarchism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980); and G. P. Maximoff, The Political Philosophy o f Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1953; rpt. ed., New York: Free Press, 1964), with an introduction by Rudolf Rocker and biographical sketch by MaxNettlau. Kropotkin’s major works—An Appeal to the Young, Conquest oj Bread, Fields, Factories and Workshops, Memoirs o f a Revolutionist, and Mutual Aid—have been reprinted numerous times. The most useful anthologies of Kropotkin’s writings are Emile Capouva and Kcitha Tompkins, eds., The Essential Kropotkin (New York: Liveright, 1975); Martin A. Miller, ed., Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1970); and Roger Baldwin, ed., Kropotkins Revolutionary Pamphlets: A Collection o f Writings (New York: Vanguard Press, 1927; rpt. ed., New York: Dover Publications, 1970). The best biographies of the two are L. H. Carr, Michael Bakunin (London: Macmillan, 1937; rpt. ed., New York: Vintage Books, 1961); and George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Anarchist Prince: A Biography oj Peter Kropotkin (London: A ,N .WcYdiVwan, WSVr, YA cW N oAc YcAockcnWooks,, Yffl Yy V^ccAcnXriAcYmVxodncVon's Vo WAwyLvcyand caw Vo Vovwd vn We, dov oved Vo Wevn W Ya\d ktv\0n, Anarchist P or tvalts (YVmooVow. YTOvooVonVrivNcvvko) Yvcss, Y)YY), On the dispute in the First International between Marx and Bakunin, see Paul Thomas, Karl Marx and the Anarchists (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); and for the reverberations of that dispute within Russian anarchism as it grappled with Bolshevism, see Anthony D ’Agostino. Marxism and the Russian Anarchists (San Francisco: Germinal Press, 1977).
The A merican Years
The period o f Goldman’s life in the United States when she was at the peak of her influence is well documented in autobiographies and reminiscences by other participants in the radical, labor, and literary movements of the time. Readers should bear in mind, however, that after World War I the radicals who once had cooperated took different political paths. The accounts they wrote of earlier years sometimes reflect a changed political orientation; others took the opportunity to settle old scores. With reference to Goldman, then, the following books should be consulted with care. William D. Haywood, Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography o f William D. Haywood (New York: International Publishers, 1929), reprinted many times; and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, I Speak My Own Piece: Autobiography o f “The Rebel G irl” (New York: Masses & Mainstream, 1955); rev. ed., The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography; My First Life (1906-1926) (New York: International Publishers, 1973), cover the lives of two leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who 28
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
occasionally worked closely with Goldman. Maiy Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly: Reminis cences o f Mary Heaton Vorse (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935); and Hutchins Hapgood, A Victorian in (he Modern World (New York: Ilarcourt, Brace and Company, 1939), are excellent autobiographies by two author/joumalists whose sympathies were with the radicals. Both Margaret Sanger, My Fight fo r Birth Control (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931), and Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1938; rpt. ed., New York: Dover Publications, 1971) slight Goldman’s role in publicizing birth control ideas and her influence on Sanger. Max Eastman, Enjoyment o f Living (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948); and Floyd Dell, Homecoming: An Autobiography (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1933; rpt. cd., Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1969), include reflections on their years on the Masses before World War I. Mabel Dodge Luhan, Intimate Memories, vol. 3: Movers and Shakers (New York: Ilarcourt, Brace and Com pany, 1936; rpt. ed., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985), is a prolix but irresist ible memoir by the woman who confected the most memorable Greenwich Village salon of the 1910s. Margaret Anderson, the founder and editor of the Little Review, includes whimsical blit sometimes acute observations of Goldman in My Thirty Years' War: An Autobiography (New York: Covici, Friede, 1930; rpt. ed., Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971). The radical movement in the United States of the World War I era has attracted some outstand ing scholarship. For the anarchists, see Margaret S. Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870 -1920 (Phila delphia: Temple University Press, 1981); the relevant chapters in Avrich, Anarchist Portraits: Paul Avrich, An American Anarchist: The Life o f Volt.ai.rine de Cleyre (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Paul Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anar chist Background (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); the essays in Antonio Donno, ed., America anarchica (1850 -1930) (Manduria, Italy: Piero Lacaita Editore, 1990); Roger A. Bruns, The Damndest Radical: The Life and World o f Ben Reitman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); and Dorothy Gallagher, All the Right Enemies: The Life and Murder o f Carlo Tresca (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988; rpt. ed., New York: Penguin Books, 1989). For the Jewish anarchist movement from a participant’s perspective, see the account in Yiddish by Jo seph Cohen, Diyidish-anarkhistishe bavegung in Amerike (Philadelphia: Radical Library Branch 273, Workmen’s Circle, 1945). The best overview of the years immediately preceding World War I is still Henry F. May, The End o f American Innocence: A Study o f the First Years o f Our Time, 1912-1917 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959; rpt. ed., Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964). On the cultural and political radical ism of Greenwich Village before the war, see Arthur Frank Wertheim, The New York Little Renais sance: Iconoclasm, Modernism, and Nationalism in American Culture, 1908-1917 (New York: New York University Press, 1976); Leslie Fishbein, Rebels in Bohemia: The Radicals o f “The Masses, ” 1911-1917 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); and Rebecca Zurier, Art for “The Masses”: A Radical Magazine and Its Graphics, 1911-1917 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), which is an excellent introduction to this literary contemporary of Mother Earth and covers much more ground than its title and subtitle suggest. Two important books on the intersection of art and politics in the period are Steve Golin, The Fragile Bridge: Paterson Silk Strike, 1913 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and Martin Green, New York 1913: The Armory Show and the Paterson Strike Pageant (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988; rpt. ed., New York: Collier Books, 1989).
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For the various strands of the women’s movement in this period, see, for example, Nancy Coll, The Grounding o f Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Mari Jo Buhle, Women and American Socialism, 1870 -1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981); Meredith Tax, The Rising o f the Women; Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880 -1917 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980); Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, Words on Fire: The Life and Writing o f Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Judith Schwarz, Radical Feminists o f Heterodoxy; Greenwich Village, 1912-1940 (Lebanon, N.I L: New Victoria Publishers, 1982); Marsh, Anarchist Women; and Avrich, An American Anarchist. On the birth control movement, see Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Womans Right; A Social History o f Birth Control in America (New York: Grossman, 1976; rpt. ed., New York: Penguin Books, 1977); James Reed, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); and Ellen Chesler, Woman o f Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Goldman’s fight for birth control was part of a broader battle she waged for economic self-determination and for women’s right to sexual freedom. See Bonnie Haaland, Emma Goldman: Sexuality and the Impurity?o f the State (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1993). Goldman found support for her ideas in the work of European feminists such as Ellen Key. See Ellen Key, Love and Marriage, trans. Arthur G. Chater, introduction by Havelock Ellis (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911; rpt. cd., New York: Source Book Press, 1970); The Woman Movement, trans. Mamah Bouton Borthwick, introduction by Havelock Ellis (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912; rpt. ed., Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1976); and The Renaissance o f Motherhood, trans. Anna E. B. Fries (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1914; rpt. ed., New York: Source Book Press, 1970). For the historical precursors o f Goldman’s work, see Hal D. Sears, The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977); and Sheila Rowbolham and Jeffrey Weeks, Socialism and the New Life: The Personal and Sexual Politics o f Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis (London: Pluto Press, 1977). The work of Carpenter and Ellis also informed Goldman’s lectures on homosexuality. On the IWW, see Mclvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History o f the Industrial Workers o f the World (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969; 2d ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); and Philip S. Foner, History o f the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 4: The Industrial Workers o f the World, 1905-1917 (New York: International Publishers, 1965). For the anarchosyndicalist bent of the IWW and its expression in the art and culture of the Wobblies, see Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers o f the World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). See also Peter Carlson, Roughneck: The Life and Times o f Big Bill Haywood (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983); and Joseph R. Conlin, Big Bill Haywood and the Radical Union Movement (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1969). The spirit of the Wobblies is wonderfully evoked in Joyce L. Kornbluh, Rebel Voices: An I.WAV. Anthology>(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964; rev. ed., Chicago: Charles H, Kerr Publishing Company, 1988). Goldman and Berkman opposed U.S. entry into World War I and were convicted in 1917 of conspiring to obstruct the draft, one of numerous cases prosecuted under a battery of wartime legis lation designed to crack down on dissent. Fueled by the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the atmosphere of intolerance did not abate after the war’s end, and ad hoc groups and emergency
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committees formed during the war to protect civil liberties came together in 1920 to found the Ameri can Civil Liberties Union. On this period, see Paul L. Murphy, World War I and the Origin o f Civil Liberties in the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979); William Preston, Jr., Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression o f Radicals, 1903-1933 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963); Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (New York: Viking, 1987; rpt. cd., New York: Penguin Books, 1989); and Peggy Lamson, Roger Baldwin, Founder o f the American Civil Liberties Union: A Portrait (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). After Goldman and Berkman were released from prison in 1919, J. Edgar Hoover took charge of the deportation case against them. On Hoover’s career, see Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life o f J. Edgar Hoover (New York: Free Press, 1987); and Athan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).
Russ ¡A Aside from Goldman’s and Berkman’s own accounts (cited above), three books by Paul Avrich are directly relevant to their experience in Russia. The Russian Anarchists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967; rpt. ed,, New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), which includes an excellent bibliography, traces the intellectual origins of Russian anarchism in the late nineteenth century through the 1905 revolution to the anarchists’ role in 1917 and their subsequent suppression by the Bolshe viks. The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973), a collection of documents, includes writings by many of Goldman’s comrades who later were part of the community of Russian anarchist exiles in Germany and France. Kronstadt, 1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970) is the fullest account of the rebellion by sailors in the Gulf of Finland against the authoritarian and centralizi ng tendencies of the Bolsheviks. For an account of the most sustained anarchist resistance to both Bolshevik power and anti-Bolshevik forces during the revolutionary period, see Michael Pali), The Anarchism o f Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921: An Aspect o f the Ukrainian Revolution (»Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976). Two accounts by anarchist participants in the revolutionary period are G. P. Maximoff, The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years o f Terror in Russia (Data and Documents) (Chicago: Chicago Section of the Alexander Berkman Fund, 1940), reprinted in an abridged edition as The Guillotine at Work, vol. 1: The Leninist Counter-Revolution (Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press, 1979); and Voline [V. M. Eikhenbaum], La révolution inconnue, 1917-192 J : Documentation inédite sur la Révolution russe (Paris: Amis de Voline, 1947; rpt. ed., Paris; Editions Pierre Bclfond, 1969), parts of which were published in English in the mid-1950s, with a biographical introduction by Rudolf Rocker, by Freedom Press (London) and the Libertarian Book Club (New York). The complete work was published as The Unknown Revolution, 1917-192!, trans. Holley Cantine (New York: Free Life Editions, 1974). Angelica Balabanoff, first secretary of the Third International and an intimate of Lenin, befriended Goldman and Berkman during their years in Russia and remained close to them after she broke with the Soviet leadership. See her memoirs, My Life as a Rebel (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938).
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The E xile Years
Goldman’s years in Europe and Canada between her departure from Russia and the beginning of the Spanish civil war were among the most dispiriting of her life, culminating in the death of Berkman in June 1936. During that period she relied on correspondence to stay in touch with family and friends in the United States while she renewed contacts with European associates and exiled Russian comrades and developed new friendships where her work took her. Friends and family alike among Goldman’s American correspondents were connected with the arts, especially the theater. Her favorite niece, Stella, was married to Teddy Bailanline, an actor and occasional director with the Provincetown Players. M. Eleanor Fitzgerald—Goldman’s beloved “Fitzi,” who occupied many roles at Mother Earth— was the moving force behind the scenes of the Provincetown Playhouse during the 1920s after it moved to New York City. See Robert Karoly Saiios, Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players: Theatre in Ferment (Amherst: University of Mas sachusetts Press, .1982); and Helen Deutsch and Stella Hanau, The Provincetown: A Story o f the Theatre (1931; New York: Russell & Russell, 1972). Goldman’s nephew (Stella’s brother) Saxe Commins had a distinguished career as an editor with Liveright and Random House. His most important association was with playwright Eugene O ’Neill, much of whose-early work was first performed by the Provincetown Players. See Dorothy Commins, What Is an Editor? Saxe Commins at Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); and Dorothy Commins, ed., “Love and Admiration and Respect”: The O ’Neill-Commins Correspondence (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univer sity Press, 1986). Max Nettlau and Rudolf Rocker, two of the most prolific writers in the anarchist movement, became regular correspondents of Goldman during her years in exile. Nettlau devoted his life to chronicling the movement—Rocker described him as the “Herodotus of anarchy”--—amassing a huge archive of anarchist materials. Rocker combined activism—with the Jews of London’s East End before World War T, in Germany for the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) during the 1920s—with writing and lecturing. Nettlau’s and Rocker’s works have been reprinted numerous times in many languages. See especially Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, trans. Ray E. Chase (New York: Covici, Friede, 1937); and Anarcho-Syndicalism (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1938; rpt. ed., London: Pluto Press, 1989). Rocker’s three-volume autobiography appeared in Yid dish in 1952; an English translation of the volume covering his years in England was published as The London Years, trans. Joseph Leftwich (London: Robert Anscombe, 1956). See also Peter Wienand, Der “geborene” Rebell: Rudolf Rocker—Leben und Werk (Berlin: Karin Kramer Verlag, 1981). Among Netllau’s numerous books were biographies of Bakunin and Errico Malatesta and a study of the First International in Spain, but little of his work has been translated into English. An exception is Anarchy Through the Times, trans. Scott Johnson (1935; New York: Gordon Press, 1979). Ilis multivolume history of anarchism is currently being published for the International Institute of So cial 1Iistory: Geschichte der Anarchie, 5 vols. (Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos Verlag, 1981-). Among Goldman’s closest comrades were Mollic Steimer and Senya Fieshin, who also left So viet Russia after conditions there became intolerable for anarchists. On Steimer, see Marsh, Anar chist Women; Avrich, Anarchist Portraits; Polenberg, Fighting Faiths', and the pamphlet, Sentenced to Twenty’ Years Prison (New York: Political Prisoners Defense & Relief Committee, 1919). See also the memorial volume edited by Abe Bluestein, Fighters fo r Anarchism: Mollie Steimer and Senya Fieshin ([New York]: Libertarian Publications Group, 1983). 32
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Goldman’s experiences in Britain were especially disheartening. She never warmed to the Brit ish character, and her message in the 1920s about the Bolsheviks’ betrayal of the Russian revolution drew less than enthusiastic responses from her audiences. Only her lectures on drama brought her any satisfaction. Though her attempt to build support for the Spanish anarchists during the civil war met with more success, she never had the same sense of belonging among her British comrades that she had felt in America. Her efforts to reach British workers were for the most part unavailing, and she gravitated instead toward those who were more appreciative of her international reputation, especially writers and intellectuals. On British anarchism, see John Quail, The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History o f the British Anarchists (London: Paladin, 1978); Hermia Oliver, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London (London: Croom Helm, 1983); Rocker, London Years; and William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, Î 875-1914 (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1974), published in the United States as Jewish Radicals: From Czar is t Stef. I to London Ghetto (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975) . Albert Meltzer, The Anarchists in London, 1935-1955 (Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press, 1976) , includes some background on the efforts to raise money and public support for the anarchist cause in Spain in the 1930s, as well as highly opinionated observations on British anarchists. Among Goldman’s closest allies in the cause of the Spanish anarchists were art and literary critic Sir Herbert Read; novelist Ethel Mannin (see below); and Fenner Brockway, leader of the Independent Labour Party. See Herbert Read, Anarchy and Order: Essays in Politics (London: Faber & Faber, 1954); and Fenner Brockway, Inside the Left: Thirty Years o f Platform, Press, Prison and Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1942). Goldman had only intermittent contact with the celebrated American expatriates of the 1920s in France, though for a time she numbered among her friends Peler Neagoe, Laurence Vail, Kay Boyle, and others associated with the literary magazine, transition. Heiress and patron of the arts Peggy Guggenheim helped Goldman purchase her cottage, “Bon Esprit,” i n St. Tropez and lived close by at Pramousquier. Goldman wrote most of her memoirs at “Bon Esprit,” where for a year Emily Holmes Coleman, a young American writer, served as her secretary. “Demi,” as Coleman was affectionately known, and Goldman became devoted to one another. See Robert McAlmon and Kay Boyle, Being Geniuses Together, 1920 -1930 (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984); and Jacqueline Bograd Weld, Peggy, the Wayward Guggenheim (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1986). On Emily Floimes Coleman, see her novel, The Shutter o f Snow (New York: Viking, Î 930); and the entry in Karen Lane Rood, ed., Dictionary o f Literary? Biography, vol. 4: American Writers in Paris, 1920 -1939 (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1980). Goldman also formed a strong friendship with writer and editor Frank Harris and bis wife Nellie. See Harris’s sketch of Goldman in his Contemporary Portraits, fourth series (New York: Brentano’s, 1923). The influence of Harris’s notorious autobiography,' originally published privately in five volumes, can be delected in Goldman’s Living My Life. See Frank Harris, My Life and Loves, ed. John F. Gallagher (New York: Grove Press, 1963). Although her connections with the French anarchist movement dated from the 1890s— evidenced by her corre spondence with Augustin Hamon, editor of L Humanité Nouvelle—Goldman never played an active role during her residence in France, largely one suspects for fear of expulsion. Nonetheless, she had contacts with the anarchists, for example, May Picqueray, who for a time also lived in St. Tropez. See May Picqueray, May le réfractaire ([Paris]: Atelier Marcel Jullian, 1979).
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Among Goldman’s closest friends in England were Paul and Eslanda Robeson. Later in the 1930s her implacable hostility toward the Communists created an unbridgeable gulfbetween them as Robeson drew closer to the Party. On Robeson, see Martin Bauml Duberman, Paul Robeson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988). Visits from old friends and associates from America always fortified Goldman, but served at the same time as a painful reminder of how much she missed her life there. Still, she was heartened that the movement retained some vitality and was glad to encourage it from afar through correspondence. Among her correspondents was anarchist and International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (1LGWLJ) vice-president Rose Pesotta. See Pesotta’s memoir Bread upon the Waters, ed. John Nicholas Beffel (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1944), which has been reprinted with a new introduction by Ann Schofield (Ithaca, N.Y.: 1LR Press, 1987); and Elaine Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). Goldman’s influence and bonds of friendship encompassed an extraordinary range of people. She corresponded with Ba Jin (Pa Chin), a young Chinese student who was deeply influenced by anarchism. Ba Jin (the nom de plume of Li Fei-kan) later translated Kropotkin and other Western anarchists into Chinese. But it wras Goldman, whom he described as his “spiritual mother,” who had the greatest influence on both his fiction and political ideas. He recalled in the preface to his collec tion of short stories, The General (1934), which he dedicated to Goldman, that he first encountered her essays in 1919 when he was just fifteen years old. Later the experience of reading her autobiog raphy reinvigorated him, and he modeled Hui, the heroine of two of his fictional works, on Goldman. See Olga Lang, Pa Chin and His Writings: Chinese Youth between the Wars (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1967). In Russia and Germany Goldman renewed her friendship with American novelist and journalist Agnes Smedley, for whom Goldman’s career had been a model of courage. By the late 1920s, however, Smedley believed that the Communists offered the best hope to oppressed peoples, especially in China, and chose to end the friendship. On the Goldman-Smedley friendship, see Janice R. MacKinnon and Stephen R. MacKinnon, Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times o f an American Radical (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Goldman admired and was a regular correspondent of Danish novelist Karin Michaëlis, who explored in her fiction many of the themes of women’s sexuality that interested Goldman. Sec especially her novel, The Dangerous Age: Letters & Fragments from a Woman’s Diary, trans. Marcel Prévost (London: John Lane, 1912). Another intense friendship that rested mostly on correspondence was with American novelist Evelyn Scott. On Scott, sec D. A. Callard, Pretty Good fo r a Woman: The Enigmas o f Evelyn Scott (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985).
S pain
The historical literature on the Spanish civil war is enormous. The most thorough general history of the conflict is Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 3d ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Burnett Bolloten’s The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991) is an enormously detailed political history of Republican Spain in the civil war period that treats the contributions of the anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists more seriously than most standard histories. See also Ronald Fraser’s evocative Blood o f Spain: An Oral History o f the Spanish Civil War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979).
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Spain was the only European country where Bakunin’s disciples gained a strong foothold, and anarchism attracted followers in rural areas like Andalusia as well as cities like Barcelona and Valencia. Two important studies of anarchism in a rural context, both of which refute an earlier millenarian interpretation of anarchism, are Temma Kaplan, Anarchists o f Andalusia, 1868-1903 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); and Jerome Mintz, The Anarchists o f Casas Viejas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). On the anarchists and the civil war, sec Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account o f the Social and Political Background o f the Civil War, 2ded. (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1950), reprinted many times; Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868-1936 (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977); John Brademas, “Revolution and Social Revolution: A Contribution to the History of the Anarcho-Syndi calist Movement in Spain, 1930 -1937” (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1953), which has been published only in a revised Spanish edition: Anarcosindicalismo y revolución en España (1930 1937), trans. Joaquín Romero Maura (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1974); and Sam Dolgoff, ed., The Anarchist Collectives: Workers ’Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1990). Among accounts of the anarchist revolution and the war in Spain written by participants or sympathizers, see H.-E. Kaminski, Ceux de Barcelona (Paris: Les Editions Denoél, 1937), which describes a 1936 tour Kaminski made with Goldman ; the reports by Augustin Souchy, IWMA vet eran and director of the CNT’s foreign information office in Barcelona, who also accompanied Goldman on some of her visits to anarchist-controlled areas, in Entre los campesinos de Aragón: El comunismo libertario en ¡as comarcas liberadas (Barcelona: Ediciones Tierra y Libertad, 1937), available in English as With the Peasants o f Aragon: Libertarian Communism in the Liberated Areas, trans. Abe Bluestein (Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press, 1982), and Beware! Anarchist! A Life fo r Freedom: An Autobiography, trans. Theo Waldinger, ed. Sam Dolgoff and Richard Ellington (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1992); two books by Diego Abad de Santillán, an important figure in the CNT-FAI in Catalonia, El anarquismo y la revolución en España: Escritos, 1930-38, ed. Antonio Elorza (Madrid: Editorial Ayuso, 1976), and Por qué perdimos la guerra: Una contribución a la. historia de la tragedia española (1940; Madrid: G. del Toro, 1975); José Peirats, La C.N.T. en la revolución española (Buenos Aires: Ediciones C.N.T., 1955), and Los anarquistas en la guerra civil española (Madrid: Ediciones Júcar, 1976); Sara Bcrenguer, Entre el sol y la tormenta: Treinta y dos meses de guerra (1936-1939) (Barcelona: Scuba Ediciones, 1988); Albert Meltzer, ed., A New World in Our Hearts: The Faces ofSpanish Anarchism (Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press, 1978); and Juan Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation: The History o f the F.A.I., trans. Abe Bluestein (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1986). A classic account of the period is George Orwell Homage to Catalonia (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1938), reprinted many times. Goldman had close relations with many anarchist women during the Spanish civil war, espe cially those associated with the journal Mujeres Libres, which has begun to attract the attention of scholars. See, for example, Martha A. Ackelsberg, Free Women o f Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle fo r the Emancipation o f Women (Bloomington; Indiana University Press, 1991); and Mary Nash,cd., '‘Mujeres Libres”: España, 1936-1939 (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1975). Sec also Lola Ilurbe, La mujer en la lucha social y en la guerra civil de España (Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, 1974).
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
L iterary I nterpretations
of
G oldman
Among the fictional representations of Goldman’s life, three stand out. Ethel Mannin, the Brit ish novelist and Independent Labour Parly member, worked closely with Goldman in London on behalf of the CNT-FAI during the Spanish civil war. Her Red Rose: A Novel Based on the Life o f Emma Goldman ('Red Em m a') (London; Jarrolds, [1941]) is a shrewd portrait of its subject, espe cially the tensions between Goldman and Alexander Berkman’s longtime companion, Emmy Eckstein. Goldman’s life was so full of drama that inevitably it attracted the attention of playwrights and writers of screenplays. Two outstanding American historians have written plays based on her life. See Howard Zion’s Emma (first produced in 1976), in Playbook (Boston: South End Press, 1986); and Martin Duberman, Mother Earth: An Epic Drama o f Emma Goldman's Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), a revised version of a script commissioned two decades earlier by the New York PBS affiliate but never produced. See also Carol Bolt’s Red Emma (first produced in 1974) in Playwrights in Profile: Carol Bolt (Toronto: Playwrights Co-op, 1976). Bolt’s play was filmed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and broadcast in January 1976. Goldman was the inspira tion also for an off-stage character in a play by Eugene O ’Neill, whose talent she had recognized early in his career. See Winifred L. Frazer, E.G. and E,G.0,: Emma Goldman and "The Iceman Cometh ’’ (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1974).
D ocumentar y F ilms
Iwo documentaries by Steve Fischler and Joel Sucher are relevant and worth viewing. Free Voice o f Labor: The Jewish Anarchists (1980) focuses on the lives and ideas of the Jewish anarchists associated with the Yiddish-language newspaper, Freie Arbeiter Stimme (1890 -1977). Partici pants recall labor struggles, especially in the needle trades, the repression o f radicals during the postWorld War I “Red scare,” and the cooperative ventures they undertook in such areas as housing and free schools. The film includes interviews with the anarchists, rare newsreel and feature film foot age, still photographs, Yiddish “songs of struggle,” and music from the Yiddish theater. Anarchism in America (1982) weaves together archival footage— including a newsreel clip of Goldman on her return to the United States for a lecture tour in 1934—and interviews with participants to tell the history of anarchism in twentieth-century America. Among those interviewed is Mollie Stcimcr, one of Goldman’s closest friends and comrades. Both films are available on video and distributed by the Cinema Guild, New York, N.Y. For an understanding of what was at stake for Spanish anarchist women during the civil war, see Lisa Berger and Carol Mazer’s . . . de ioda la vida (. . . all our lives) (1986). In addition to archival footage and stills, this Spanish-language film (with English subtitles) features extended interviews with women who were rank-and-file CNT members in their youth as well as with prominent anarchists such as Federiea Montseny and Lola Iturbe. They spiritedly discuss their paths to anarchism, their work during the civil war, and the role of Mujeres Fibres. The film is available on video, also distributed by Cinema Guild. S tfphfn C oi
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f
Chronology 1 8 6 9 -1 9 4 0
T he chronology was created to assist researchers using the comprehensive collection of The Emma Goldman Papers and to supplement the introductory essays and indexes to the microfilm edition. It serves also to fill some of the obvious gaps in the collection, to compensate for the various government seizures of Goldman’s letters and papers during her most active period of political activ ity in the United States up to her deportation—papers that Goldman herself unsuccessfully tried to retrieve while she was writing her autobiography. The chronological details of Goldman’s public life in America—the magnitude of her lecture schedule, the extent of her travels, and the evolution of her varied and far-reaching political friendships-—are a critical complement to her correspondence, lec ture manuscripts, and government surveillance documents, and together, they constitute a more accu rate historical representation of Goldman’s life work.
The research involved in locating relatively rare source material for tracking and recording a full list of Goldman’s speaking engagements (sometimes numbering over three hundred in a year), and determining which of her scheduled lectures were barred by the police, was daunting. Tor these, and other events in her life, the Project editors relied primarily on the sometimes flawed recollections in Goldman’s autobiography, reports from Mother Earth magazine, her chronicle of her experiences in Russia, letters and government documents in the collection, and various secondary historical sources. Despite the generally inconsistent reporting in the mainstream press about controversial anarchists, newspaper accounts of Goldman’s lectures were a crucial resource for the identification of dates and places of, as well as the character of the public response to, Goldman’s lectures. Though inevitably incomplete, the chronology will facilitate effective use of this immense collection.
1869
1870
.June 27 Emma Goldman born to Taube ßienowüch and Abraham Goldman in Kovno, Lithuania, a province of the Russian Empire. Siblings include step-sisters Helena (b. 1860) and Lena (b. 1862) Zodikow, and brothers Louis (b. 1870), Herman (h. 1872), and Morris (b. 1879, identified as “Yegor” in Goldman’s autobiography. Living My Life). Goldman’s girlhood and adolescence spent in Kovno, Popelan, Königsberg, and St. Petersburg.
November 21 Alexander (Sasha) Berkman born in Vilna, Russia.
1881 March 1 Czar Alexander II assassinated by Nihilists in St. Petersburg.
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1885 December Goldman immigrates to the United States with her sister Helena; they settle in Rochester, N.Y., with their sister Lena.
Goldman returns to Rochester where she lives with her sister Helena’s family and works in a sewing factory. Under pressure, she agrees to remarry Kersner; alter a brief reconciliation, Goldman is shunned by her parents and the Jewish community of Rochester for her insistence on finalizing the divorce.
1886
1889
Goldman finds employment as a garment worker. On May 1, three hundred thousand workers throughout the country strike for the eight-hour workday. On May 4 in Chicago’s Haymarkel Square during a workers’ protest of police violence the day before, a bomb is thrown that results in the deaths of seven police officers. Although the identity of the bomb-thrower is never determined, prominent anarchists and organizers of the event are held responsible and sentenced to death. Goldman attributes her political awakening to German socialist Johanna Greie’s eloquent defense of the innocence of the Haymarket anarchists at a Rochester lecture during the Haymarket trial. During this period, Goldman begins to read anarchist literature on a regular basis, including German anarchist Johann Most’s newspaper Freiheit. The other members of Goldman’s family emigrate from St. Petersburg to Rochester.
Goldman arrives in New' York City on Aug. 15; meets Johann Most, editor of Freiheit, and Alexander Berkman; gains employment doing piece work for a silk waisl factory. Goldman’s political activities include support work at the office of Freiheit, and help with tire organization of the second anniversary commemoration of the hanging of the Haymarket martyrs. Goldman and Berkman become lovers. She shares an apartment with Berkman, his cousin Modest Stein, and their mutual friend Helen Minkin. Berkman and Goldman contemplate returning to Russia when they hear about political repression there, but lack the necessary' financial resources.
1890 January Johann Most arranges Goldman’s first public lecture tour to Rochester, Buffalo, and Cleveland to speak on the limitations of the eight-hour movement, in the course of her tour, Goldman demonstrates her talents as an orator and realizes the need to articulate her political beliefs independently; her growing autonomy causes tensions with Most.
1887 February Marries fellow' factory worker Jacob A. Kcrsner, gaining U.S. citizenship.
Fcbruary-July Goldman presents a series of lectures in New' York City and Newark, N.J., on subjects ranging from the “Paris Commune, 1871,” to “The Right To Be Lazy,” and on Most’s Pittsburgh Manifesto of 1883, spon sored primarily by the International Working People’s Association, and delivered in German and in Yiddish. Goldman works tirelessly to recruit women workers to join the cloakmakers strike, organized by Jewish labor leader Joseph Barondess that begins in February. Goldman becomes ill and is forced to spend several weeks convalescing. During this period she has a brief affair with Modest Stein.
November 11 Execution of four Chicago anarchists found guilty in the Haymarket Square bombing elicits international outcry.
1888 Goldman divorces Kersner and leaves Rochester. Moves to New Haven, Conn., where she works at a corset factory. Meets many Russian socialists and anarchists, including Dr. Hillel Solotaroff who, during visits from New' York, lectures in New Haven.
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m i
Island after the Supreme Court rejects the appeal of bis 1887 conviction for illegal assembly and incite ment to riot following the Haymarket executions.
Accompanies Johann Most on his two-week lecture tour of New England. Summer To earn enough money to return to Russia and respond to the political repression there, Goldman moves briefly with comrades, including Berkman, to New Haven, with plans to start a dressmaking cooperative. Until they build a clientele, Goldman works temporarily at the corset factory' where she had worked in 1888. Berkman gains employment in the printing trade. Goldman helps to organize an anarchist educa tional and social group in New Haven that becomes a gathering place for German, Russian, and Jewish immigrants; among their invited speakers are Johann Most and 1Til lei Solotaroff, a leader of the anarchist group Pioneers of Liberty.
1892 Winter and Spring In search of a financial base, Goldman moves to Massachusetts—first to Springfield to work in a photography studio with Modest Stein (“Fedya”), and then to Worcester, where, with Alexander Berkman, Stein and Goldman open their own studio. W'hcn the photography business fails, they open an ice-cream parlor with the renewed aim of returning to Russia to respond to the political repression under Czar Alexander III. May 1 Anarchists disrupt the Central Labor Union’s May Day celebration in Union Square, New York. Tn retaliation, the organizers of the celebration stop Goldman’s speaking by hitching a horse to the open wagon she is using as a platform and pulling it away. This speech (given in German) and its disruption brought Goldman her first front-page coverage in a major metropolitan daily (77k?New York World).
Fall When the members of Goldman’s dressmaking cooperative fall ill or move away, Goldman and Berkman move back to New York where they begin to attend meetings of the Autonomic group, led by Most’s chief contender, Josef Peukert. October Goldman lectures in Elizabeth, N.J., and Baltimore. Her two talks in Baltimore arc before the Interna tional Workingmen’s Association and the Workingmen’s Educational Society. She reaches both German and Eastern European Jewish immigrant communities, many of whom participate in a confer ence of Yiddish anarchist organizations in December.
July-August Goldman, Berkman, and Stein return to New York to respond to the lockout of employees of the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pa. On July 6, Pinkerton guards hired by plant manager Henry Clay Frick kill nine striking steel workers; Goldman and Berkman decide to avenge their deaths. On July 23, Berkman attempts to assassinate Frick, but fails. Goldman is suspected of, but not charged with, complicity; police raid her apartment and seize her papers. Debate within the labor movement about the effectiveness of Berkman’s action follows; Johann Most denounces Berkman and questions bis motives, provoking Goldman to censure Most in the anarchist press. As public antagonism to Berkman’s act mounts, Goldman temporarily goes into hiding. In the wake of the Frick assassination attempt Goldman-—because of her prominence in the anarchist movement and close link to Berkman— attracts press attention and is dubbed “Queen of the Anarchists.”
1891 March 16 Goldman scheduled to speak at the “Great Commune Celebration” sponsored by the International Worker’s Association in New Haven. May 1 Goldman marches with the Working Women’s Society of the United Hebrew Trades in New York’s May Day parade. June 18 Goldman addresses a mass meeting to protest the second imprisonment of Johann Most at Blackwell’s
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hundred anarchists to Union Square, where, among many other speakers, she addresses a crowd of the unemployed. On Aug. 21, Goldman again leads a march of a thousand people to Union Square, where, speaking in German and English, she repeats her belief that workers have a right to take bread if they are hungry, and to demonstrate their needs “before the palaces of the rich”; about three thousand gather to listen. Goldman’s speech is characterized by the press as “incendiary” and, over a week later, cited as the reason for her arrest. Goldman lectures in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, on Aug. 23, before traveling to Philadel phia. While in Philadelphia, Goldman meets German anarchist Max Baginksi and American-born anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre for the first time.
August 1 Goldman chairs a meeting of over three hundred anarchists to discuss Berk mail’s act. Other speakers include Autonomic group leader Josef Peukert, Dyer D. Lum, editor of the Alarm, and Italian anarchist Saverio Merlino, an editor o f Solidarity. September 19 Berkman found guilty on all counts and sentenced to twenty-two years in prison; Goldman learns about his sentence while she is lecturing in Baltimore. An nouncement prompts audience pandemonium, police action, and Goldman’s consequent arrest. November 24 Goldman visits Berkman at the Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. December Goldman appears only occasionally in public to lecture. Speaks in Manhattan on Dec. 4, denouncing government anti-immigration legislation; other speakers at the event include anarchist journalist John Ldelmann, Spanish anarchist Pedro Esteve, and Saverio Merlino. During this period, Goldman meets German anarchist Robert Reilzei, editor of the Der arme Teufel. Attends anarchist meetings, where, in late December, Goldman meets and falls in love with Austrian anarchist Edward Brady.
August 31 Scheduled to speak to the unemployed, Goldman is arrested in Philadelphia on New York warrants charging her with incitement to riot for her Aug. 21 speech.
1893
October 4-9 Goldman tried in court; defended by ex-mayor of New York A. Oakey Hall. Denies speaking the words attributed to her by police detectives who monitored her speech. Jury finds Goldman guilty of aiding and abetting an unlawful assemblage.
September On Sept. 6, a New York Grand Jury indicts Goldman on three charges. She is returned from Philadelphia to New York on Sept. 9, where she is placed in confinement. On Sept. 11, pleads not guilty; released on bail Sept. 14. Benefit concert on Sept. 23 intended to raise money for Goldman’s defense is a financial failure.
General financial panic deepens into one of the worst economic depressions in U.S. history. June-July Goldman returns temporarily to Rochester to recuper ate from illness.
October 16 Goldman is sentenced to Blackwell’s Island peniten tiary for one year. Begins her term on Oct. 18. In prison, Goldman is initially put in charge of the sewing shop, but soon trained to serve as a nurse in the prison hospital. Reads widely while in prison.
June 26 Governor John Peter Altgeld pardons three men found guilty of the Haymarkct bombing. August The day after a riot of the unemployed on Aug. 17, Goldman addresses a public meeting, urging those in need to take bread if they are hungry. The next evening she helps lead a procession of several
December 16 Benefit concert and ball held in New York City for Goldman and others imprisoned for speaking at the
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1895
Aug. 21 demonstration. Voltairine de Geyre delivers a speech, uln Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation.”
Mid-November Scheduled to speak with Charles Mowbray in West Hoboken, N.J., and Baltimore.
1894
1895
May-July Strike of the Pullman railroad car plant in Chicago begins on May 11; by July 3, federal troops are called in to quell the strike.
January 5 Goldman helps organize a benefit ball sponsored by the joint anarchist groups of New York. January 24 Goldman lectures on strikes at a meeting in New York City.
August 17 Goldman released from prison after serving ten months. She sells a report about her prison experi ence for $150 to the New York World, which pub lishes it the day after her release.
Spring Goldman and friends Claus Timmerman and Edward Brady open an ice-cream parlor in Brownsville, Brooklyn; within three months, the venture fails and the shop is closed.
August 19 Large anarchist gathering in New York welcomes Goldman back. Among the speakers are Voltairine de Geyre, English anarchist Charles Mowbray, and Italian anarchist Maria Roda.
Summer Upon investigating the possibility of appealing Berkman’s case before the Supreme Court, Goldman and others discover there are no grounds for an appeal, as Berkman made no formal objections to the judge’s rulings during the proceedings. Goldman tries to convince Berkman to appeal to the Pennsylva nia Board of Pardons to set aside or reduce his prison sentence and begins to solicit funds for that purpose.
August 21 Goldman scheduled to speak on “The Right of Free Speech” at a mass meeting called.by the American Labor Union in Newark.
September Meets with the American journalist and labor rights advocate John Swinton and his wife Orsena, who had both visited her at Blackwell’s Island. Goldman’s interest in reaching more Americanborn citizens grows; resolves to conduct more propaganda in the English language. Goldman speaks in Baltimore, Moves into an apartment with Edward Brady.
Mid-August Goldman sails to England under the name “Mrs. E. G. Brady” fearing that her real identity would limit her freedom to travel in Europe. Funds for her travel and a portion of living expenses are provided by Modest Stein. Fall Spends five-and-a-half w'eeks in Great Britain, w'here she finds a greater amount of pol itical freedom than in the United States. During her three weeks in England, she addresses large crow'ds at open-air meetings in London, and meetings at Hyde Park., Whitechapel, Canning Town, Barking, and Stratford. Topics include “The Futility of Politics and Its Corrupting Influence.” On Sept. 13, Goldman appears among several other lecturers—incl uding James Tochatti of the British anarchist journal Liberty and French anarchist
October Goldman begins a new campaign for the commutation of Berkman’s prison sentence; works as a nurse.
November 11 Goldman speaks at a poorly attended commemoration of the Ilaymarket martyrs in New' York; other speakers include Charles Mowbray, German anarchist and barkeeper Justus Schwab, Voltairine de Geyre, Max Baginski, and John Edelmann, editor of the anarchist joumal Solidarity.
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Louise Michel—at an event in Finsbury. She lectures on "Political Justice in England and America,” highlighting Berkman’s case. In England, meets anarchist theorists Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta, among others. German police authorities monitor Goldman’s movements in London, prepared to arrest her if she enters Germany.
May 1 At a demonstration in Union Square, Goldman helps to distribute a May Day anarchist manifesto written by her and a group of American-born comrades in New York. June Brady supports Goldman financially so that she can take a break from nursing to relax and begin prepara tions for an East Coast winter lecture series. In her leisure time, Brady tutors Goldman’s reading of the works of the seventeenth-century French dramatists Racine, Corneille, and Molière, independently, she studies modem literature, including the novels of Emile Zola.
Mid-September-Decembcr On Sept. 14, Goldman travels to Scotland; delivers successful lectures in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Maybole, By Oct. 1, Goldman travels to Vienna to begin formal training in nursing and midwifery at Lhe Allgemeines Krarikenhaus. Keeps a low profile in Vienna, as political persecution there is known to be harsh. During this period she discovers and devours works by Friedrich Nietzsche, attends performances of Wagner operas, sees Eleonora Duse perform, and attends the lectures of Professor [Karl?] Brühl and Sigmund Freud.
June 7 Bomb explodes in a religious procession in Barcelona, killing eleven people; Spanish authorities imprison over four hundred people, including anarchists, suspcclcd of involvement in the bombing. The severity of the punishment sparks international protests. September Goldman is urged to support the free-silver campaign of presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan; she declines, considering the free-silver issue and the presidential campaign diversions from a radical agenda.
1896 March Goldman completes her medical training in Austria; travels to Paris where she meets anarchist editor Augustin Hamon.
October 12 Johann Most, Goldman’s former mentor, denounces her at an event in New York when she solicits funds for the commemoration of the execution of the Hay market martyrs.
April Back in New York, Goldman resides with Edward Brady in a German neighborhood on Eleventh Street; she rebels against Brady’s periodic fits of jealousy. Earns a meager living as a midwife and nurse; witnesses the plight of many women suffering from unwanted pregnancies. Persuades Berkman to appeal to the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons for his release from prison. Helps to launch a broad-based campaign for his case; solicits Voltairine de Cleyre’s support. Helps to arrange lectures for the English anar chist and labor leader John Turner, whose visit gives Goldman the opportunity to gain experience address ing English-speaking audiences. Goldman speaks at Turner’s concluding lecture in New York on Apr. 30. Begins to suffer from “nervous attacks” that are attributed to an inverted womb; Goldman unwilling to undergo surgery to resolve the problem.
November 4-8 In Philadelphia, on Nov. 4, Goldman speaks at the Ladies’ Liberal League about her “Experiences on Blackwell’s Island.” On Nov. 8, she delivers two lectures-- one before a mass meeting called by a Jewish group to honor the Ilavmarket martyrs and to raise money for Berkman; the second one on “Woman’s Cause” to the Young Men’s Liberal League. November 11-15 Goldman lectures in Baltimore and raises money for Berkman’s appeal.
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November 18-26 Following an appearance in Buffalo, Goldman lectures to enthusiastic audiences in Pittsburgh, primarily in German, and continues to raise money for the Berkman fund. Topics include “The Jews in America,” “Anarchism in America,” and “The Effect of the Recent Election on the Condition of the Workingmen.” Her concluding lecture addresses the Hay market Affair.
1897
responsible for the bombing in Barcelona the year before. The torture and inhumane treatment of several hundred others imprisoned in connection with the bombing were widely protested throughout Europe. In New York, Goldman and others— including Italian and Spanish anarchists, and Harry Kelly, John Edclmann, Justus Schwab, and Edward Brady—had organized a demonstration in front of the Spanish consulate,
April 23-25
August 16 Goldman among several speakers at a meeting of one thousand people in New York celebrating Canovas’s assassination. On Aug. 22, in response to criticism from anarchists that she had glorified Canovas’s murder, Goldman defends her position at a small meeting in New York.
Goldman’s lectures in Providence, R.I., include “What Is Anarchism?” and “Is It Possible to Realize Anarchism?” The audience at an open-air meeting is reportedly “spell-bound” by Goldman’s message. When she attempts to speak at another open-air meeting, however, the police intervene on the grounds that she doesn’t have a permit. Local socialists disavow any connection to Goldman.
September-Dccember Goldman conducts a lecture tour through eighteen cities in eastern and midw'cstern states to promote anarchism and Alexander Berkman’s release from prison—intended topics include “Why I am an Anarchist-Communist,” “Woman,” “Marriage,” and “Berkman’s Unjust Sentence.”
1897 March 4 William McKinley inaugurated as president of the United States.
May Goldman speaks in Philadelphia; her lecture on “The Women in the Present and Future” is “loudly ap plauded.” She is credited with the ability to relate anarchism to the working people of Philadelphia, thus helping to boost the movement there. Returning to New York, Goldman undergoes an operation on her foot, requiring several months of recuperation. May 28 Carl No Id and Henry Bauer, convicted and impris oned for aiding Berkman’s attempt to assassinate Frick, are released from the Western Slate Peniten tiary in Pittsburgh. July Goldman’s lecture on “Marriage” is published in the anarchist journal The Firebrand. August 8 Anarchist Michel Angioliilo assassinates Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, premier of Spain, who in Mayhad ordered the execution of five anarchists held
September 3-8 Lectures begin in Providence, R.I.; speaks at two open-air meetings—attended by thousands—when the mayor warns Goldman that she will be arrested if she speaks in the open-air again. Despite the prohibition, Goldman continues to lecture in Providence; ad dresses the assassination of the Spanish premier. On Sept. 5, she speaks in Boston on “Must We Become Angels to Live in an Anarchist Society?” and collects money for the victims of the Spanish authori ties in the aftermath of the assassination of the premier. When she attempts to address another open-air meeting in Providence on Sept. 7, she is arrested and jailed overnight. The following day she is given twenty-four hours to leave town or face three months imprisonment. Mid-September Goldman returns to Boston on Sept. 12 where she lectures on the Sept. 10 killings of immigrant miners striking in Hazleton, Pa. Travels to New Haven and New York to speak again on the Hazleton strikers.
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Beginning Sept. 15, Goldman delivers four lectures in Philadelphia before several Englishspeaking organizations, including the Ladies’ Liberal League and the Single Tax Society. Her lectures include “Free Love.” Before the largest free-thought organization of Philadelphia, the Friendship Liberal League, she critiques the freethinkers’ “partial application of the principles of freedom.”
Late October Traveling for hours by train and wagon to learn about the plight of farmers, Goldman speaks to wellattended meetings in Caplingcr Mills, Mo., home of rural anarchist Kate Austin. Her lecture topics include “The Aim of Humanity,” “Religion,” “Anar chy,” and “Free Love.” Early November Goldman scheduled to lecture in Kansas City and Topeka, Kans. On Nov. 11 in Chicago, Goldman addresses an assembly in German to commemorate the Hay market martyrs.
September 17 Portland editor A. J. Pope arrested and jailed for sending “obscene” material in the anarchist Firebrand through the mail. Abe Isaak and Henry Addis, the oLher Firebrand editors, are arrested within the next few days on the same charge.
Mid-November Goldman lectures four times in Detroit, aided by Robert Reitzel and his paper, Der arme Teufel. On Nov. 19, Goldman speaks at the People’s Tabernacle despite opposition from the congregation; the event is sensationalized in the press. In response to Goldman’s talk, the deacons and members of the church request the pastor’s resignation.
Late September From Philadelphia, Goldman travels to Washington, D.C., where she lectures before a German freethought society. Goldman then travels to Pittsburgh to meet Car! Nold and Henry Bauer; they inform her that if Berkman’s appeal for pardon is denied, he plans to attempt an escape from prison. Goldman speaks before the Turnerverein in Monaca, Pa.; complies W'ilh their request not to speak on her proposed topic, “Woman, Marriage, and Prostitution.” On Sept. 27, Goldman addresses a labor congress organized by Eugene Debs in Chicago.
Late November-December Goldman lectures in Cleveland before several liberal societies, including the Franklin Club. On Nov. 21, she iectures on “What Anarchy Means” and collects donations for the Firebrand editors. Goldman delivers several successful lectures in Buffalo—where she speaks at the Trade and Labor Council Hall, the Spiritualist Temple, and before German anarchists—and Rochester, where she visits her family for the first time since 1894. Considers her meetings in Rochester, Buffalo, and Detroit to be the best of her 1897 tour. Berkman’s appeal before the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons is postponed. By mid-December, Goldman returns to New York.
October Goldman remains in Chicago to lecture; speaks to the Lucifer Circle on the theme of “Prostitution: Its Causes and Cure” and on “Free Love.” On Oct. 13 Goldman is among several speakers— including Max Baginski, Lucy Parsons, and Moses Harman—at a well-attended event to raise money for the imprisoned editors of the Firebrand. October 16-23 Tn St. Louis, Goldman speaks to German- and English-speaking audiences while continuing to raise money for Berkman’s prison fund. On Oct. 19, the St. Louis House of Delegates passes a resolution supporting the mayor’s prohibition of Goldman’s open-air meetings. Goldman’s lectures--including “Revolution” and “Why I Am an Anarchist and Communist”—are held in private halls under police surveillance.
1898 January Goldman announces her lecture topics for the year: “Charity,” “Patriotism,” “Authority’,” “Majority Rule,” “The New Woman,” “The W'oman Question,” and “The Inquisition of Our Postal Service.”
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1898
twice. Topics include “The Absurdity of Nonresistance to Evil,” “The Basis of Morality,” and “Freedom.”
Goldman’s youngest brother, Moms, moves into the apartment she shares with Brady in New York City. During this period, Goldman is in contact with Filipino rebels and helps to support their attempts to gain independence from Spain.
February 23-March 12 After scheduled visits to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Goldman is invited to Pittsburgh and coal mining towns in western Pennsylvania by anarchists Carl Nold and Henry Bauer in association with the International Workingmen’s Association. Though the Pittsburgh region is heavily populated by Gennans, most of Goldman’s speaking engagements are purposely conducted in English, Talks include “Patriotism,” with specific refer ence to the miners shot by the police at Hazleton, Pa., in September, and the possibility of war between Spain and the United States. She addresses the Monaca, Pa., local of the Glass Blowers’ Union, one of the most conservative unions in the country. Lectures in western coal mining towns include McKeesport, Roscoe, West Newton, and Homestead; Goldman also scheduled to speak in Beaver Falls, Carnegie, Duquesne, Charleroi, and Tarentum. Goldman’s engagement in Allegheny is canceled when the owners of the liberal Northside Turner Hall refuse to let her speak. Goldman suffers several “nervous attacks” from the strain of continuous lecturing.
January 5 Goldman scheduled to speak on “The New Woman” (in German) to the Social Science Club in Brooklyn. January 21-23 Breaking the agreement she made with Providence officials, Goldman returns, and lectures on anarchism in English and Yiddish. She completes her speeches without interference from the mayor or police; Goldman assisted by John H. Cook, former president of the Central Labor Union. To help cover traveling expenses, Goldman earns a percentage on sales she makes for Brady’s statio nery business while on tour. January 24 Lectures on “Authority” to economics students tn Boston. February 13 Goldman scheduled to speak to the Philosophical Society in Brooklyn.
March 12 Goldman among several speakers at an international celebration of the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Paris Commune in Pittsburgh attended by three hundred people.
Fcbruary-June Twelve-state lecture tour: Goldman addresses sixtysix meetings and participates in one debate. Several reporters note Goldman’s improvement as a public speaker as she develops her command of the English language.
Mid-March Goldman delivers three lectures in Cleveland, including a well-attended meeting of the Franklin. Club. Just weeks before his death on Mar. 31, Goldman visits the ailing Robert Reitzel in Detroit.
February 15 The U.S.S. Maine explodes in Havana harbor, killing 2 officers and 258 crew members, and becomes the spark for the Spanish-American War.
March 20-26 In Chicago, Goldman is aided by Josef Peukert, who secures for her several speaking engagements before labor unions. Addresses the Economic Educational Club (a primarily American-born audience), the Brewers and Makers Union, the Painters and Decora tors Union, the Co-operative College of Citizenship, the Turn-Verein Vorwärts Society, the German group of the International Workingmen’s Association, and
February 16-20 Goldman’s tour begins in Philadelphia where she lectures before several well-attended gatherings sponsored by the Ladies’ Liberal League, the Single Tax Society, the Society of Ethical Research, and the German Anarchist Society. Notes an increasing interest in anarchism among younger members of the Friendship Liberal League, to which she lectures
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“The Basis of Morality” noted as her best. Sponsors include the Denver Educational Club, a largely Jewish group.
the Bakers’ and Confectioners’ Union. Lectures include “'Trades Unionism,” '“Passive Resistance” (both in German), and “The New Woman.” While in Chicago, she visits Max Raginski at the Arb&Uer Zeifung office. Fearing that Baginski had disapproved of Berkman’s attempt to kill Frick, she had avoided seeing him; she finds, however, that they share many similar viewpoints. She also meets Moses Harman, the editor of Lucifer, with whom she discusses women’s emancipation. Visits Michael Schwab, who served more than six years in prison for charges relating to the Hay market affair before he was pardoned. Hospital ized with tuberculosis, Schwab dies a few months later, on June 29.
Mid-April Goldman visits Salt Lake City. April 24 Spanish-American War begins.
“Patriotism” is among the five lectures Goldman presents in St. Louis; encounters no interference by the mayor or police, Local comrades note an increase of young women in attendance.
Late April-May Goldman in San Francisco; opens her engagements with a lecture on “Patriotism,” which, following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, becomes her most important and successful lecture. Defying the jirigoist mood of the American public as it entered this “splendid little war,” Goldman condemns the Spanish American War as a brutal distraction from class war at home. Her other speeches—at least four, including a talk at a May Day celebration- -are well attended and receive fair press coverage. Goldman also debates the German socialist Emil Lies, editor of the Tageblcitt. Goldman especially impressed with Abe Isaak, former’editor of the Firebrand and current editor of Free Society, who had recently settled in San Francisco with his family. Goldman’s San Francisco activities supported in part by local single-taxers. While in San Francisco, Goldman meets the young socialist Anna Strunsky, who will become a lifelong friend and associate, and through Strunsky, the writer Jack London. In San Jose, her lecture on “Patriotism” is so controversial that she has difficulty maintaining control of the platform. From San Jose, she travels for the first lime to Los Angeles, sponsored by a wealthy acquaintance from New Mexico. Lectures to several large audiences. Goldman severs her relation ship with her sponsor when he proposes marriage; she continues lecturing among Jewish sympathizers and organizes a group to conduct ongoing anarchist activities. Goldman denounced in the Freihe.it for having alienated workers from anarchism when, under the direction of her wealthy manager, she lectured and resided in expensive halls and hotels. Following Los Angeles, she returns to San Francisco for additional lectures.
April 13-18 Goldman makes her first visit to Denver, where she is hosted by a small group of American anarchists. Her five lectures arc met with surprising enthusiasm—
Early June Goldman delivers three lectures in Portland, Oreg. Logistical problems cause the cancellation of sched uled events in Tacoma and Seattle.
March 27-28 Goldman lectures in Cincinnati to a large meeting of the Ohio Liberal Society. Brady complains about their separation; she responds by asserting Iter need for freedom. March 29-April 2 Goldman returns to Chicago for additional lectures; speaks before the gymnastic society Gut ITeil in a Chicago suburb and to residents of a Jewish neighbor hood in Chicago. On Mar. 31, Goldman lectures on “The Inquisi tion ot Our Postal Service” to the Progressive Bohemian Labor Organization, addressing recent censorship cases, including the conviction of the Firebrand editors. "The organization votes unani mously to adopt a resolution protesting postal censorship. On Apr. 2, Goldman honored at a farewell meeting held by the Committee on Agitation of the Progressive Labor Organizations of Chicago. April 3-4 Goldman scheduled to speak in Milwaukee. April 6-10
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January 5 Goldman speaks at a large meeting at Cooper Union to protest the international Anti-Anarchist Conference in Rome.
June 7 In Chicago, Goldman attends the first convention of Eugene Debs’s Social Democracy movement; in her view it is a “fiasco.” When she is at first prevented from speaking at the event, Debs personally invites Goldman to address the convention.
Late January-Septembcr Goldman conducts a nine-month lecture tour of eleven states, beginning in Barre, Vt, where she is hosted by Salvatore Palavicini. She delivers several lectures in Barre, including “The New Woman” and “The Corrupting Influence of Politics on Man”—the first anarchist lectures in English ever presented there. When she is prevented from delivering her last lecture, “Authority versus Liberty,” on Jan. 31, Goldman’s comrades print and distribute five thousand copies of a manifesto containing the text of Goldman’s barred speech. While in Barre, Goldman meets Luigi Galleani, editor of the anarchist journal Cronaca Sovversiva.
July Pleased with the success of her lecture tour, Goldman returns to New York. In association with Salvatore Palavicini and other Italian anarchists, helps to support local labor struggles. September 10 Empress Elizabeth of Austria is stabbed by anarchist Luigi Leccheni. Goldman considers the act a “folly” but refuses to condemn it; her activities are subse quently monitored by the police and scorned by the press. Novembcr-Dccember Goldman supports efforts of Berkman’s defense committee to seek a pardon. With Justus Schwab and Brady, she reluctantly follows the recommendation of defense attorneys to seek Andrew Carnegie’s influ ence in granting a pardon. They approach Benjamin Tucker, editor of Liberty, to meet with Carnegie, but reject his suggestion that Berkman be presented as a “penitent sinner.” Ail plans to meet with Carnegie are eventually abandoned.
February President William McKinley signs peace treaty with Spain. United States acquires Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; Spain relinquishes its claim to Cuba. Insurgent forces begin rebellion against II.S. rule in the Philippines. Mid-February Goldman delivers ten lectures, in German and English, in Philadelphia; speaks before the Friendship Liberal League, Ladies’ Liberal League, the Fellow ship tor Ethical Research, the Knights of Liberty, and the Arbeiter Bund. Goldman helps organize a regional committee of anarchists from Philadelphia and surrounding areas.
November 24 International Anti-Anarchist Conference, prompted by the assassination of the Empress of Austria, is convened by Italian government officials in Rome; attended by fifty-four delegates representing twentyone countries, including police chiefs from several European countries and major cities. Conference marks the development of strategic international surveillance of and exchange of information about anarchist activities.
Late February Goldman addresses two large meetings in Cleveland. March Goldman’s lectures in Detroit include “The Power of the Idea” and “A Criticism of Ethics.” Goldman is offered financial support for her future medical studies by Herman Miller, a friend of Robert Reitzel and president of the Cleveland Brewing Company. Invited by the Ohio Liberal Society to lecture on trade unionism, Goldman addresses three meetings in Cincinnati. From Cincinnati, Goldman travels to St. Louis where she delivers ten lectures, including one before the conservative Bricklayers’ Union.
1899 January Goldman ends her relationship with Edward Brady.
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of meetings in Portland, Oreg., followed by lectures in the farming community of Scio, Oreg., where use of the city hall is donated to Goldman by the marshal of Scio.
Close by, she speaks before two large gatherings in the mining town of Mount Olive. Her lecture on “The Eight-Hour Struggle and the Condition of the Miners of the Whole World” is especially well received.
June-August Goldman arrives in San Francisco on June 22, where she begins a seven-week series of lectures in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Stockton. “Why I Am an Anarchist Communist,” “The Aim of Human ity,” “The Development of Trades-Unionism,” and “Charity” number among her lectures. Socialists are antagonistic to her on several occasions. Her lecture on “Sex Problems” continues to stir debate; some applaud her courage to speak about this taboo issue.
Aprii-May Goldman spends over a month in Chicago, delivering about twenty-five lectures. Her efforts to speak before a wide variety of trade unions, philosophical and social societies, and women’s clubs are aided by Max Baginski and other German comrades; the International Workingmen’s Association helps her organize English lectures. Goldman lectures on “Trades-Unionism and What It Should Be” and other issues in German and English before the International Workingmen’s Association and trade unions including the Brewers and Mailers Union, the Painters and Decorators Union, and the Journeymen Tailors Union. Goldman’s presentation to the conservative Amal gamated Wood Workers Union is the first to take place by an anarchist. Additional lectures—including “Religion,” “Women’s Emancipation,” “Politics and Its Corrupt ing Influence on Man,” “The Origin of Evil,” and “The Basis of Morality”—are delivered to the Friesinuge Gemeinde, several chapters of tire Turner Society, the Freethought Society, and the Women’s Sick Benefit Society. Her lecture on “Sex Problems” is debated by many of the Chicago comrades who feel the subject matter is inappropriate for public discus sion. Before leaving Chicago. Goldman organizes a social science club so that the local comrades will continue to organize in her absence.
Mid-Late August Goldman delivers three lectures in Ouray, Colo., followed by several lectures in Denver, including “The Power of an Idea,” “Education” before the Smellcrmen’s Union, and an open-air meeting on “Patriotism.” September At the invitation of Kate Austin, Goldman travels to the farming community of Caplinger Mills, Mo., where she delivers three lectures, including “Patrio tism.” September 6 In the mining town of Spring Valley, 111., Goldman heads a Labor Day procession, which ends with a meeting in the central market place, a direct violation of the mayor’s denial of authorization to do so. September 23-October 10 Goldman addresses thirteen meetings in Pittsburgh and surrounding cities, including West Newton, McDonald, and Roscoe, Pa.
May Goldman spends a few days visiting miners in Spring Valley, ill. By May 20, she arrives in Tacoma, Wash., where she participates in a debate on “Social ism versus Anarchism.” A group of spiritualists lend her use of their temple free of charge for a series of lectures, but when she proposes to lecture on “Free Love,” they deny her the use of the hall. Goldman delivers two well-attended lectures in Seattle.
Fall Goldman arranges for their trusted comrade Eric B. Morton to begin to dig a tunnel for BerkmatVs escape. Mid-October Goldman’s lecture tour complete, she returns to New York City. Under the guise of pursuing a new legal action in Berkman’s case, with Saul Yanofsky of the Freie Arbeiter Stimme, Goldman raises money to support the cost of digging Berkman’s prison escape tunnel. If successful, Berkman intends to meet Goldman in Europe.
June Goldman visits an anarchist colony at Lakebay, Wash. By June 10, she is scheduled to hold a series
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1900
February Goldman spends the month in London before travel ing to Paris. On Feb. 20, Goldman speaks out against the Anglo-Boer War at a meeting of the Freedom Discussion Group; lectures on “The Effect of War on the Workers.” Her activities are credited for provid ing impetus to the London anarchist movement. On Feb. 25, Goldman scheduled to deliver her lecture “The Basis of Morality” in German. On Feb. 26, she is honored at a farewell concert and ball where she speaks about the striking Bohemian miners; other speakers include Peter Kropotkin and Louise Michel, Goldman begins debate in the anarchist press about the importance of developing consistent propaganda and supporting individual lecturers financially.
November 13-Deceinbcr 9 Goldman arrives in London where she stays with Harry Kelly and his family and lectures in English and German. Among her proposed topics are “America: The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave,” “Strikes and Their Effect on the American Worker,” and “Marriage,” While visiting Peter Kropotkin at his home in Bromley, she meets the Russian populist Nicholas Chaikovsky, whom Goldman greatly admires. She argues heatedly with Kropotkin about the political significance of “the sex problem.” Following one of her German lectures, she meets the Czechoslovakian refugee I Iippolyte Havel, with whom she later falls in love.
March-October Accompanied by Hippolyte Havel, Goldman visits Paris in preparation for the September International Anti-Parliamentary Congress in Paris. While immersing herself in French culture, Goldman becomes acquainted with the leading figures of the French anarchist movement and other progressive circles, including Augustin Ilamon and Victor Dave. Decides against pursuing further medical studies so that she can concentrate on political activities. Goldman delivers a statement to (he organizing committee of the Paris congress about her most recent lecture tour in the United States, the necessity of organizing American-born citizens into the anarchist movement, and the reluctance of some anarchists to participate in the Paris congress. U.S. anarchists debate the importance of select ing American-born delegates to represent their movement at the Paris congress; it is eventually decided that Goldman, although an immigrant, will be a suitable representative. Other representatives are also selected, Goldman asked by several American comrades, including Lizzie and William Holmes, Abe Isaak, and Susan Patton, to present papers at the congress.
December 9 Goldman appears in London among a cast of interna tional speakers, including Louise Michel and Kropotkin, at a “Grand Meeting and Concert for the Benefit of the Agitation in Favour of the Political VicLims in Italy.” December 10-22 Goldman travels to Leeds and Bradford for several lectures. December 23 Goldman returns to London.
1900 January Goldman attends a Russian New Year party in London where she meets notable Russian revolution ary exiles, including L. B. Goldenberg and V. N. Cherkezov. Goldman travels to Glasgow, Dundee, and Edinburgh, Scotland to lecture. On Jan. 21 in Dundee she lectures on “Authority versus Liberty” and “The Aim of Humanity.” In Edinburgh, she meets anar chist Thomas Bell.
June-July Goldman meets up with some Italian comrades from the United States, including Salvatore Palavicini. Reunites with Max Baginski when he arrives in Paris.
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Goldman had, under an assumed name, rented a hall on Dec. 11 for a mass meeting of the Social Science Club. Goldman the principal speaker; statement favoring the assassination of King Umberto attributed to her. Goldman scheduled to speak to the Italian group of New London, Conn., on Dec. 23.
June 14 French intelligence notes presence of Goldman and Havel at a women’s congress in Paris. duly 16 The tunnel being dug for Berkman’s escape is discovered. Although prison officials cannot verify who is responsible, Berkman is placed in solitary confinement. Eric B. Morton, sick from the physical hardship of digging the tunnel, sails to France where he is nursed back to health by Goldman.
1901 January-March Goldman supports herself by working as a nurse in New York City; helps to arrange a U.S. tour for Peter Kropotkin in March and April. Goldman reestablishes friendship with her former lover Edward Brady.
July 29 King Umberto of Italy is killed by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian anarchist Goldman had met in Paterson, N.J. September Meets Oscar Panizza, whose writings she had read in the Der arme Teufel. Discusses issues of sexuality, including homosexuality, with Dr. Eugene Schmidt.
April-July Goldman lecture tour begins with a free-speech battle in Philadelphia when she is prevented from speaking before the Shirt Makers Union. Goldman and the organizations that sponsor her talks, including the Single l ax Society, defy police orders; Goldman speaks in public on at least two occasions. On April 14, she speaks at an event sponsored by the Social Science Club; other speakers include Voltairine de Cleyre. Despite die Social Science Club’s opposition to Goldman’s anarchist views, it passes a resolution protesting the violation of her right to free speech. Speaks in Lynn, Mass., Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, and Spring Valley, 111., on such topics as “Anarchism and Trade Unionism,” “The Causes of Vice,” and “Cooperation a Factor in the Industrial Struggle,”
September 18 The International Anti'Parliamentary Congress, scheduled to begin the following day, is prohibited by the French Council of Ministers. Protest meeling called for that evening is prevented by the police. Though some of the scheduled meetings are canceled, others take place in secret locations. Goldman’s “The Sex Question” is one of eight anarchist lectures scheduled to be presented on Sept. 21-..although some French comrades were opposed to this topic being addressed in public for fear drat it would lead to further misconceptions of anarchism. During this period, Goldman also attends the Neo-Malthusian Congress in Paris, which holds its meetings in secret because of a French law prohibit ing organized attempts to limit offspring. Goldman obtains birth control literature and contraceptives to take back to the United States.
July 15-August 15 Goldman spends a month with her sister Helena, in Rochester, N.Y., traveling briefly to Niagara Falls and to Buffalo, N.Y., to visit the Pan-American Exposi tion.
Late September-November Following the Paris congress, Goldman earns her living as a boarding room cook and as an American tour guide at the Paris Exposition.
Early September Goldman visits Alexander Berkman at the peniten tiary in Allegheny, Pa., the first time she has seen him in nine years.
December Goldman returns to New York with Hippolyte Havel and Eric B. Morton. Newspaper reports claim that
September 6 President William McKinley shot by self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, N.Y., at the PanAmerican Exposition. Police claim that Czolgosz
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¡903
Conducts lecture tour to raise funds for the students and peasants under attack in Russia and for the striking coal miners. Her activities are closely monitored by police detectives; many of her lectures are outlawed, especially in coal-mining cities like Wilkes-Barre and McKeesport, Pa. Despite police harassment, Goldman holds successful lectures in Chicago; scheduled to speak in Milwaukee and Cleveland.
September 7 Goldman leaves St. Louis for Chicago. September 9-23 In an atmosphere of intense anti-anarchist hysteria, Goldman goes into temporary hiding at the home of American-born anarchist sympathizers. On Sept. 10, she is arrested by Chicago police and subjected to intensive interrogation. Though initially denied, bail is set at $20,000. President McKinley dies on Sept. 14.
January 27 Police arrest Goldman and Max Baginski in New York City for being “suspicious persons”; released after questioning.
September 24 Goldman released; case dropped for lack of evidence.
March 3 Anti-anarchist immigration act passed by Congress.
October Goldman expresses her sympathy for Leon Czolgosz in an article, “The Tragedy at Buffalo,” published in Free Society (Chicago), prompting many of her close anarchist associates to distance themselves from her. Finding much difficulty in securing an apartment and job, Goldman adopts the pseudonym “E. G. Smith.” Czolgosz executed on Oct. 29.
April Edward Brady, former lover of Goldman, dies.
1903
June-Septcmber Alarmed by the threat to civil liberties posed by the anti-anarchist immigration law and the public hysteria of the moment, prominent American liberals, includ ing Theodore Schroeder, rally to her support. October 23 First attempt to test anti-anarchist immigration act: At an event at Murray Hill Lyceum, where Goldman is scheduled to speak, English anarchist John Turner is arrested and charged with promoting anarchism and violating alien labor laws. Turner detained on Ellis island until his deportation.
November-Dccember Goldman avoids public appearances.
1902 Criminal Anarchy Act passed in New York State. Goldman continues to conceal her real identity, at times to no avail. Chased from her apartment on First Street, Goldman moves to a crowded Lower East Side tenement building on Market Street. She finds work as a night-shift nurse for poor immigrants living on the Lower East Side.
November In an effort to mobilize broad support from American citizens for John Turner, Goldman acts under the pseudonym E. G. Smith to form a permanent Free Speech League in New York City. December Cooper Union mass meeting protests anti-anarchist proceedings against John Turner, still awaiting deportation.
May-December Increased repression in Russia and a strike of Penn sylvania coal miners propel Goldman to resume her political work.
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1904
February Goldman speaks at memorial meeting for Louise Michel. Ricardo Flores Magón moves to St. Louis, where his friendship with Goldman begins. Catherine Breshkovskaya returns to Europe.
January Goldman, on behalf of the Free Speech League, undertakes a brieflecture tour to gain support for John Turner; speaks before garment workers in Rochester and miners in Pennsylvania.
July Goldman meets Russian actor Paul Orleneff; assists him in the management of the Orleneff troupe’s theater engagements in New York City. The Industrial Workers of the World (ÌWW) established in Chicago.
February Russo-Japanese War begins. April Goldman seeks to extend her influence beyond the immigrant community by exposing a broader Ameri can audience to anarchism. Travels to Philadelphia to lecture on “The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation.” Her first attempts to deliver lecture stalled by police. Public support for free speech, gains her eventual success in delivering the lecture. Supreme Court rules on the John Turner case (Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279) that Congress has unlimited power to exclude aliens and deport those who have entered in violation of the laws, including philosophical anarchists.
September Russia and Japan sign peace treaty at Portsmouth, N.H. October 17 (30) Czar Nicholas 11 signs manifesto guaranteeing civil liberties in Russia. November Renewed pogroms of Jews in Russia. Orleneff troupe arranges benefit performances on behalf of Jewish victims. Goldman accompanies Orleneff troupe on lour to Boston.
Fall Goldman hosts two members of the Russian Social Revolutionary party seeking to organize support for political freedom in Russia. With the assistance of the American Friends of Russian Freedom, Goldman manages a successful tour of Catherine Breshltovskaya (the “Grandmother of the Russian Revolution”), recently freed from Siberian exile.
December Russian revolution crushed.
1906 September 11 Goldman among a cast of speakers at one of the largest reported New York City anarchist meetings in support of the Russian anarchist movement.
February Goldman, in Chicago with the Orleneff troupe, identifies herself without a pseudonym at lectures to local anarchists.
December Exhausted by nursing, Goldman opens her own business as a “Vienna scalp and face specialist” in New York City.
March First issue of Mother Earth published; first run numbers three thousand. Goldman begins national lecture tour with associate editor Max Baginski; speaking engagements scheduled in Cleveland, Toronto, Rochester, Syra cuse, and Utica. Encounters interference in Buffalo when the police mandate that their lectures be presented in English, preventing Baginski from addressing the audience.
1905 January 9 (22) “Bloody Sunday” in St. Petersburg, Russia. Goldman continues to lecture and raise funds to gain support for political freedom in Russia.
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1907
October 30 Scheduled to speak at a meeting to protest the Oct. 27 arrests of several anarchists for debating whether Czolgosz was an anarchist, Goldman is arrested for articles published in Mother Earth and for inciting to riot. Nine others also arrested.
March 17 Death of Johann Most. April Goldman discontinues her scalp and facial massagebusiness; devotes full attention to the publication of Mother Earth.
October 31 Goldman released on $1,000 bail.
April 1 Goldman speaks at an anarchist gathering at Grand Central Palace in New York City to commemorate the life of Johann Most.
November 2 Goldman pleads not guilty to criminal anarchycharges before the New York City magistrate.
May 18 Alexander Berkman released from prison; Goldman and Berkman unite in Detroit.
November 11 Goldman scheduled to speak at the nineteenth anniversary commemoration of the Chicago martyrs, organized by the Freiheit Publishing Association.
May 22 Goldman and Berkman travel to Chicago, where they are followed by the press. Newspaper falsely reports that Goldman and Berkman have married.
November 23 Mother Earth Masquerade Ball at Webster Hall in New York City disrupted by police; owner is forced to close the hall.
June 10-12 Goldman scheduled to speak in Yiddish and English in Pittsburgh on the following topics: “The Constitu tion,” “The Idaho Outrage” (addressing the arrests of Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George A. Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners), “The General Strike,” and “The False and True Conception of Anarchism.”
December 16 Goldman lectures on “False and True Conceptions of Anarchism” before the Brooklyn Philosophical Association.
1907 June 17 Goldman and others address a crowd of two thousand people who had gathered to greet Alexander Berkman in New York City.
January 6 Goldman arrested by the New York City Anarchist Police Squad while delivering the same lecture she had successfully presented the previous month; charged with publicly expressing “incendiary senti ments.” Berkman and two others also arrested.
Mid-July Goldman vacations at farm in Ossining, N.Y., with Berkman and Baginski.
January 9 Case against Goldman from Oct. 30, 1906, arrest dismissed by the New York City grand jury'.
October Goldman devotes October issue of Mother Earth to the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of Leon Czolgosz's death, despite the objection of many of her political associates.
January 11 Police evidence from Goldman's Jan. 6 arrest presented before the New York City magistrate’s court; case later dismissed.
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January 24 New York City police suppress meeting where Goldman is scheduled to speak.
April 10-15 Goldman makes her first visit to Winnipeg, Canada; lectures in German and English on topics including “Crimes of Parents and Education” and “The Position of Jews in Russia.”
January-March Berkman attempts to run a small printing business.
April Goldman expected to lecture in St. Louis; lectures in Denver.
February Goldman speaks in Boston, Lynn, and Chelsea, Mass. February 27 Goldman shares platform with Luigi Galleani at the Barre, Vt., opera house.
May 5-19 Addressing audiences in German and English, Goldman speaks in San Francisco and San Jose on such issues as “The Corrupting Influence of Religion” and character building.
Late February, Early March Russian exile Grigory Gershuni, recently escaped from Siberia, visits Goldman to encourage her work on behalf of Russian freedom,
May 23-28 Hundreds of people turn out on successive nights in Los Angeles to hear Goldman speak, and, on one occasion, debate socialist Claude Riddle. Goldman organizes a Social Science Club with fifty-five charter members to study social issues, literature, and art. Goldman declares her intent to start a movement on behalf of Mexico among U.S. radicals.
March 3 Goldman leaves New York City for national Icelure tour; asks Berkman to take charge as editor of Mother Earth in her absence. March 9 All lecture halls in Columbus, Ohio, are closed to Goldman.
June 2-16 Buoyed by the success of her speaking engage ments----“tlie first tour of any consequence I have made since 1898”—Goldman travels to Portland, Tacoma, Home Colony, Wa., Seattle, and Calgary. Canada.
March 10-15 Mayor Brand Whitlock of Toledo, Ohio, does not allow Goldman to speak until Kate Sherwood, a respected political activist and community leader, convinces him of Goldman’s right to speak.
June 27 Goldman back in New' York City in time to celebrate her thirty-eighth birthday.
March 16-17 Goldman’s scheduled Detroit lectures stopped by the local police.
July-August Goldman’s essay, “The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation” translated and published by German and Japanese anarchists. Goldman selected to act as an American repre sentative at the International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam.
March 18-28 Successful lecture series in Chicago before audiences of many nationalities, including Jewish, Danish, and German. Her topics include the Paris Commune, the trial of Moyer and Ilaywood, and the “Revolutionary Spirit of the Modem Drama.”
July 28 Haywood acquitted; Goldman and associates send telegram to President Theodore Roosevelt to express their joy.
March-April Speaking on such subjects as “Education of Children” and “Direct Action versus Legislation,” Goldman continues lecture tour in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Minneapolis.
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1908
Early August Goldman and other anarchists speak about the Boise trials (of Haywood et al.) at the Manhattan Lyceum in New York City.
Police prevent Goldman from delivering her lecture on “ The Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Drama” in Washington, D.C. Lectures in Pittsburgh.
Mid-August Goldman travels with Baginski to Amsterdam.
February 13 Goldman heads out for a tour of the western states via Montreal, London, OnL, Toronto, and Cleveland; scheduled to speak in English and Gentian on “The [Economic] Crisis: Its Cause and Remedy,” “The Relation of Anarchism to Trade Unionism," “Syndi calism a New Phase of the Labor Struggle,” and “Woman Under Anarchism.”
August 25-30 International Anarchist Congress takes place in Amsterdam, attended by three hundred delegates. Early September After attending anti-militarist congress organized by Dutch pacifist anarchists, Goldman tours major European cities. In Paris, Goldman visits Peter Kropotkin and Max Nettlau; visits Sébastien Faure’s experimental school for poor and orphaned children; and studies syndicalism at the Confédération Générale du Travail.
February 23 Giuseppe Guamaeolo, reported to be a former resident of Paterson and a follower of Goldman, assassinates Father Leo Henrichs at the altar of a Catholic church in Denver. February 28 Goldman delivers several lectures in St. Louis, despite word from Chicago authorities who, in coordination with Washington D.C. officials, threaten to deport Goldman under the immigration law.
September 24 U.S. Bureau of immigration and Naturalization, anticipating Goldman’s return from Europe, directs the East Coast commissioners of immigration to fully verify Goldman’s U.S. citizenship before allowing her to cross the border.
March 2 Chicago Chief of Police George Shippy attacked by alleged anarchist Lazarus Averbuch; Shippy’s son shot. Goldman implicated in incident, which prompts new legislation to coordinate efforts of city, state, and federal authorities to stamp out all anarchist agitation.
October 7 Goldman speaks in London on “The Labor Struggle in America”; is trailed by Scotland Yard detectives. Mid-October Goldman evades U.S. immigration authorities byentering New York via Montreal.
March 6 In Chicago, Goldman is barred by police from addressing any meetings in a public hall. Goldman meets with the press, vowing that she will seek an opportunity to lecture in Chicago no matter what the authorities do to prevent her.
Novein her-Decern her Finding Mother Earth in terrible financial shape upon her return from Europe, Goldman conducts lecture lour in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
March 7-12 Goldman repeatedly barred from speaking at public lecture halls in Chicago; meets Ren Reitman. a physician specializing in gynecology and venereal disease, who offers to arrange a speaking engagement for Goldman at a storeroom on Dearborn Street, the meeting place of his Brotherhood Welfare Associa tion, otherwise known as the I lobo College.
1908 January Goldman lectures in German, English, and Yiddish on “Trade Unionism,” “The Woman in the Future,” and “The Child and its Enemies,” among other topics, in cities throughout New York State. Large crowd turns out to hear Goldman in Baltimore.
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March 13 Despite an indication from Chicago authorities that Goldman will be allowed to speak if she makes no incendiary remarks against the police or the govern ment. Goldman is prevented from speaking at Ben Reitman’s hall.
April 7 Goldman enters the United States; itinerary includes lectures in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Sacra mento. April 17 Accompanied by Ben Reitman, Goldman arrives in San Francisco, where the police notify her that anarchist propaganda cannot be circulated.
March 15 Chicago newspapers report a budding romance between Goldman and Reitman.
April 18 Objecting to the notoriety caused by Goldman’s presence, the management of the St. Francis Hole! in San Francisco forces Goldman to leave; encounters an escalated level of surveillance.
March 16 Police forcibly remove Goldman from Workingmen’s Hall in Chicago, where she is scheduled to speak on “Anarchy as It Really Is,” an event organized by the newly created Freedom of Speech Society.
April 19 Despite warnings, police do not interfere with Goldman’s lecture at Walton’s Pavilion in San Francisco, which is attended by five thousand people.
March 17-19 Goldman unable to secure a hall in Chicago. March 20-22 Temporarily abandoning attempts to speak in Chi cago, Goldman meets success in Milwaukee, where large crowds, including Milwaukee socialist Victor Berger, come to hear her.
April 26 Goldman ends her San Francisco lecture series with a speech on patriotism. In attendance is U.S. soldier William Buwalda, stationed at the Presidio, who is witnessed shaking hands with Goldman following her speech. Buwalda is subsequently court-martialed for this action.
March 28 Lecturing in Minneapolis, Goldman denies knowl edge of those involved in a bomb explosion at a New York City demonstration of the unemployed in Union Square. News reports claim that Selig Silverstein, the bomb-thrower, was a member of Goldman’s Anar chistic Federation.
April 28-May 2 Goldman lectures in Los Angeles; debates socialist Kaspar Bauer on the question of “Socialism versus Anarchism.” While in Los Angeles, Goldman visits George A. Petti bone.
March 31-April 5 Goldman delivers several lectures in Winnipeg, including discussions encouraging street railway employees to strike for an eight-hour workday.
Mid-late xMay Goldman delivers five lectures in Portland—including “Why Emancipation Has Failed to Free Women” and “Direct Action a Logical Method of Anarchism”— following initial free-speech battle. Goldman’s success attributed in part to support received from Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Portland attorney and writer. Local Portland anarchists organize protest against the court-martial and imprisonment of William Buwalda.
April President Theodore Roosevelt investigates legality of not only barring anarchist propaganda that advocates political violence, but also prosecuting those who produce the material. April 6 Goldman leaves Winnipeg; temporarily detained and interrogated at the border by U.S. immigration officials.
May 31 Goldman presents two lectures in Spokane: “What Anarchism Really Stands For” and “The Menace of Patriotism.”
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June Marking the last leg of her tour, Goldman travels to Montana; despite police harassment and lack of press coverage, Goldman speaks in Butte and Helena.
im
October 27 Goldman prevented from speaking in Indianapolis. October 30-Novcmber 1 Goldman lectures in St. Louis; meets William Marion Reedy, editor of the St. Louis Mirror, whose article “The Daughter of the Dream,” published later that week, praises her.
July Goldman vacations in Ossining, N.Y. Goldman captivated by J. W. Fleming’s invita tion to make a two-year tour of Australia; tentatively plans to travel to Australia in February.
November 2-6 Goldman lectures in cities tliroughout Missouri: Springfield, Liberal, and Kansas City.
July 19 New York World publishes Goldman’s article, “What 1 Believe.”
November 7-13 Omaha chief of police prevents Goldman from lecturing in the hall of her choice; crowds gather to hear Goldman at other sites in the city.
September 7 Ben Reitman delivers speech on the meaning of Labor Day at Cooper Union. When the audience learns that the speech was written by Goldman, there is a tremendous uproar; Berkman and young anarchist Becky Edelsohn arrested.
November 15 Goldman’s lectures in Des Moines, Iowa, are successful.
September ¡3 Goldman begins five-week Sunday afternoon Yiddish lecture series under the sponsorship of the Free Worker Group in New York City; talks include “Love and Marriage,” “The Revolutionary Spirit in the Modem Drama,” and “The Political Circus.”
November 17-23 Lectures in Minneapolis and St. Paul poorly attended.
Late September Goldman tormented by revelation of Reitman’s infidelity.
December 2-11 Goldman scheduled to lecture in Fargo, N.Dak., Butte, anti Spokane.
October 16 On the eve of her departure for her next lecture tour, Goldman delivers a farewell lecture in New York City on “The Exoneration of the Devil” (based on a popular play at the time).
December 13 Seattle police take Goldman into custody after the lock on a closed hall is broken to allow Goldman entry to speak; released when she promises to leave the city.
October 17 Goldman begins national lecture tour while the country is immersed in presidential campaigning; hopes to wind up her tour on the West Coast and depart for Australia in the new year. Lecture topics include “The Political Circus and Its Clowns,” “Puritanism, the Great Obstacle to Liberty,” and “Life versus Morality.”
December 14 Goldman protests actions of the police authorities in Everett, Wash., who prevent her from speaking on the claim that vigilantes will harm her. Goldman and Reitman arrested in Bellingham, Wash., in anticipation of Goldman’s scheduled lecture.
November 24-30 Goldman in Winnipeg for lectures and a debate with socialist J. D> Houston.
December 15 Goldman released from jail; placed on board a train bound for Canada.
October 18-24 Large audiences attend Goldman’s lectures in Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
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December 16-28 Following lectures in Vancouver, Goldman lectures in Portland and conducts two debates—one with Democrat John Barnhill, the other with socialist Walter Thomas Mills.
March 1-10 Delivers two lectures and participates in one debate in Los Angeles. March 12 Goldman lectures in El Paso, Tex.; prevented by city authorities from holding meeting in Spanish.
1909 March 14-15 Goldman attempts to lecture in San Antonio; unable to secure a hall.
January 2-6 Goldman lectures in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Pasadena on such topics as “The Psychology of Violence” and “Puritanism, the Greatest Obstacle to Liberty.” Some of Los Angeles’s leading drama critics attend her lecture “The Drama, the Most Forcible Disseminator of Radicalism.”
March 16 Goldman speaks on the outskirts of Houston in a hall owned by the Single Taxers; remarks that this event is “the most inspiring meeting of my entire tour.”
Mid-March Tour ends with two meetings in Forth Worth.
January 13 Goldman lectures on “The Dissolution of Our Institutions” in San Francisco, followed by a state ment by William Buwalda, the soldier court-martialed the previous year and recently pardoned by President Roosevelt. Event takes place withoui police interfer ence.
March 27 Goldman in Rochester, N.Y. April-May Goldman conducts Sunday lecture series in Yiddish and English in New York City; topics include “The Psychology of Violence,” “Minorities versus Majori ties,” and the modem drama.
January 14 Goldman and Reitman arrested on charges of con spiracy against the government; both held on bail. Buwalda arrested for disturbing the peace. Supporters of Goldman and Reitman rally to protest the arrests on Jan. 15; police forcibly end gatherings. In jail, Goldman learns about her father’s death. Goldman released Jan. 18; participates in a public debate on “Anarchism versus Socialism.” Case dropped Jan. 28.
April 8 U.S. Court in Buffalo invalidates the citizenship of Jacob A. Kersner, Goldman’s legal husband; threat ens Goldman’s claim to U.S. citizenship and results in cancellation of Goldman’s trip to Australia. May Goldman’s essay “A Woman Without a Country,” responding to the threat of deportation, published in Mother Earth. With increased public attention on her citizenship status, Goldman is stopped repeatedly by the police.
January 23 Goldman’s anticipated departure for Australia is postponed. January 31 Goldman speaks to a crowd of over two thousand people in San Francisco on “Why I Am an Anar chist.”
May 1 Scheduled to speak at a Mother Earth May Day concert and dance in New York City.
February Goldman stays in San Francisco with hopes of delivering the lectures she was prevented from giving during the week of her arrest and imprisonment.
May 6 Goldman speaks at a convention of the National Committee for the Relief of the Unemployed in New York City, encouraging the unemployed to organize.
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May 10 and 13 Goldman scheduled to speak in New York on “Direct Action as a Logical Tactic of Anarchists” and “IIow Parents Should Raise Children” (in Yiddish). May 14 Goldman scheduled to speak in New Haven on “Anarchy: What It Stands For”; police admit her into the lecture hall, but prevent entry to thousands of people waiting outside. May 21 Goldman and Berkman invited by civil libertarian Aidea Freeman to lunch at the elite New Jersey Society of Mayflower Descendants; subsequent scandal threatens Freeman’s membership in the club. May 23 Police break up Goldman’s Sunday lecture series, claiming that she did not follow the subject of her lecture on “Henrik Ibsen as the Pioneer of Modem Drama”; two arrests made. May 24 Goldman speaks at the Sunrise Club in New York City on “The Hypocrisy of Puritanism,” sharply criticizing Anthony Comstock, anti-vice crusader. May 28 Brooklyn chief of police orders cancellation of a Goldman lecture. Late May “A Demand for Free Speech” manifesto signed and circulated by prominent individuals to protest the recent suppression of Goldman’s rights. Free Speech Society is formed. June 7 Free-speech conference to take place in New York City. June 8 Goldman scheduled to speak in East Orange, N.J., at a meeting organized by Alden Freeman to commemo rate the hundredth anniversary of Thomas Paine’s death; police prevent her from entering the lecture hall. Crowd relocates to Freeman’s bam, where Goldman delivers lecture suppressed by police on May 23.
1909
June 30 Large meeting organized by the Free Speech Society takes place at Cooper Union to protest harassment of Goldman and to win back the right of free speech. Speakers include former congressman Robert Baker, Alden Freeman, Voltairine de Clevre, James P. Morton, and Harry' Kelly. Telegrams from Eugene Debs and others read. July 2 Goldman tests her free-speech rights by delivering a lecture before the Harlem Liberal Alliance; standoff with police, but no interference. August 11 Goldman prevented from speaking in New York City at a meeting sponsored by Mother Earth to celebrate the antiwar uprising in Spain. Other speakers include Voltairine de Clevre, Harry' Kelly, and Max Baginski. August 24 Reilman secures a lecture hall in Boston despite police intimidation of hall owners. September Goldman, accompanied by Reitman, conducts a short lecture tour of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island. While in Worcester, Goldman attends lecture by Sigmund Freud at Clark University. September 3 Mayor of Burlington, Vt., prevents Goldman from speaking anywhere in his city. September 8 Unable to secure a lecture hall in Worcester, Goldman is invited to speak on the private property of Rev. Eliot White. September 24-()ctober 21 Goldman engaged in frcc-speech battle in Philadel phia. Police chief will let Goldman speak on the condition that he review her speech prior to the engagement; Free Speech Association deems pro posed review an infringement on Goldman’s frccspeech rights and Goldman refuses to comply. When Goldman is prevented from entering lecture hall, Voîtairine de Cleyre reads Goldman’s lecture to the audience.
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Goldman appeals for injunction to restrain the Philadelphia police from further intimidation; testifies before the Philadelphia courts. Philadelphia judge denies injunction, claiming that the police had the right to prevent both citizens and aliens from speaking if their words were deemed likely to cause a public disturbance; in addition, claims that Goldman is not a citizen and therefore is not guaranteed constitutional right to free speech.
January Her tour begins with tree-speech battles that thwart her from speaking in Detroit, Columbus, and Buffalo. January issue of Mother Earth held by the U.S. Postmaster on Anthony Comstock’s objection to the publication of Goldman’s essay “White Slave Traffic.” Released on Jan. 29 when officials decide there is nothing legally objectionable in the magazine. January 9-10 Large audiences attend Goldman’s lectures in Cleveland.
October 17 Goldman is chief speaker at a New' York City mass meeting called to protest the Oct. 13 execution of Francisco Ferrer, founder of the modem school movement, in Spain.
Mid-January Goldman holds a successful meeting in Toledo. In Chicago, Goldman conducts six lectures in English and three in Yiddish.
October 23 Goldman marches in a parade of six hundred anar chists and socialists in New York City to protest Ferrer’s execution.
January 23-24 Goldman holds three successful meetings in Milwau kee.
November 5 Prevented from speaking in a Brooklyn lecture hall, Goldman addresses a crowd of three thousand in an open-air meeting; Reitman arrested for failing to obtain a permit.
January 26-27 Goldman’s speaking engagements in Madison, Wis., set off a storm of protest from state and university officials who deny any forma! endorsement of Goldman.
December 12 Goldman speaks on “Will the Vote Free Woman: Woman Suffrage” to an audience of three hundred women, many of whom are suffragettes. A collection is taken for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, recently sen tenced to a three-month prison term resulting from her arrest during a frce-speech battle in Spokane.
Late January Press attributes Goldman’s unsuccessful meeting in Hannibal, Mo., to the intimidation posed by police when they record the names of everyone who stepped inside the lecture hail. February 2-6 Goldman’s lectures in St. Louis include “Ferrer and the Modem School,” “Leo Tolstoy, the Last Great Christian, His Life and His Work,” and “Art in Relation to Life.”
December 26 Goldman scheduled to deliver her last lecture, “White Slave Traffic,” in New York City before embarking on her western tour.
Early February Police chief of Springfield, 111., attempts to stop Goldman from lecturing.
1910 January-June Goldman delivers a total of 120 lectures before forty thousand people in thirty-seven cities in twenty-five states; credits her success to the organizing skills of Ben Reitman.
February 14-18 Goldman attracts sizable crowds in Detroit. February 19 Goldman hissed by her Ann Arbor, Mich., audiences.
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1910
Late February Goldman speaks in Buffalo, despite residues of Czolgosz-inspired apprehension and disapproval of anarchism. Holds three meetings in Rochester.
May 6-18 Goldman pleased by the overwhelmingly positive reception to her lectures and debate in Los Angeles; claims to have delivered that city’s first-ever Yiddish lecture.
March 11 Goldman speaks on “The General Strike [of Philadel phia]” in Pittsburgh. Press does not announce her talks in fear that she will prompt a riot.
Late May Goldman lectures in San Diego, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane. May 31 Car in which Goldman and Reitman are riding is struck by a freight train in Spokane. Goldman thrown from car and badly bruised.
March 18 A celebration of the fifth anniversary of Mother Earth takes place in New York City. Mid-March Despite an absence of press coverage, Goldman conducts four lectures in Minneapolis. Goldman lectures for the first time in Sioux City, Iowa. Organized on short notice, Goldman’s lecture in Omaha is well received.
June Goldman speaks in Butte, Bismarck, and Fargo; travels through Milwaukee and Chicago. June 25 The Mann Act, popularly known as the “white slave traffic act,” passed by Congress, prohibiting interstate or international transport of women for “immoral purposes.”
March 26 Amendment to the Immigration Act of 1907 is passed, forbidding entrance to the United States of criminals, paupers, anarchists, and persons carrying diseases.
Summer and Fall Goldman divides her time between New York City and the Ossining farm where she prepares Anarchism and Other Essays for publication; Beckman begins writing Prison Memoirs o f an Anarchist.
Early April Goldman’s lectures in Denver well attended. Goldman and Reitman arrested in Cheyenne, Wyo., while conducting an open-air meeting. Arrests spur further interest in Goldman.
October Canadian subscribers denied receipt at Mother Earth books on orders of Canadian authorities because of their “treasonable nature.”
Mid-April Goldman lectures in San Francisco and debates a socialist on “whether collective regulation or free love will guarantee a healthy race.”
October 1 Bombing of the Eos' Angeles Times building by James and John McNamara kills twenty people; anarchist involvement immediately suspected.
Late April Goldman visits Jack London and his wife Charmi an at their ranch at Glen Ellen, Calif.
November 1 At a public meeting in New York City, Goldman and Reitman question Anthony Comstock about his promotion of laws denying the use of mails for “obscene” materials.
May 1 Goldman lectures on anarchism and “Marriage and Love” in Reno.
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November 10 Goldman sets out to organize public protest in response to the pending execution of Japanese anarchist Kotoku Shusui (Denjiro), his common-law wife. Kan no Sugako, and twenty-four others.
January 15-16 Successful events in Cleveland, especially the Jewish meeting. January 17-20 Goldman has mixed results in Columbus; denied opportunity to speak on several occasions. Goldman receives support from many members of the United Mine Workers, although the leaders of the UMW vote against inviting Goldman to speak at their convention.
November 20 Goldman scheduled to lecture on “The Danger of the Growing Power of the Church” in New York City. November-Dcccmber Police authorities deny Goldman the right to speak in Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis. Escapes police interference in Baltimore where she presents five lectures.
Mid-January Goldman holds small meetings in Elyria and Dayton, Ohio. January 21-23 Speaks in Cincinnati.
December Anarchism and Other Essays published.
January 24 Execution of twelve anarchists in Japan.
December 4 Goldman begins Sunday lecture series in New York City on anarchism, the drama, “Tolstoy, the Rebel,” and “The Parody of Philanthropy.”
January 24-25 After free-speech battle in Indianapolis, Goldman is offered use of the Pentecost Tabernacle by a preacher; the next day she speaks at the Universalisi Church.
December 24 Anarchist ball sponsored by Mother Earth in New York City.
Late January Goldman holds two meetings in Toledo. January 31-February 5 Lectures in Detroit disappointing.
1911 Early January Mother Earth office moved from 210 East Thirteenth Street to 55 West 28th Street, New York City.
Early February Goldman’s lectures in Ann Arbor received more favorably than previous year. Speaking engagement in Grand Rapids, Mich., hosted by William Buwalda.
January 5 Goldman speaks aL the inauguration of the new Ferrer School in New York City.
February 10-16 Goldman lectures in Chicago.
January 6 Goldman begins her annual “pilgrimage” with a lecture in Rochester. Over the next six months she will travel to fifty cities in eighteen states, delivering 150 lectures and debates.
February 26-March 3 With the help of William Marion Reedy, Goldman’s lectures are widely attended in St. Louis. Meets political artist Robert Minor. Roger Baldwin arranges two speaking engagements for Goldman at the exclusive Wednesday Ladies’ Club. Lecture topics include “The Eternal Spirit of Revolution,” “The Social Importance of Ferrer’s Modern School,” “Tolstoy—Artist and Rebel,” and “Galsworthy’s Justice
January 8-14 Goldman’s lectures in Buffalo and Pittsburgh poorly attended.
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1911
March 5 Goldman encounters police interference in Staunton, ill., but manages to speak before members of this mining town despite arrest of one comrade.
May Climax of land revolt in Baja California led by the Partido Liberal Mexicano; Porfirio Diaz signs a peace treaty with Francisco Madero in Mexico.
March 6-12 Goldman lectures in Belleville, 111., Milwaukee, and Madison.
May 9-10 Goldman holds two meetings in San Diego.
March 13 Ricardo Flores Magdn appeals to Goldman for support of the revolutionary movement in Mexico. March 13-21 Scheduling problems for Goldman's lecture series in St. Paul— holds only one meeting. March 25 Fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City kills 146 people, mostly young women. Late March Goldman delivers six lectures in Minneapolis and three lectures in Omaha. Early April Goldman speaks to law students in Lincoln, Nebr., and Lawrence, Kans. Scheduled to participate in a debate and speak before a Jewish audience in Chicago. April 6-7 Goldman scheduled to speak in Kansas City, Mo. April 7 Free Speech League incorporated in Albany, N.Y., by Leonard D. Abbott, president, and Brand Whitlock, vice president. April 14-19 Goldman’s lecture on “Victims of Morality” among the most well attended in Denver, April 22-26 Goldman speaks in Sait Lake City. April 30-May 7 Goldman immensely pleased with success of her tour in Los Angeles; holds eleven meetings and raises financial support for the Mexican cause, and likens the uprising to the Paris Commune.
May 13 Goldman accused of being an agent provocateur by the editors of'Justice, a publication of the SocialDemocratic Party in London, England, Accusation, prompts anarchists and liberal journalists and lawyers to rally to Goldman’s defense; statement protesting charges made by Justice is circulated. May 14 Goldman lectures twice in Fresno, Calif. May 16-25 Eight lectures and a debate in San Francisco. Late Mav-carly .June Goldman lectures in Portland and Seattle. June Six-month tour concluded with lectures in Spokane, Colville, Wash., Boise, and Denver. Collections made for Mexican comrades. Su ni mer Go id man spends time with Alexander Berkman at their Ossining summer retreat while Berkman completes Prison Memoirs o f an Anarchist. August 26 Goldman rallies support for the Mexican Revolution at a mass meeting at Union Square in New York City. Other speakers include Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Max Baginski. Fall Unable to secure a mainstream publisher for Berkman’s book, Goldman seeks financial support from attorney Gilbert Roc and journalist Lincoln Steffens for its publication by the Mother Earth Publishing Association. October l Goldman speaks out about “The Growing Religious Superstition” at a mass meeting in New York City.
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October 13 Goldman among speakers at a New York City commemoration of the second anniversary of the death of Francisco Ferrer. Other speakers include Leonard Abbott, James P. Morton, and Harry Kelly. Bayard Boyesen, professor at Columbia University and a teacher at the Ferrer School, is later fired by university administrators for having shared the platform wiLh Goldman at this event.
February Goldman debates socialist Sol Fieldman twice in New York on “Direct versus Political Action.” Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn take collections for the striking textile workers. Mother Earth alerts its readers to a major freespeech fight in San Diego. February 3 Goldman a scheduled speaker at a meeting organized by the Italian Socialist Federation in Union Square to raise support for the Lawrence strikers.
October 15-Deceniber 10 Series of Sunday afternoon and evening lectures in Yiddish and English to residents of New York City’s Lower East Side. Lecture topics include “Marriage and the Lot of Children among the Poor,” “Govern ment by Spies: The McNamara Case and Bums,” “Art and Revolution,” “Communism, the Most Practical Basis for Society,” “Mary Wollstonecraft, the Pioneer of Modem Womanhood,” and “Socialism Caught in Its Political Trap.”
February 10-18 Goldman’s annual lecture tour begins in Ohio; speaks in Cleveland, Lorain, Elyria, Columbus, and Dayton; topics include “Anarchism, the Moving Spirit in the Labor Struggle” and “Maternity, a Drama by Eugene Brieux (Why the Poor Should Not Have Children).” February 21-29 Lectures in Indianapolis and St. Louis.
November IS Mother Earth concert and hall to take place in New York City.
March Aroused by the experience of hearing her lecture, Almeda Sperry begins a passionate correspondence with Goldman.
December 1 John and James McNamara plead guilty to bombing the Los Angeles Times building; admission of guilt creates controversy among their supporters who believed them to be innocent. Goldman defends their action in Mother Earth editorial.
March 3-9 Goldman continues lectures in Chicago; topics include “The Failure of Christianity” and “Edmond Rostand’s Chantecler.” Debates Dr. Denslow Lewis on “Resolved, that the institution of marriage is detrimental to the best interests of society.” Meets Russian revolutionary Vladimir Bourtzeff.
December 17 Goldman scheduled to present a farewell lecture on “Sex, the Element of Creative Work,” in New York City, before departing for annual lecture tour with Ben Reitman.
March 10-April 13 Speaking engagements in Grand Rapids, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City, and Lawrence, Kans.
1912
April 14-27 Goldman’s lectures in Denver positively received; lecture topics include “Woman’s Inhumanity to Man” and “The Failure of Charity.” Denver Post features interviews with and articles by Goldman. Extends stay in Denver to teach a course on the modem drama.
January Paul Orleneff returns to the United States for a brief series of dramatic performances. January 12 Lawrence, Mass., textile strike begins.
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Late April Goldman in Salt Lake City.
1912
'rather than bar, her lectures. Goldman speaks in public in defiance of anonymous death threat; no attempts made on her life,
May 1-13 Continuation of lecture tour in Los Angeles; Goldman responds to growing intensity of tree-speech battle in San Diego. On May 13, she speaks at the Los Angeles funeral of 1WW agitator Joseph Mikoiasek, killed by the San Diego police on May 7.
Mid-June Goldman travels to Spokane, Colville, Wash., and Butte to lecture. June 20 Following a long illness, Voltairine de Cleyre dies at the age of forty-five.
May 14 Mob of vigilantes waits for Goldman’s arrival at the San Diego train station; follows her to the Grant Hotel in an attempt to run her out of town. Reitman is kidnapped, tarred, and sage-brushed, his buttocks singed by cigar vviLh the letters “I.W.W.” Goldman decs from San Diego to Los Angeles.
June 26-July 13 Goldman returns to Denver intending to teach classes on eugenics and on modem drama; eugenics class canceled for lack of interest. Public lecture topics include “Patriotism—a Menace to Liberty" and “Vice, Its Cause and Cure,”
May 15 U.S. grand jury initiated to investigate the IWW as “an organization operating contrary to the laws of the United Stales.” Proceedings terminated before Goldman formally called to testify.
July 16 Her lecture circuit completed, Goldman stops at the Waldheim cemetery in Chicago to visit Voltairine de Cleyrc’s grave. July 22 Goldman pleased to return to a well-organized Mother Earth office in New York.
M a y 16
Goldman and Reitman among speakers at two large protest meetings held in Los Angeles. May 18-29 Goldman and Reitman in San Francisco; lectures on anarchism and the San Diego free-specch baLtle are widely attended despit e condemnation of Goldman in the press. Socialists deny Goldman use of their Oakland
Summer and Fall Goldman vacations and writes at the Ossining farm; grows impatient with Berkman’s difficulties with revision of Prison Memoirs. August 1 Goldman impressed by African-American political theorist W. E. B. Du Bois’ lecture at the Sunrise Club in New York.
auditorium. May 30 Reitman and Goldman speak in Sacramento about their recent experience in Sail Diego.
October 6-December 22 Goldman holds a Yiddish and English Sunday lecture series in New York City; topics include “The Psy chology of Anarchism," “The Dupes of Politics,” “Sex Sterilization of Criminals," “The Resurrection of Alexander Berkman: Prison Memoirs o f an Anarchist,” “The Failure of Democracy,” “Economic Efficiency—the Modern Menace," and “Damaged Goods by Eugène Brieux (A Powerful Drama, Dealing with the Curse of Venereal Disease)."
June 1-6 Goldman continues lecture tour in Portland. June 9-20 Goldman’s lecture series in Seattle threatened by U.S. military'' veterans who protest her right to speak. Mayor orders a large contingent of police to monitor,
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November 5 Woodrow Wilson elected president; Socialist candi date Eugene Debs receives over 900,000 votes.
February 12 Lecture in Hartford, Comi. February 14 Lecture in Newark, N J.
November 11 Goldman participates in major commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Haymarkel martyrs in New York, sponsored by more than a dozen anarchist and labor organizations.
February 17 The International Exhibition of Modern Art—the Armory Show—opens at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.
November 26-30 Goldman scheduled to speak at a meeting organized by Almeda Sperry in New Kensington, Pa., followed by meetings in Pittsburgh, New Castle, and McKees Rocks.
February 20 Benefit event for Mother Earth's eighth anniversary and for Goldman on the eve of her departure for her annua! lecture tour.
December 6 Goldman scheduled to lecture on syndicalism in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
February 22-April 22 Goldman describes her engagements in Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Mo., Coffeyville, Lawrence, and Topeka, Kans., as “dreadfully uneventful and dull.” Lecture topics include “Sex Sterilization of Criminals,” “The Psychology of Anarchism,” “Woman’s Inhumanity to Man,” “Syndicalism—the Modem Menace to Capitalism,” “Prison Memoirs o f an Anarchist “Syndicalism, the Strongest Weapon of Labor—a Discussion of Direct Action, Sabotage and the General Strike,” and the modem drama.
December 7 Gala celebration of Peter Kropotkin’s seventieth birthday in New York City cosponsored by the Freie Arbeiter Stimme and Mother Earth; Goldman a featured speaker. December 11 Berkman and Goldman speak at the Chicago celebra tion of Kropotkin’s birthday. December 20 Goldman scheduled to lecture on Leonid Andreyev’s King Hunger in Brownsville.
February 25 Paterson, N.J., silk strike begins. April 25 Goldman opens series of lectures on Nietzsche at the Woman’s Club in Denver.
December 24 Mother Earth Grand Ball and Reunion in New York.
May 1-8 Goldman lectures on the modem drama in Denver, which “brought larger and more representative audiences than we have ever had in Denver.”
1913 January 12-February 16 Goldman delivers six Sunday lectures in New York City on the modem drama, discussing the plays of Scandinavian, German, Austrian, French, English, and Russian dramatists including August Strindberg, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arthur Schnitzler, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Edmond Rostand, Octave Mirbeau, Eugène Brieux, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Pinero, John Galsworthy, Charles Rann Kennedy, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorki, and Leonid Andreyev.
May 11-19 Goldman delivers thirteen lectures in Los Angeles. May 19 Goldman accompanies Reitman, obsessed with returning to San Diego, to the place of his abduction by vigilantes the previous year.
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August 3-9 in Portland, Goldman delivers lectures on the modern drama, including the works of playwrights Ludwig Thom a, Stanley Houghton, and Katherine Githa Sowerbv. Other public speaking engagements include a debate with socialist W. F. Ri.es and a lecture on the sterilization laws adopted by the state of Oregon.
May 20
Goldman and Reitman arrested on arrival in San Diego; vigilantes surround the police station. Police order Goldman and Reitman to board the afternoon train back to Los Angeles. May 22 In Los Angeles, Goldman and others speak out against continued vigilante intimidation in San Diego.
August 9 In Seattle, while distributing advance lecture bills for Goldman, Reitman and another publicist are arrested on the charge of “peddling bills without a license,” and released on five dollars bail.
May 25-,Iune 8 Goldman delivers a series of anarchist propaganda lectures in San Francisco, followed by several talks on the modem drama, including Stanley Houghton’s llindel Wakes, John Galsworthy’s The Wheels o f Justice Crush All, and Charles Rann Kennedy’s The Dignity of Labor.
August 10 The Seattle Free Speech League protests the actions of the president of the University of Washington, who disallowed the scheduling of Goldman’s lectures at campus facilities.
June Arahata Kanson translates Goldman’s essay “The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation” into Japanese.
August 11-17 Goldman delivers several lectures in Seattle, includ ing three in the IWW meeting hall; describes them as “the most wonderful 1 have addressed in many years.”
June 16-Juiy 9 Goldman lectures on anarchism and the modern drama in Los Angeles. General lecture topics include “Friedrich Nietzsche, the Anti-Governmentalist,” “The Social Evil,” and “The Child and Us Enemies: The Revolutionary Developments in Modem Educa tion.” Dramatists discussed include Henrik Ibsen, Hermann Sudermann, Otto Hartleben, J. M. Synge, William Butler Yeats, Lady Isabella Gregory, Lennox Robinson, Thomas C. Murray, and E, N. Chirikov.
Mid-August Canadian immigration authorities prevent Goldman from entering the country. August 17 Goldman participates in debate on “Anarchism versus Socialism,” and speaks on “Marriage and Love” in Everett, Wash., despite the mayor’s intention to bar her public talks.
July Paterson silk strike ends in failure.
Late August Goldman delivers three lectures in Spokane, including “The Social and Revolutionary Significance of the Modem Drama.” “The Growing Danger of the Power of the Church” is the most popular of two lectures delivered by Goidman in Butte, Mont.
July 13-31 Due to her popular success the previous month, Goldman is welcomed back to San Francisco to continue her lecture series. Debates socialist Maynard Shipley, and, in addition to a series on the modem drama, delivers several talks on general topics including “The Relation of tine individual to Society” and, in Yiddish, “Should the Poor Have Many Children.” Goldman notes that her lecture on “The Social Evil” attracted the biggest and most diverse audience.
September Back in New York City, Goldman engages in a search for a large apartment to combine the Mother Earth office with a household comprised of Reitman and his mother, Berkman, Mother Earth secretary M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, and French housekeeper Rhoda Smith. By
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the end of the month, she moves from 210 Hast 13th Street, where she has lived since 1903, to 74 West 119th Street.
1914 January’ Goldman's Mother Earth essay “Self-Defense for Labor” responds to a series of violent labor violations; in the absence of legal protection against the danger of exercising their right to organize, Goldman calls on workers to arm themselves for self-defense. Joe Hill arrested in Utah; charged with murder despite lack of evidence, Goldman's household arrangement with Reitman and his mother fails. Goldman’s relationship with him becomes “unbearable”; Reitman moves back to Chicago. Goldman continues to work on the manuscript of Social Significance o f the Modern Drama.
Fall-Winter Settled in her new home, Goldman prepares her modem drama manuscript for publication. Goldman organizes political support for 1WW members arrested in connection with strike of Canadian miners, and for Jesus Rangel, Charles Kline and twelve members of the Partido Liberal Mexicano charged with murdering a deputy sheriff in San Antonio, Tex. October 12 Goldman among speakers at a Francisco Ferrer memorial meeting in New York City.
January74 Philadelphia police expel audience and lock the hall where Goldman is scheduled to lecture on “The Awakening of Labor”; event moved to another location where the lecture proceeds without interrup tion.
October 18 Annual Mother Earth reunion concert and ball takes place in New York. October 26 Goldman delivers two lectures in Trenton, N.J.
January 5 Under the auspices of the Free Speech League, Goldman addresses large meeting in Paterson, N.J., to protest recent violations of free speech; other speakers include single-taxer Bolton Hall, Leonard Abbott, and Lincoln Steffens.
November 2-Dccember 28 Goldman conducts Sunday evening lectures series in New York City; topics include “Our Moral Censors,” “The Place of Anarchism in Modern Thought,” “The Strike of Mothers,” “The intellectual Proletarians,” and “Why Strikes Are Lost.”
January 11-March 8 Goldman delivers extensive lecture series in New York City on the modern drama; expands her reper toire to discuss the works of British poet and drama tist John Masefield, and American playwrights Mark E. Swan, William J. Hurlbut, Joshua Rosett, and Edwin Davies Schoonmaker. Responding to the massive unemployment of the time, Goldman requests contributions for the jobless at each lecture.
December 15 Goldman hosts a social gathering for British syndical ist Tom Mann. December 16 Despite warnings by the Paterson, N.J., police forbidding Goldman from speaking, she addresses members of the IWW on “The Spirit of Anarchism in the Labor Struggle.” Goldman is forced off the platform; audience members engage in battle with the police to release her.
March Goldman offered high-paying speaking engagements in vaudeville; after brief contemplation of proposition based on desperate financial need, she turns down offer.
December 24 Annual “Christmas Gathering of the Mother Earth Family” in New York City,
March 6 Lecture in Newark, N.J.
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April 19-26 Goldman lectures in Madison, Minneapolis, and Des Moines.
March 9 Goldman delivers lecture in Philadelphia; notes freespeech victory with complete retreat of police authorities.
April 20 Massacre of striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colo., by armed company guards from John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.; eleven children and two women among those killed.
March 15 Goldman, in Yiddish, among speakers at an afternoon celebration of the ninth anniversary of the publication o f Mother Earth and a commemoration of the Paris Commune; other speakers include Rerkman, Eliza beth Gurley Flynn, and Hairy Kelly. Goldman delivers farewell lecture in New York City. American playwright George Middleton and actresses Fob La Follette and Mary Shaw speak on “What Drama Means to Me.”
April 28-May 9 Goldman delivers seven propaganda lectures and eleven modern drama talks in Denver. On May 3, Goldman addresses large meeting organized by the Anti-Militarist League of Denver to protest the use of federal troops in the Colorado mining strike and the war with Mexico. Goldman attributes Denver IWW frec-spccch victory in part to the efforts of Reitman, who helped secure the release of twenty-seven IWW members from the county jail.
March 21 Goldman addresses demonstration of unemployed workers at Union Square in New York City; rally is followed by march along Fifth Avenue. Event launches city-wide campaign of the unemployed, in which Berkman takes an active role.
May 11 Goldman makes brief appearance in Salt Lake City.
April The Social Significance o f the Modern Drama published.
May 15-June 11 In Los Angeles, Goldman continues delivering propaganda and modern drama lectures, which includes discussion of Irish playwright Seamus O’Kelly. Her propaganda lectures include “Revolu tion and Reform—Which?” and “The Place of the Church in the Labor Struggle.” Goldman reports to birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger that “Not one of my lectures brings out such a crowd as the one on the birth strike and it is the same with the W[oman] R[ebel]. it sells better than anything we have” (May 26,1914).
April 3 Reunited, Goldman and Reitman open their seventh annual tour in Chicago with “splendid” Jewish meetings. April 5 Goldman lectures on “The Conflict of the Sexes” in Chicago; attended by at least one thousand people. April 6-12 Goldman presents expanded afternoon lecture series on the modem drama in Chicago. Playwrights analyzed include British dramatist St. John Hankin, Welsh author John 0. Francis, and American drama tists Eugene Walter and George Middleton. Other lectures presented in Chicago during this period include “Our Moral Censors,” “The Individual and Society,” “The Hypocrisy of Charity,” “Beyond Good and Evil,” “Anarchism and Labor” (in Ger man), and “The Mother Strike.” In Chicago, Goldman befriends Margaret Anderson, editor of the literary magazine Little Review.
June 14-July 10 Goldman reception in San Francisco disappointing compared to her experience in Los Angeles. Lectures include “The Intellectual Proletarians,” “The Super man in Relation to the Social Revolution,” “The Mothers’ Strike,” and “Anti-Militarism: The Reply to War.” July 4 Accidental bomb explosion at Lexington Avenue in New York City kills four people, including Arthur
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Late August Goldman makes brief stop in Chicago before return ing to New York City, where she finds Mother Earth in disastrous financial condition as a result of Berkman’s poor management. Margaret Sanger indicted for obscenity in connection with her journal The Woman Rebel. A few months later, Sanger flees the country until Oct. 1915.
Caron, Carl Hansen, and Charles Berg, anarchists who knew Berkman from the protests at John D. Rockefeller’s estate in Tarrytown, N.Y. Mid-July Goldman travels to Eureka and Areata, lumber towns in Humboldt County, Calif.; delivers first-known anarchist lectures there to enthusiastic audiences. On July 11 in New York City, a rally and public funeral of six thousand people mourn the deaths of those killed in the Lexington Avenue explosion. Berkman, a key organizer of event, speaks at rally despite heavy police surveillance. Goldman furious when she receives the July issue of Mother Earth, which, unbeknownst to her, has been filled with “harangues...of a most violent character.... [including] prattle about force and dynamite.”
October To decrease financial burden, Goldman relocates her residence and the Mother Earth office from West 119th Street to smaller quarters located at 20 East 125 th Street. Goldman encourages Berkman to embark on an independent lecture tour; places Max Baginski and her nephew Saxe Commins in charge of editorial work of Mother Earth.
July 19-26 Goldman lectures in Portland, much aided by C. E. S. Wood. Among the most notable and well attended of her lectures is “Intellectual Proletarians” at the Portland Public Library. Other talks presented include “The immorality of Prohibition and Conti nence,” about the prohibition campaign of Portland, which Goldman later described as “one of the most exciting evenings in my public career.” The focus of her drama criticism expands during this tour to include the work of Norwegian playwright Bjornstjerne Bjomson.
November Part one of Peter Kropotkin’s 1913 essay, “Wars and Capitalism,” reprinted in Mother Earth, in an effort to refute Kropotkin’s stance in favor of the war. October 23-Novcmber 15 Goldman returns to Chicago for series of propaganda and modern drama lectures, delivered in both English and Yiddish. General lecture topics include “War and the Sacred Right of Property,” “The Betrayal of the International,” “The False Pretenses of Culture,” “The Psychology of War,” “The Tsar and ‘My’ Jews,” “The War and ‘Our Lord’,” “The Misconceptions of Free Love,” and “Woman and War.” Her English series on the drama, titled “The Modern Drama as a Mirror of Individual, Class and Social Rebellion Against the Tyranny of the Past,” takes place in Chicago’s elegant Fine Arts Building, made possible by the financial backing of a wealthy supporter. Goldman’s usual focus on European dramatists is expanded to include for the first time Swedish dramatist Hjalmar Bergman; French playwrights Paul Hervieu, (Félix) Henry Bataille, and Ilenri Becque; Italian dramatists Gabriele D’Annunzio and Giuseppe Giacosa; Spanish play wright José Echegaray; Yiddish dramatists Jacob Gordin, Sholem Asch, David Pinski, and Max Nordau; and American playwright Butler Davenport.
July 26-August 3 Goldman reports that her lectures in Seattle are “flat and uninteresting.” . August Outbreak of World War 1 in Europe. August 4 Goldman speaks at a hastily organized event in Tacoma, Wash., on “The Birth Strike— Why and How the Poor Should Not Have Children.” Following Tacoma, she travels to Home Colony. August 7-14 Goldman returns to Portland to deliver a series of free lectures. August 16-19 Goldman delivers five lectures in Butte, of which the most popular are her antiwar and birth control talks.
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Goldman describes the audience of her Chicago Press Club luncheon lecture on “The Relationship of Anarchism to Literature” as “five hundred hard-faced men.”
1915
1915 Winter Goldman helps organize defense of Matthew Schmidt and David Caplan, arrested for complicity in the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building.
November 11 In Chicago, Goldman participates in event to com memorate the twenty-seventh anniversary of the death of the Haymarket martyrs.
November 26 Goldman delighted with the success of her meetings, including lecture on “The War and ‘Our Lord,’” in Grand Rapids, Mich., organized by William Buwalda of the Analyser Club.
January-April Goldman delivers series of lectures on the war and on sexuality in New York City', Albany, Schenectady, and Boston. Topics include “Anarchism and Litera ture,” “Feminism—A Criticism of Woman’s Struggle for the Vote and ‘Freedom’,” “Nietzsche, The Intellectual Storm-Center of the Great War,” “The Intermediate Sex (A Study of Homosexuality),” and “Man—Monogamist or Varietist?” At the end of 1915, Rcitman reports that Gold man has delivered a total of 321 lectures.
November 29-l)ecember 6 in St. Louis, Goldman delivers eight English and two Yiddish lectures to receptive audiences.
January 15 Goldman attends concert of her nephew David Hochstein, a violinist with exceptional talent.
December 7-10 Lectures in Indianapolis and Cincinnati; interaction with Indianapolis audience at her lecture on “Free Love” described as “both interesting and funny.”
January 19 William Sanger arrested for circulating a copy of Margaret Sanger’s pamphlet Family Limitation.
December 11-14 Goldman presents two English and two Yiddish lectures in Cleveland, and delivers an address before the Council of Economics.
February Goldman lectures on “Limitation of Offspring” to six hundred people, one of the liberal New York Sunrise Club’s largest audiences, Although she details explicit information about birth control methods, Goldman is not arrested.
November 20-24 Goldman delivers lectures in Detroit and Ann Arbor.
December 15-18 In Pittsburgh, Goldman holds a meeting organized by lawyer Jacob Margolis.
February 20 Mother Earth “Red Revel” Ball takes place in New York City; attended by close to eight hundred people of many nationalities.
December 20 Goldman delivers lecture on the war to an audience of eighteen hundred people at an event organized by her niece Miriam Cominsky in Rochester. Days later, Goldman speaks on “The Birth Strike.”
March Goldman helps raise money for the defense fund of Frank Abamo and Carmine Carbone, members of the Italian anarchist Gnippo Gaetano Bresci, arrested on March 2 for conspiracy to bomb St. Patrick’s Cathe dral. On April 9, Abamo and Carbone are convicted and sentenced to six to twelve years in prison.
December 31 Goldman hosts New Year’s eve party at her apart ment on East 125th Street; Mabel Dodge among those invited.
March 11 Goldman disappointed by the poor attendance at the tenth anniversary of Mother Earth, in New York.
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March 18 Goldman shares the platform with I Iarry Kelly, Italian anarchist Carlo Tresca, Pedro Esteve, Russian anarchist William Shatoff, and physician and anar chist Michael Cohn for an international celebration of the anniversary of the Paris Commune. Goldman attributes poor turnout to the divided stance among radicals on the war,
delivering “The Limitation of Offspring” in Yiddish before an audience of twelve hundred. May International Anarchist Manifesto on the War issued from London; Goldman among over thirty anarchist signatories from the United States, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia. Goldman lectures on the war, drama, birth control, and sexuality in Washington, D.C., Balti more, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Denver. Topics include “Jealousy, Its Cause and Possible Cure,” the Modem School, and feminism. Finds that audiences are most receptive to her lectures on war and on birth control, although Catholic socialists harass her in Washington, D.C.
March 28 Goldman lectures again on ‘‘Limitation of Off spring—Why and How Small Families are Prefer able” in New York. Although explicit information is repeated and detectives are present, no arrests are made. March 30 Goldman invited by the students of the Union Theological Seminar)'' in New York to speak on “The Message of Anarchism,” but administration cancels the engagement.
June Goldman continues her lecture tour in Los Angeles and San Diego, raising support for the CaplanSchmidt defense fund. While in Los Angeles, Goldman presents her critique of feminism to a hostile group of live hundred members of the Woman’s City Club, who, according to Goldman, denounce her as “an enemy of woman’s freedom.”
April Writing from exile in Europe, Margaret Sanger criticizes Goldman for failing to provide adequate support and coverage of Sanger’s legal battles. Goldman calls her charge “very unfair” and assures her that Afather Earth will stand by her. The Organizing Junta of the Parti do Liberal Mexican«, including the Magon bothers, appeals to the readers of Mother Earth for solidarity with the Mexican revolutionary movement. Goldman poses for a portrait by artist Robert Henri.
July Goldman delivers twenty-four lectures in San Francisco; topics include “The Psychology of War,” “The Follies of Feminism (A criticism of the Modern Woman’s Movement),” “Religion and the War,” and “The Right of the Child Not to Be Bom.” According to Reitman, Goldman presents “an inspired address” on “The Philosophy of Atheism” before the Congress of Religious Philosophy at the Civic Auditorium.
April 7 Goldman debates economist Isaac Hourwich on “Social Revolution versus Social Reform” in New York City in a benefit for the Ferrer School; attended by nearly two thousand people.
August Lectures continue in Portland; on Aug. 6, while beginning a speech on “Birth Control,” Goldman and Reitman are arrested for distributing birth control literature. Goldman released on $500 bail provided by C. E. S. Wood.
April 19 Goldman speaks on “The Failure of Christianity” and the Billy Sunday movement in Paterson, N.J., afler attending one of Sunday’s revival meetings.
August 7 Goldman and Reitman are fined $100. Despite proclamation by the chief of police that Goldman will not be allowed to speak again in Portland, she presents “The Intermediate Sex” later that night, and two lectines the following day.
Late April Motivated primarily by need to pay off debts of Mother Earth, Goldman embarks on a lecture tour. One of her first engagements, in Philadelphia, is
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August 10 Goldman speaks on “The Sham of Culture” at the Portland Public Library to overflowing crowrd.
November 19 J.WW member and songwriter Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom) executed in Utah.
August 13 Goldman’s case dismissed by Portland Circuit Judge Gatens who concludes, “There is too much tendency to prudery nowadays.”
November 19-Deccmbcr 5 Goldman presents sixteen lectures in Chicago, including six in Yiddish; “Sex, the Great Element of Creative Art” and “The Right of the Child Not to be Bom” among the topics addressed.
Mid-late August Goldman lectures in Seattle where she has difficulty securing halls, September Goldman returns to New York. September 10 William Sanger convicted for illegal distribution of birth control literature; Sanger serves thirty-day jail sentence in lieu of paying $ 150 fine. September 16 Goldman scheduled to speak at meeting to rally support for David Caplan and Matthew Schmidt prior to the opening of their trials. (During the course of Schmidt’s trial, it is revealed that Donald Vose, the son of an anarchist friend of Goldman’s, had been employed since May 1914 by detective William J. Bums to spy on Goldman in order to locate Schmidt. Vose resided at Goldman’s apartment and at her farm in Ossining the previous year, and witnessed Schmidt visiting Goldman, Schmidt was later arrested.) October Reitman. in Chicago, begins work on a book about venereal disease; Goldman reviews the first chapter.
December 8-21 Goldman lectures in St. Louis, Indianapolis, Colum bus, Akron, Cleveland, and Youngstown. Goldman remarks that the Akron newspaper reports on her birth control lectures were among the most intelligent she had ever seen. Late December Goldman returns to New York ill and exhausted; seeks better accommodations at the Theresa Hotel in New York, as the Mother Earth office has no bath. Hotel management refuses to grant her residence. Attorney Harry Weinberger protests on Goldman’s behalf.
1916 January Goldman lectures in New’ York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, on sexuality, modern drama, and the war, including “Preparedness: A Conspiracy between the Munitions Manufacturers and Washington.” Also lectures before enthusiastic members of a prominent women's club in Brooklyn. Matthew Schmidt convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
October 26-30 Goldman delivers five lectures—including “Prepared ness, the Road to Universal Slaughter” in Philadel phia. Scott Nearing of the University of Pennsylvania attends one of her lectures.
January 15 Berkman announces publication of the first issue of his San Francisco-based journal The Blast.
Late October-mid-Novembcr Goldman lectures in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Akron, and Young stown. On Nov. 11, the anniversary of the Haymarket martyrs, Goldman delivers her “Preparedness” lecture to three thousand employees of a Westinghouse defense plant at a street lecture in East Pittsburgh.
Fcbriiary-March Goldman continues her lectures—including “The Ego and His Own, a review’ of Max Stirner’s book,” “The Family, the Great Obstacle to Development,” and “Nietzsche and the German Kaiser”—in New’ York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh. Her lectures on modem drama include Irish playwrights Synge, Yeats, Thomas Cornelius Murray, Rutherford Mayne, and Lemiox Robinson.
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February 11 Goldman arrested in New York City for her birth control lecture the previous week; released on $500 bail. Preliminary hearing takes place Feb. 28; case postponed for Special Sessions April 5. Goldman appeals for support.
April 20 Goldman defends herself in birth control trial. She is convicted, and, in lieu of paying $100 fine, serves fifteen days in the Queens County Penitentiary; released May 4. April 27 Reitman arrested in New York for distributing pamphlets on birth control.
February 18 Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, editors of the Mexican anarchist periodical Regeneración, arrested and jailed on charges of “having used the mails to incite murder, arson, and treason.” Months later, they are both convicted and given prison sentences and tines.
May 5 Large gathering at Carnegie Hall to celebrate Goldman’s release from jail. Program includes speeches by Masses editor Max Eastman, Harry Weinberger, Arturo Giovannitti, and socialist Rose Pastor Stokes. At the close of the meeting, Rose Pastor Stokes hands out one hundred typewritten notices including outlawed information aboul birth control.
February 20 Celebration in New York City for Margaret Sanger following the dismissal of all charges against her; Roheit Minor’s motion for Goldman to speak al the meeting is not supported.
May 8 Reitman convicted and sentenced to sixty days in Queens County Jail.
March 10 Mass meeting held in San Francisco to protest Goldman’s Feb. 11 arrest.
May 20 Goldman speaks from the back of a ear at an open-air demonstration in Union Square to protest Reitman’s imprisonment for distributing birth control. Ida Rauh Eastman, Bolton Hall, and Jessie Ashley are arrested later and charged with illegally distributing birLh control information at the meeting.
April Goldman prepares for her birth control trial and continues to lecture in New York; drama critique includes discussion of British playwright Harley Granville-Barker. April 2 Goldman chairs public meeting in New York to protest imprisonment of Matthew Schmidt.
Late May-JuJy Goldman conducts lecture tour in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; topics include “Free or Forced Motherhood,” “Anar chism and Human Nature—Do They Harmonize?,” “The Family—'Its P'nslaving Effect upon Parents and Children,” “Art and Revolution: The Irish Uprising,” in addition to lectures on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Goldman plans meeting with Giovannitti and others to begin work on an anti-militarist manifesto.
April 5 Goldman’s courtroom hearing on her birth control violation takes place amid ruckus between police and her supporters. April 19 Benefit banquet lor Goldman at the Hotel Brevoort is attended by notable artists, writers, socialists, and doctors, including John Cowper Powys, Alexander Harvey, Robert Henri, George Bellows, Robert Minor, Boardman Robinson, and Rose Pastor Stokes.
July During a strike of thirty thousand iron-ore miners of the Mesabi range in northern Minnesota, Carlo Tresca and other IWW strike leaders are arrested on charge of inciting the murder of a deputy.
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July 1 Social dance and benefit for the defense funds of David Cap!an and Enrique and Ricardo Flores Magon takes place in Los Angeles. Goldman and Berkman celebrate their success in raising the $10,000 bail necessary to secure the release of the Magon brothers.
November 5 Protesting violations of free speech and vigilante intimidation, five members of the IWW are killed and thirty-one wounded by vigilantes in Everett, Wash.; seventy-four IWW members are later tried for the murder of a deputy and a lumber company official.
July 22 A bomb is thrown into the crowd at a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, killing ten and wound ing forty people. On the same day, Goldman pro ceeds as planned with her scheduled talk on “Pre paredness, the Road to Universal Slaughter.” The authorities immediately suspect anarchist involvement in the bombing. A few days later, they search and seize material located at the offices of The Blast, and threaten to arrest Berkman and M. Eleanor Fitzgerald. Later that week, Warren Billings, Israel Weinberg, Edward Nolan, Thomas Mooney, and Rena Mooney are arrested. Goldman and Berkman begin to organize support for their defense.
November-December Goldman lectures in Chicago, Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Cleveland, and Rochester on educa tion, Russian literature, birth control, sexuality, and anarchism. November 11 Bill Haywood, Lucy Parsons, and Goldman speak at a large memorial meeting in Chicago for the Hay market martyrs. Collections are made for, in Goldman’s words, “the living victims in the social war,” including Mooney, Tresca, Caplan, Schmidt, and the IWW members arrested in Everett. December 2 Goldman speaks at a large meeting in Carnegie Hall called by the United Hebrew Trades to protest the arrests and trials of those accused of throwing a bomb at the San Francisco Preparedness Day parade. Other speakers include lawyer Frank Walsh, Max Eastman, United Hebrew Trades leader Max Pine, Giovannitti, and Berkman.
August-Septeiubcr Goldman lectures in Portland, Seattle, and Denver; Goldman’s lecture “The Gary System” addresses the topic of public school education. In Denver, Goldman’s lectures include “The Educational and Sexual Dwarfing of the Child,” and a course on “Russian Literature—The Voice of Revolt.”
December 12 Reitman arrested in Cleveland for organizing volun teers to distribute birth control information at Goldman’s lecture “Is Birth Control Harmful—a Discussion of the Limitation of Offspring.”
September 11 Trial of Warren Billings begins in San Francisco. Late Scptember-Octobcr Goldman’s lecture tour concluded, she takes a brief vacation in Provincetown, R.L, with her niece Stella. Following the conviction and sentencing of Warren Billings to life imprisonment, Goldman resumes work with Berkman in New York in support of the Mooney case.
December 15 At one of Goldman’s lectures in Rochester, Reitman is again arrested for distributing illegal birth control literature.
October 20 Appearing in court to testify on behalf of Bolton Hall, Goldman is arrested for having distributed birth control information on May 20. (Flail is later acquitted of the charge.) Goldman released on $500 bond; Harry Weinberger serves as her attorney.
1917 .lanuary-April Goldman lectures before Yiddish- and Fingi ishspeaking audiences in New York, Cleveland, Phila delphia, Washington, D.C., Passaic, N.J., Boston, Springfield, and Brockton, Mass.; topics include “Obedience, A Social Vice,” “Celibacy or Sex Expression,” “Vice and Censorship, Twin Sisters—
October 26 Margaret Sanger is arrested for distributing birth control information.
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February 7 Mooney convicted and sentenced to hang on May 17. Goldman intensifies organizing efforts to prevent his execution.
How Vice is Not Suppressed,” “Michael Bakunin, His Life and Work,” “Walt Whitman, the Liberator of Sex,” “The Speculators in War and Starvation,” “American Democracy in Relation to the Russian Revolution,” and a course on Russian literature. Goldman preoccupied with threat of Berkman’s extradition to California in connection with the Mooney case. Following the February Revolution in Russia, Goldman supports William Shatoff s return to Russia with a contingent of Russian exiles and refugees. Goldman and Berkman entrust Louise Berger with the delivery of a manifesto they have written lo the people of Russia to protest the imprisonment of Mooney and Billings. Goldman and Berkman attend Leon Trotsky’s farewell lecture in New York City. They contemplate visiting Russia, but decide to postpone plans when they learn that the British government has held up the return of several Russian revolutionaries.
February 28 Following large rally in support of Reitman the prior evening, Reitman is acquitted on charges from his Dec. 15, 1916 birth control arrest in Rochester. March Mooney’s defense attorney W. Bourke Cockran speaks at mass meeting at Carnegie Hall organized byGoldman and Berkman. April Goldman speaks at several meetings chaired by John Sloan of the New York Art Students League. April 6 The United Stales enters World War I.
January 8 Goldman acquitted by a New York court on charge of circulating birth control information at the May 20, 1916, Union Square open-air meeting. Goldman credits especially Ida Rauh Eastman, who risks selfincrimination in order to disprove Goldman’s involvement in distributing literature.
April 7 Political Prisoners Ball, which Goldman has helped organize, benefits the San Francisco Labor Defense for Mooney and Billings; features “cell-booth bazaar and prison garb and military costumes.” Goldman counts forty-five hundred people in attendance.
January 17 Reitman is convicied on charges resulting from his arrest of Dec. 12, 1916, and sentenced to serve six months in jail and to pay a fine of $1,000 in addition to court costs. Goldman angry that Margaret Sanger, in Cleveland at the time, failed to help rally support for Reitman.
May Goldman lectures in New York, Springfield, Mass., and Philadelphia; topics include “Billy Sunday (Charlatan and Vulgarian),” “The State and its Powerful Opponents: Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Thoreau, and Others,” “Woman’s inhumanity to Man,” and Russian literature.
February Alien Immigration Act passed; allows deportation of undesirable aliens “any time after their entry.”
May 9 Conference to organize a No-Conscription League held at the Mother Earth office; away lecturing, Goldman claims that she sent a message that, as a woman, she fell she could not claim a position on whether or not the League should urge men against registering for the military,
February 4-5 In Cleveland, Goldman speaks on “The Message of Anarchism” before a full assembly of the North Congregational Church. The following day she addresses a free-speech meeting; Goldman dismayed that other speakers have refused to attend event if birth control included among issues addressed.
May 17 Mooney’s scheduled date of execution is stayed while ease is appealed.
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June 15 Goldman and Berkman arrested by U.S. Marshal Thomas McCarthy; later indicted on charge of conspiracy to violate the Draft Act. President Wilson signs the Espionage Act, which sets penalties of up to twenty years imprisonment and fines of up to $10,000 for persons aiding the enemy, interfering with the draft, or encouraging disloyalty of military members; also declares nonmailable all written material advocating treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to the law.
May 18 On the same day that the Selective Service Act is passed authorizing federal conscription for the armed forces and requiring the registration of all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, Goldman addresses an anti-conscription gathering of close to ten thousand people chaired by Leonard Abbott in New York City. Other speakers include Berkman and Harry Weinberger. No arrests made, but many detectives present. May 31 Goldman speaks before a Jewish audience in Phila delphia on “Victims of Morality,” addressing morality as it relates to private ownership, government and laws, and women. The police warn her against addressing conscription when she begins to urge mothers to prevent their sons from fighting in the war. Event inspires the formation of a No-Conscription League in Philadelphia.
June 16
Goldman and Berkman plead not guilty on conspiracy charges; hail set at $25,000 each. Goldman disappointed by Reitman’s failure to return to New York to support their pending trial. June 21 Goldman freed on $25,000 bail; the press spreads charges that Goldman’s hail was provided by the German Kaiser. Berkman released on bail June 25.
June On an order from Washington, D.C., New York postal authorities hold up June issue of Mother Earth. Kropotkin returns to Russia.
June 26
Goldman consults with some of her closest associ ates—including writer and editor Frank Harris, journalist and socialist John Reed, Max Eastman, and Gilbert Roe—about her disbelief in courtroom justice and her decision to participate minimally in her pending trial. First U.S. troops arrive in France.
June 1 At a peace meeting in Madison Square Garden, Morris Becker, Louis Kramer, and two others are arrested for circulating leaflets advertising a June 4 mass meeting of the No-Conscription League. Although Goldman and Berkman attempt to claim full responsibility for the event, Becker and Kramer are later found guilty of conspiracy to advise people against military registration.
June 27-Jilly 9 Goldman and Berkman act as independent counsel in their conspiracy trial; Goldman denies charge that she stated, “We believe in violence and we will use violence” at the May 18 meeting. After a brief jury' deliberation, they are both found guilty and given the maximum sentence—two years in prison and $10,000 fine. Judge Julius Mayer recommends their deporta tion as undesirable aliens. Goldman’s plea to have sentencing deferred is denied; Goldman taken to Jefferson City, Mo., and Berkman to Atlanta, Ga., to begin their sentences.
June 4 On the eve of the official military' registration day, Goldman, among others, addresses a mass meeting organized by the No-Conscription League; attended by ten thousand people. Goldman stops the meeting when a conflict with uniformed soldiers and sailors breaks out. June 14 Ignoring rumors of a death threat, Goldman speaks at an anti-conseriplion meeting chaired by Berkman. Officers arrest all men of draft age who cannot show' proof of registration.
Mid-July Federal authorities demand removal of Mother Earth office from its location at 20 East 125th Street; M. Eleanor Fitzgerald relocates office to 226 Lafayette Street.
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September 5 111response to growing IWW opposition to the war, federal authorities raid IWW headquarters in twentyfour cities. Raids precede arrests later that month of over one hundred IWW members, including Bill Haywood, F.lizabcth Gurley Flynn, Arturo Giovannitti, and Carlo Tresca.
Vigilantes forcibly gather and ship over twelve hundred striking members of the IWW in cattle cars from Jerome and Bisbec, Arizona, to California and New Mexico, where they are guarded by federal military authorities. July 17 Berkman indicted in absentia in San Francisco for complicity in three murders stemming from the bombing at the 1916 Preparedness Day parade.
September 9 Anarchist Antonio Fomasier is killed by Milwaukee police after heckling a priest. His comrade Augusta Marinelli, wounded on the same occasion, dies five days later. Ten men and a woman arc arrested for inciting the riot; later linked to Nov. 24 bomb explosion that occurred while they were still impris oned; each found guilty and sentenced to between eleven and twenty-five years imprisonment. Goldman will later protest the injustice of their case, claiming a frame-up.
July 25 Goldman released from Jefferson City, Mo., prison to New York’s Tombs prison; later released on $25,000 bail pending the appeal of her case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Berkman not released on bail until Sept. 10. August August issue of Mother Earth is held up by Post Office authorities (it proves to be the final issue published). Goldman steps up efforts to prevent Berkman’s extradition to California—solicits support from the United Hebrew Trades, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Freie Arbeiter Stimrne, the Forward, prominent individuals including Max Eastman, social worker and nurse Lillian Wald, Bolton Hall, publisher Benjamin Huebsch, and Sholem Asch, and many other unions and organiza tions.
September 10 Upon Berkman5s release from prison on $25,000 bail, he is arrested for murder in connection with the Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco. Prompted by demonstrations in Russia, President Wilson later orders a federal investigation of the case. September 11 Police authorities prevent Goldman from speaking publicly at a meeting at the Kessler Theater in New' York; to protest and dramatize police suppression of her address, she nonetheless appears on stage, a gag over her mouth.
August 1 In Butte, Mont., while assisting striking miners, IWW General Executive Board member Frank Little is brutally murdered.
September 30 Labor delegation organized by Goldman calls on New York Governor Whitman to protest Berkman’s threatened extradition to California.
August 23-25
Accompanied by Reitman, Goldman speaks about the status of her case, Berkman’s threatened extradition, and conscription at several meetings in Chicago.
October Goldman, her niece Stella, and M. Eleanor Fitzgerald begin publication of Mother Earth Bulletin. Reitman returns to Chicago, in sharp disagreement with Goldman over the direction of the Bulletin. Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Goldman defends Bolshevism against attacks by the American press and liberals.
September Mother Earth denied second-class mailing privileges by Post Office authorities. September 1 The People’s Council in Minneapolis convenes; although elected by various anarchist groups to serve as a delegate, Goldman refuses, objecting to its implicit pro-war stance.
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The mayor of Ann Arbor, responding to pressure from the Daughters of the American Revolution, cancels Goldman’s public engagements. Plans to speak in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, Kansas City, and Cleveland are abandoned in light of difficulty securing halls and her pending imprisonment.
November Federal agents begin to investigate Goldman for her suspected role in “the Guillotine Plot”; implicated in masterminding the organization of “Committees of Five” to assassinate simultaneously the president and other state officials. Investigation continued through early 1918, when inconclusive evidence forces its abandonment.
January 7 U.S. Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of the selective service law; on Jan. 14, affirms all criminal charges arising from non-compliance with the draft.
November 13 California District Attorney Charles Fickert tempo rarily withdraws demand for Berkman’s extradition. Berkman released from prison the following day.
January 8 President Wilson presents his Fourteen Points peace program to Congress.
November 16 Goldman speaks at New York’s Hunt’s Point Palace on “The Russian Revolution: Its Promise and Fulfill ment” before two thousand people; describes it as a “most inspiring event.”
January 28 Supreme Court mandates return of Goldman and Berkman to begin their prison sentences.
December Goldman meets Helen Keller at a benefit ball for The Masses. Anarchist and feminist poet Louise Olivereau convicted for antiwar activities; sentenced to ten years in Colorado prison.
January30 From Petrograd, the U.S. ambassador notifies the State Department of the Russian anarchists’ threat to hold him personally responsible for Goldman’s and Berkman’s safety in prison. February Goldman’s niece Stella Ballantine establishes the Mother Earth Book Shop in Greenwich Village.
December 13-14 Weinberger presents Goldman’s and Berkman’s appeals before the IJ.S. Supreme Court; argues that the Draft Act is unconstitutional.
February' 1 Goldman and Berkman are honored in New York at the first United Russian Convention in America, attended by over 160 delegates from Russian organi zations in the United States.
December 14 Police authorities prevent Goldman and Berkman from speaking at a meeting at the Harlem River Casino in New York organized by labor for the San Francisco defense.
February 2 Prior to surrendering to federal authorities, Goldman meets with representatives of the newly formed League for the Amnesty of Political Prisoners, including the chairman, educator Prince Hopkins, treasurer Leonard Abbott, and secretary M. Eleanor Fitzgerald. Goldman held in the Tombs prison in New York until Feb. 4, when she is transported to the federal penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo.
1918 January Prior to imprisonment, Goldman delivers her last public lectures in Chicago, Detroit, and Rochester (in Yiddish and English); topics include “The Bolsheviki—Their True Nature and Aim,” “The Russian Revolution and its Forerunners,” “Maxim Gorki,” “Leonid Andreyeff,” “America and the Russian Revolution,” “The Spiritual and Intellectual Development of Russia,” “The Spiritual Awakening of Russia,” and “Women Martyrs of Russia.”
February 6 Goldman begins serving her prison sentence in Jefferson City, Mo., one of about ninety women federal prisoners. She is assigned the task of sewing
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jackets and other items for the state of Missouri, which in turn sells the clothing to private firms throughout the United States. Her prescribed daily quota causes intense strain and contributes to her ongoing physical decline. Goldman is initially allowed to write only one two-page letter every week; soon granted Lhe right to send an additional weekly letter to her attorney, Harry Weinberger. Allowed one monthly visit, with some exceptions, Goldman denied outside recreation on Sunday afternoons when she refuses to attend morning church services. Throughout Goldman’s incarceration, she receives weekly deliveries of fresh groceries from St. Louis anarchists.
March 18 Reitman begins his six-month prison sentence in Cleveland for his Jan. 1917 conviction for distributing birth control information. March 21 Ricardo Flores Magon arrested in Los Angeles, placed under $25,000 bail. Later convicted under the Espionage Act for obstructing the war effort; sen tenced to twenty years imprisonment. April
Final issue of Mother Earth Bulletin produced; future publication made impossible by ongoing government seizures. Ferrer Center in New York closes. In reaction to growing protests of Russian anarchists to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Cheka— the Soviet secret police—raids anarchist centers in Moscow. Approximately forty anarchists are killed or wounded, more than five hundred taken prisoners.
February 22 Birth of Brutus, Ben Reitman’s son with Anna Martindale. February 25
Newspapers report on government charges that Goldman and Berkman had worked with German spies in foreign countries, an allegation based on correspondence from Indian nationalist Har Dayal to Berkman found among the papers seized from the
April 1 Weinberger meets with the assistant superintendent of prisons in Washington, D.C., to complain about government tampering and confiscation of Goldman’s mail.
M o th er E a rth office.
M a rc h 1
Goldman receives visit from Prince Hopkins, who reports on Lhe activities of the League for the Am nesty of Political Prisoners.
April 16 Prince Hopkins arrested, indicted by federal grand jury in Los Angeles for violating the Espionage Act; released on $25,000 bail. On Aug. 30, he pleads guilty, fined $27,000.
March 3 Germany and its allies sign the Treaty of BrestLitovsk with the Soviet Republic.
May 16 l he Sedition Act is passed, penalizing anyone judged to be hindering the war effort by making false statements, obstructing enlistment, or speaking against production of war materials, the American government, its constitution, or flag. Signed into law' by President Wilson on May 21.
March 4 The Bureau of investigation of the Department of justice orders copies of all correspondence to and from Goldman sent to its officc-in Washington, D.C. March 7 Harry Weinberger submits motion to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, that the bail money provided for Goldman and Berkman should not be used to pay their fines. Motion granted by Judge Augustus N. Hand on Mar. 11.
June Goldman granted permission to write two letters every week, in addition to her letters to Weinberger. Contemplates writing about the situation of women in prison. Receives news that William Marion Reedy and attorney Clarence Darrow7are interested in the League for the Amnesty of Political
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Goldman congratulates her lawyer Harry Weinberger for bis brave defense in the Abrams case. Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lipman, and Flyman Lachowsky are convicted on charges of violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to twenty years in federal prison; Mollie Steimer sentenced to fifteen years. Roger Baldwin tried before U.S. District Judge Julius Mayer for failure to register for the draft; sentenced to a year in prison.
Prisoners, but believe that nothing can be done until after the war. Anticipating orders for her deportation, Goldman begins to investigate her citizenship status. Following suspension of the Mother Earth Bulletin, Stella Ballantine publishes a mimeographed newsletter. Instead o f a Magazine. June 27 Goldman spends her birthday in agonizing pain, induced by strain from her prison work.
October 15 Goldman’s nephew' David Hochstein, the talented violinist, dies in battle; news about his death does not reach family members until Jan. 1919.
June 29 Federal agents raid the apartment of Goldman’s associate M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, seizing mailing lists and other relevant material. Goldman’s associates Carl Newlander and William Bales arrested for draft evasion following the raid of their apartment.
October 16 Anti-Anarchist Act passed by Congress, granting the government authority to deport aliens living in the United Stales.
July U.S. intelligence agencies begin to circulate the names and addresses of over eight thousand Mother Earth subscribers, targeting them for investigation. Goldman reluctantly concurs with Stella Ballantine’s decision to close the Mother Earth Bookshop.
November Mooney’s death sentence commuted to life imprison ment. Gabriella Segata Antolini, a nineteen-year-old anarchist arrested and convicted for transporting dynamite in Chicago, is imprisoned in the Jefferson City, Mo., penitentiary; she and Goldman become good friends.
July 23 Roger Baldwin visits Goldman in prison.
July 28 National Mooney Day; Governor Stephens grants Mooney a reprieve until December.
November 11 End of World War I.
September Goldman is disturbed by Catherine Breshkovskaya’s condemnation of the Bolsheviks. Reitman is released from prison. Goldman impressed by Eugene Debs’s coura geous stand during his trial and conviction for violation of the Espionage Act. U.S. Committee on Public Information promotes widespread publication of alleged Russian documents that prove Bolshevik leaders arc German agents.
December Goldman granted the privilege of writing three letters each w'eek in addition to her weekly communication with Harry Weinberger.
1919 January Prison quarantine lifted; influenza outbreak under control. Goldman visited by M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, who brings her a smuggled communication from Berkman.
October With the spread of a deathly strain of influenza, a quarantine is established at the penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., where Goldman is imprisoned; all outside visits are suspended.
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Goldman urges Harry Weinberger to embark on a national speaking tour to promote amnesty for all political prisoners; Weinberger feels unable to comply because of lack of financial and human resources.
Goldman reads and responds to Louise Bryant’s book Six Red Months in Russia: An Observer's Account o f Russia before and during the Proletarian Dictatorship', Goldman is critical of Bryant’s por trayal of the Russian anarchists.
March 31 Goldman interviewed by Winthrop Lane for an independent investigation of federal prisons slated for publication in the research magazine Survey.
January 15 Revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht arrested and murdered in Berlin. January 21 New York City Police Inspector Thomas J. Tunncy testifies before a Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Overman investigating links between German agents and the U.S. Brewers’ Association and allied liquor interests; recounts his investigation of Goldman and Berkman in connection with the Hindu revolu tionary liar Dayal. Claims that Goldman and Berkman are close associates of Leon Trotsky. Describes Goldman as “a very able and intelligent woman and a very fine speaker.”
April Eugene Debs incarcerated. Immigration officer interrogates Goldman in prison. Following visit, the Bureau of Immigration privately concludes that there are no legal barriers to Goldman’s deportation. Anthony Caminetti, Com missioner General of the Bureau of Immigration, pursues policy for allowing her deportation. Socialist Kate Richards O’Hare joins Goldman in prison at the Jefferson City, Mo., penitentiary. April 12 Benefit concert at Carnegie Halt for the League for the Amnesty of Political Prisoners organized by M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, Stella Ballantine, and Harry Weinberger.
February Goldman receives a brief visit from Kate Richards O’Hare, who is anticipating her incarceration for violation of the Espionage Act. Goldman notes that her mail is being monitored by federal authorities. Suffering from intense pain from the physical hardship of her prison work, Goldman resorts to paying her fellow inmates to help her reach the daily quota.
May German anarchist Gustav Landauer killed following his arrest by a unit of the anti-revolutionary Freikorps. Goldman emphatically rejects Reitman’s request to visit her in prison.
February 14 Catherine Brcshkovskaya testifies before the Overman Subcommittee on Bolshevik propaganda. Louise Bryant testifies on Feb. 20: states her belief that Breshkovskaya is being manipulated by Russian counter-revolutionists; remarks on Goldman’s imprisonment.
May 9 Socialist Ella Reeve Bloor visits Goldman in prison. May-June Mail bombs purportedly sent to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and other prominent officials gain media attention. Government agents wrongly implicate Goldman and Berkman in the conspiracy.
March Harry Weinberger appeals to the U.S. assistant superintendent of prisons in Washington, D.C., to assign Goldman to less physically demanding work. Prison authorities agree to investigate the conditions. Goldman responds to an anonymous editorial published in the Liberator attacking the Russian anarchists.
June Goldman laments that “nothing vital” is being done lo promote amnesty. Goldman notes Kate Richard O’Hare’s ability to influence much-needed prison reforms at the Jefferson City penitentiary.
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Goldman and other prisoners allowed for the first time weekend picnics in the city park. Frank Harris assists Goldman with planning a public celebration to welcome her home.
Mid-October Goldman and Berkman spend a few days in the country to recuperate from harsh prison conditions before they begin work to oppose their deportations.
June 27 Goldman celebrates her fiftieth birthday in prison. Especially touched that William Shatoff sends her a bouquet of flowers from Russia.
October 27 Goldman appears before immigration authorities at Ellis Island to appeal her deportation order. Dinner in honor of Goldman and Berkman is sponsored by the Ferrer School and a committee of supporters at the Hotel Brcvoort in New York City. Margaret Scully, who will hold a job as Goldman’s secretary for a week, acts as a spy for the Lusk Committee, submitting her first report detailing events at the Hotel Brevoort celebration.
July Much to Goldman’s disappointment, an amnesty conference scheduled to take place in Chicago July 2-4 is canceled. Kate Richards O’Hare begins to type Goldman’s weekly dictated letters.
October 28 Immigration officials question Goldman to determine her citizenship status; Goldman claims U.S. citizen ship from her marriage to Jacob A. Kersner.
August 29 Goldman’s prison sentence for her primary conviction ends; one-month sentence in lieu of paying her fine begins.
October 31 Benefit theater performance in New York City raises $500 for Goldman and Berkman’s deportation fight.
September 12 Still in prison, Goldman is served a warrant for her arrest and deportation; bond set at $15,000.
Early November Violent raids of the homes of hundreds of suspected radicals take place in New York City.
September 25 Underground anarchists bomb Communist headquar ters in Moscow.
November 1 Goldman and Berkman send out a Lhrce-thousandpiece solicitation to raise support for political prisoners, the fight against deportation of aliens, and to announce their proposed lecture tour scheduled to begin at the end of the month.
September 27 Goldman’s term of imprisonment at Jefferson City penitentiary expires; released on bail with orders for deportation pending. Greeted in Jefferson City by mobs of reporters, friends, and niece Stella Ballantine, who accompanies her to Rochester. Berkman released from Atlanta penitentiary on Oct. 1. Stops in Chicago to visit Reitman; meets his wife and child.
November 17 Goldman speaks at a New York dinner organized byfriends of Kate Richards O’Hare. November 23-26 Goldman and Berkman begin a short lecture tour in Detroit; Nov. 23 event attended by fifteen hundred people; Goldman claims that two thousand people had to be turned away for lack of space. Large Jewish audience attends a meeting on Nov. 25.
October 8 General strike called to demand Mooney’s release and amnesty for all political prisoners. Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, in New York to review evidence collected for Goldman’s deportation, monitors protest rally that night. In search of further evidence, Hoover person ally inspects storage room leased by M. Eleanor Fitzgerald and Reitman.
November 25 Department of Labor orders Berkman’s deportation to Russia. Goldman’s deportation order follows on Nov. 29.
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Weinberger meets in Washington, D.C., with immigration officials, including Anthony Caminetti and Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis F. Post.
1920 January 2 and 6 U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, in coordination with Justice Department agent J. Edgar Hoover and immigration commissioner Anthony Caminetti, orders the arrest of approximately ten thousand alien radicals.
November 29 Goldman and Berkman address an audience offortyfive hundred people in Chicago about their prison experiences. The following day they address another large crowd. Large benefit banquet takes place at the Hotel Morrison in Chicago on Dec. 1. Goldman describes the Detroit and Chicago meetings as “among the most inspiring in our public career.”
January 17 S.S. Buford lands at Hango, Finland. On Jan. 19, the deportees are met at the Russo-Finnish border by Russian representatives and received warmly at a mass meeting of soldiers and peasants in Belo-Ostrov.
December 5 Goldman and Berkman detained at Ellis island.
February Goldman and Berkman settle in Petrograd where they renew their friendships with William Sbatoff, now working as Commissar of Railroads, and John Reed. Meet with Grigory Zinoviev, director of the Soviet Executive Committee, and briefly with Maxim Gorki at his home in Petrograd. Attend a conference of anarchists, including Baltic factor}'' workers and Kronstadt sailors, who echo criticisms of the Bolsheviks voiced by Left Social Revolutionaries and others who have paid visits to Goldman and Berkman in this period.
December 8 Goldman and Berkman appear in federal court before Judge Julius M. Mayer, who declares that as aliens, they have no constitutional rights. They remain in detention at Ellis island. December 9 Goldman and Berkman send a mass appeal for political and financial support. December 10 U.S, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis declines to overrule the lower court’s decision in Goldman and Berkman’s case,
February 7 Death of Goldman’s sister Helena Zodikow Hochstein.
December 15 Soviet representative Ludwig C. A. K. Martens writes to Goldman and Berkman at Ellis Island, assuring them of their right to travel and speak freely in Russia.
March Goldman and Berkman travel to Moscow where they meet with Bolshevik leaders, including Alexandra Kollontai, Commissar for Public Welfare; Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar for Education; Angelica Balubanoff, Secretary of the Third international; and Grigory Chieherin, Assistant Commissar lor Foreign Affairs. After attending a conference of Moscow anar chists, Goldman and Berkman are granted a meeting with Lenin on March 8 where they express concern about the suppression of dissent and the lack of press freedom and propose the establishment of a Russian society for American freedom independent of the Third International. Protests of the arrest and
December 19 Goldman and Berkman send a farewell letter to their supporters. December 21 At dawn, Goldman, Berkman, and 247 radical aliens set sail on the S.S. Buford, bound for Russia.
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1920
Trotsky’s threatened execution of anarchist V. M. Eikhenbaum (Volin) lead to his transfer to Butyrki prison in Moscow and later his release. Goldman and Bcrkman travel to Dmitrov to meet with Peter Kropotkin.
May 5 Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested in Brockton, Mass., in connec tion with a payroll robbery and the murder of two payroll employees.
Mid-March Goldman and Berkman return to Petrograd to secure work in support of the revolution. Ninth Congress of the All-Russian Communist party is held in Moscow; militarization of labor stirs much debate.
May 10 U.S. immigration act passed, authorizing the deporta tion of all radical aliens convicted under the war statutes and certified as ''undesirable residents." June Goldman nurses Joint Reed, in poor health following his release from a two-month prison term in Finland for unauthorized travel. Goldman tours two legendary Czarisl prisons; shocked to discover that many members of the intelligentsia had been routinely executed following the October Revolution. John Clayton’s interview with Goldman is published in several American newspapers, attributing lo her a blunt criticism o f the Bolshevik regime and a longing to return to the United States. To refute the claim that Goldman and Berkman oppose the Soviet government, Stella Ball anti ne releases a letter written by Goldman the previous month to demonstrate their support for the Bolsheviks.
April Goldman and Berkman, frustrated with the Bolshevik leaders’ pettiness and gross mismanagement, express dissatisfaction with their work assignments. Goldman tours Soviet factories in Petrograd with journalist John Clayton of the Chicago Tribune, who previously interviewed her upon her arrival in Finland. Leams firsthand of the poor conditions and dissatisfaction among the workers. May Goldman and Berkman meet with members of the first British Labor Mission; dine with British philoso pher Bertrand Russell, an unofficial member of the delegation. Through Russell, they meet American journalist He my Alsberg. Two Ukrainian anarchists, recently released from a Bolshevik prison, meet with Goldman and Berkman to inform them about the persecution of the revolu tionary' peasants movement led by anarchist Nestor Makhno. As she learns more about Bolshevik misdeeds, Goldman becomes reluctant to obtain a position directly accountable to the Bolshevik regime. She and Berkman finally agree to work for the Petrograd Museum of the Revolution because the extensive traveling will give them an opportunity to study Russian conditions with the least interference from the Bolsheviks. Goldman protests the unjust imprisonment of two teenage anarchist girls to the chief of the Petrograd Cheka. Following a period of unsuccessful peace negotiations with Russia and buoyed by support from France and the United States, the Polish army occupies Kiev, eliciting a military response from the Soviets through June and July.
June 30 Goldman and Berkman travel to Moscow to collect permits necessary for their museum expedition through Russia to gather historical material. July Goldman and Berkman meet with many foreign delegates, including European and Scandinavian anarcho-syndicalists, in Moscow for the Second Congress of the Third International; they inform the delegates about Bolshevik imprisonment of anarchists and other revolutionaries. Meet Maria Spiridonova, leader of the Left Social Revolutionaries and former political prisoner under the Czar. They find Spiridonova, critical of the Bolshevik regime, living in disguise to avoid further imprisonment. Meet again with Kropotkin. July 15-Augtist 6 Eight-member museum expedition, including Henry Alsberg, travels through the Ukraine. Goldman given responsibility for collecting maierials from education,
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health, social welfare, and labor bureaus. Though they discover alarming poverty and overt criticism of the Bolshevik regime, they are hesitant to condemn publicly the Soviet experiment until they have the opportunity to gather more evidence. Travel to Kursk, a large industrial center. In Kharkov they meet a number of anarchists they had worked with in the United States, including Aaron and Tanya Baron, Mark Mratchny, and Senya Fleshin. four factories, a concentration camp, and a prison, where they meet an anarchist political prisoner. Receive plea to aid Nestor Makhno’s movement, but are reluctanl to discontinue their work with the museum.
August 30
Henry' Alsberg is arrested traveling from Kiev to Odessa with the museum expedition; authorities claim he is traveling without permission. Goldman and Berkman protest the arrest by immediately sending telegrams to Lenin and Chicherin; no response received. Alsberg is temporarily detained while the expedition travels on. September Expedition stops in Odessa; advancement of Polish troops prevents them from traveling further. In Odessa, Goldman meets with local officials and again polls members of the Jewish community about their experience with and views about antiSemitism, Meets the famous Jewish poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik. Attends a gathering of anarchists in Odessa.
Mid-August In Poltava they meet with the leader of the Revkom, a non-soviet ruling body. Meet the Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko who speaks to them about his disenchantment with the Bolsheviks. Also meet with local Zionists who, although critical of antiSemitism of the Bolsheviks, report no evidence of Bolshevik pogroms against the Jews. In Faslov they collect historical materials on pogroms, including the Sept. 1919 pogroms led by General Denikin of the White Army. During this period the Polish army gains strength, beginning a counteroffensive against the Bolsheviks.
Late September On the way to Kiev, Berkman is robbed of a large amount of his and Goldman’s savings. Expedition spends a few days in panic-stricken Kiev as residents brace for a potential attack by Polish forces. October Reports in the United States and Europe continue to attribute to Goldman a negative view of the Bolshe viks; though she privately acknowledges Bolshevik wrongdoings, she denies all published accounts and refuses to grant any interviews. Makhno’s defeat of Baron Peter Wrangel, the last of the White Army generals, wins him temporary good favor from the Bolsheviks. Russia’s armistice with Poland concedes substan tial territory to Poland. Kropotkin and Gorki protest Soviet plan to halt all private publishing establishments. Maria Spiridonova arrested.
Late August
Visit Kiev, where the majority of the population is Jewish. Find valuable material on the Denikin pogroms; interview local Jews whose views on Bolshevik anti-Semitism differ. Goldman tours local health facilities, including the Jewish hospital and the hospital for disabled children; also visits the local anarchist center. With other members of the museum expedition, Goldman attends lavish functions held in honor of a visiting Italian and French delegation; meets two French anarcho-syndicalists one of whom is preparing a manuscript exposing Bolshevik wrongdoings. Later they are reported to have drowned off the coast of Finland; manuscript never published. Goldman and Berkman visited by two women representing Makhno, who requests again that they aid him by circulating his call to the international community, They determine it is too risky to meet wiLh him in person as he has proposed.
October 17 Death of John Reed. When Goldman arrives in Moscow a few days later, she consoles Reed’s wife, Louise Bryant. Goldman postpones her return trip to Peirograd to attend Reed’s funeral in Moscow on Oct. 23. Late October Goldman returns to Petrograd with museum expedi tion to deposit the historical material they collected.
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November Following the Red Army’s killing of Makhno’s commanders in the Crimea, Trotsky orders an attack on Makhno’s headquarters; Makhno manages to escape, eventually reaching Paris where he lives in exile. Trotsky orders the arrest and imprisonment of Russian anarchist Volin.
Ludwig C. A. K. Martens, the Soviet government’s representative in the United Slates, is deported; Goldman expresses no interest in seeing him in Russia. Goldman returns to Petrograd. When alerted to Kropotkin’s deteriorating condition, she promptly returns to Moscow,
November 7 Goldman attends the third anniversary of the October Revolution in Petrograd, in her estimation “more like the funeral than the birth of the Revolution.”
February 8 Goldman arrives in Dmitrov shortly after Kropotkin’s death. On Feb. 13, Goldman, among others, delivers a public remembrance at Kropotkin’s funeral in Moscow. Soviet leaders release only a handful of anarchist political prisoners following an appeal to allow all incarcerated anarchists to attend the cer emony. Later, Goldman and Berkman decide to discon tinue their work with the Petrograd Museum of the Revolution in order to accept an invitation to partici pate in the organizing committee of a museum honoring Kropotkin, independent of Soviet financing and oversight.
November 28 Goldman travels north with Berkman and another member of the museum expedition to Archangel. The San Francisco Examiner publishes an unauthorized account of Goldman’s experience in Russia, quoting from a series of letters it claims were written by Goldman to John Reed; the letters were in actuality written by Goldman to her niece Stella Ballantine. December In Archangel the expedition collects leftist and anarchist underground publications produced during the rule of the Czar. Also obtains letters written by Nicholas Chaikovsky from the period of his provi sional government leadership. Goldman favorably impressed with tire efficiency and integrity of Bolshevik operations in Archangel.
Mid-February Goldman receives permission to visit anarchist prisoners at Butyrki prison; among others, sees Fanya and Aaron Baron and Volin. Goldman and Berkman return to Petrograd. Goldman prepares articles about Kropotkin’s death for the Nation and the Manchester Guardian; rejects offer to write about Soviet Russia for the New York World.
Late December Museum expedition returns to Petrograd.
March 1-17 Krondstadl uprising in support of striking Petrograd factory workers; sailors demand democratic election of Soviet representatives. Goldman attends March 4 meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, which votes to accept Zinoviev’s proposal to force the surrender of Krondstadt sailors upon penalty of death.
1921 January 20 Goldman and Berkman leave Petrograd for Moscow to prepare for second journey with the museum expedition; they stay with Angelica Balabanoff, head of the Russo-Italian bureau. Goldman offers to nurse Peter Kropotkin when she learns he is very ill.
March 5 Goldman, Berkman, and several others send a letter of protest to Zinoviev, proposing a commission to settle the dispute with the Krondstadt sailors peace fully; no response received.
February During an especially harsh winter, workers from several Petrograd factories strike to protest unbear able shortages of food, fuel, and clothing; Soviet authorities suppress street demonstrations.
March 7 Trotsky orders the artillery bombardment of Krondstadl.
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Goldman and Berkman meeL regularly with the European and Scandinavian anarcho-syndicalists, delegates to the international congresses. l'he Cheka raids Goldman’s Moscow apartment. Goldman and Berkman renew their friendship with Vera Figner, a leader of the Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”) movement.
Feeling that their last tie to the Bolsheviks has been broken, Goldman and Berkman decide to leave Russia and alert the world to what they have wit nessed. April Goldman and Berkman return to Moscow determined to cut off all relations with the Bolshevik government. Plan to request permission to leave the country; prepared to exit secretly if necessary. Agree to appeal to anarchists in the United States for funds to support the Kropotkin Museum. Goldman accompanies Louise Bryant to meet Stanislavsky, ‘the father of the modem Russian theater.”
July Goldman and Berkman persuade some of the foreign delegates, including Tom Mann, to protest the imprisonment of Volin, G. P. Maksimov, and other anarchists who have begun a hunger strike. A delegation meets with Lenin on July 9; Lenin is only willing to deport the anarchists, upon penalty of death if they return to Russia. Offer is accepted and hunger strike is terminated on July 13. Goldman notes that the American Communists remain silent on the issue and distance themselves from association with the anarchists. Goldman attempts also to convince delegates to pressure the Soviet authorities to allow Maria Spiridonova to obtain medical treatment overseas. Meets with German socialist Clara Zetkin. Spiridonova is eventually released from prison.
April 17 Mew York Times publishes excerpts from a letter from Goldman to her niece Stella Ballantine disclaiming Dec. 1920 reports by American businessman Wash ington B. Vanderlip that Goldman had requested he use his influence to gain her return to the United States. Late April Goldman and Berkman alerted about the April 25 Soviet night raid of the Butyrki prison intended to break prisoner solidarity; Fanya Baron is among those relocated. Soviets attempt to repress all political protests of the raid. Goldman helps collect food provisions for the starving anarchist prisoners. In light of Soviet constraints on independent political expression, Goldman and Berkman postpone efforts to organize support for the Kropotkin Mu seum.
August Lenin’s New Economic Policy begins, a pragmatic retreat from communist economic principles in favor of market mechanisms to stave off discontent. September Goldman visits briefly with the “millionaire Ameri can hobo” James Eads Mow, who, she believes, does not have the ability to make a worthwhile assessment of the situation in Russia. Goldman disappointed bymost published accounts of events in Russia, includ ing reports by Louise Bryant.
May Goldman and Berkman begin to receive visits from many foreign delegates in Russia for the International Congress of the Third International; visitors include Americans Bill Haywood, Agnes Smcdlcy, Boh Robins, Mary Heaton Vorse, Ella Reeve Bloor, William Z. Foster, and Robert Minor. Goldman disparaging of Haywood’s flight from the United States; compares his action to a “captain leaving the ship,” abandoning feliow IW W members who remain imprisoned.
September 29 Fanya Baron and nine other anarchist prisoners, including the poet Lev Tcherny, are shot to death by the Cheka. November Isadora Duncan, sympathetic to the Soviets, attempts to meet with Goldman.
.June Berkman sustains a foot injury, delaying their departure from Russia.
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December 1 Under the pretext of representing the Kropotkin Museum at an anarchist conference in Berlin, Goldman, Berk man, and Alexander Schápiro are authorized to leave Russia.
1923
April Finally obtaining temporary German visas, Goldman and Berkman travel to Berlin. May-,June Arthur Svensson joins Goldman and Berkman in Berlin. Later, her niece Stella Ballantine visits with six-year-old son Ian. Develops friendship with anarchist theorist Rudolf Rocker and his wife, Milly, with whom she had begun to correspond while in Russia. Goldman begins work on book-length manuscript with the intended title My Two Years in Russia.
Early December Goldman and Berkman settle in Riga, Latvia. Write to Harry Weinberger about chances of getting back into the United States. Allowed only a temporary visa in Latvia, they seek entry to either Germany or Sweden. Goldman distressed that she and Berkman depart Russia just days before tine arrival of Mollie Stcimer, Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lipman, and Hyman Lachowsky, deported from the United States on
July-December Goldman completes her manuscript and sells the rights to her book to Clinton P. Brainard; receives $1750 in advance against royalties and 50 percent for serial rights. Ends relationship with Arthur Svensson.
Nov. 24.
December 14 Goldman and Berkman granted Swedish visas. December 22 On the train to Reval, Estonia, Goldman and Berkman are arrested by the Latvian secret sendee; accused of being Bolshevik agents. Detained for several days, preventing them from attending the anarchist congress in Berlin.
November 21 Ricardo Flores Magön dies in Leavenworth Peniten tiary.
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1922
Jamiary-Fcbruary Visits Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the institute for Sex Psychology in Berlin.
January' Goldman, Berkman, and Alexander Schapiro arrive in Stockholm, Sweden, and are met by birth-control advocates Albert and Elise Jensen; Goldman becomes lover with thirty-year-old Swedish anarchist Arthur Svensson shortly after arrival. Volin, Maksimov, and other hunger strikers are deported from Russia; resettle in Berlin.
March-May Goldman travels to cities throughout Germany, including Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Bremerhaven. Anti-German sentiment in the United States makes it difficult for Goldman to earn a living writing topical articles for the American press. June-August Travels to Bad Leibenstein in Thüringen for niece Stella Ballantine’s eye treatment with Dr. Graf M. Wiser; Goldman writes an article about the doctor's unorthodox therapy, which is later published in a Calcutta magazine. Goldman notified that her manuscript on Russia has been sold to Doubleday, Page and Company. Receives visits from many American friends, including M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, Ellen Kerman, Michael Cohn, Henry Alsberg, and Agnes Smedlcy.
March Goldman and Svensson fail in their attempt to surreptitiously enter Denmark. March 26-April 4 The New York World publishes a series of controver sial articles by Goldman exposing the harsh political and economic conditions in Russia.
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April 24 Goldman howled down during a meeting of rive thousand workers in Berlin when she criticizes the Soviet government. Goldman warned about the consequences of expressing further criticism of the Soviet Republic.
July 9
Mollie Stcimer and Senya Fleshin are arrested in Russia for propagating anarchism; released soon after they begin a hunger strike. July 24 Goldman’s mother, Taube, dies in Rochester. N.Y.
June Following her expulsion from Moscow, Angelica Balabanoff initiates correspondence with Goldman.
Mid-August
Goldman and her niece Stella are arrested by the Bavarian police following their arrival in Munich. Police allege that Goldman conducted a secret mission in 1893 (during the period when she was imprisoned at Blackwell’s Island). Both are ordered to leave Bavaria. Stella later returns to the United Slates.
July 26-27 Leaving Berkman in Berlin, Goldman travels to the Netherlands; speaks at the eelebration organized by Dutch anti-militarist Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis for the twentieth anniversary of the International Anti-Militarist Association.
September-October Following Lheir deportation from Russia, Mollie Steinter and Senya Fleshin join Goldman and Berkman in Berlin.
August Enters France from Germany under the name E. G. Kersner; visits a number of friends in Paris, including Harry Weinberger and Frank and Nellie Harris. Meets Arthur Leonard Ross who she later hires as her attorney. Meets Ernest Hemingway at a party given by English novelist Ford Madox Ford.
November Goldman’s manuscript published under the title My Disillusionment in Russia-, the last twelve chapters have been cut without her permission. Weinberger negotiates the dispute on Goldman’s behalf; wins agreement from publisher to print the remaining chapters in a separate volume with the stipulation that Goldman pay for the printing costs, for which she secures a loan from Michael Cohn.
September Leaves Paris for London where she hopes to find it easier to earn a living. Resides at the home of Doris Zhook. Goldman’s closest associates in London include John Turner, Thomas H. Kecll, and William C. Owen.
1924 October Meets with British author Rebecca West.
January 15-16 Goldman travels to Hamburg.
February Goldman travels to Dresden before returning to Berlin.
November The twelve chapters omitted from Goldman’s book on Russia are published separately with a new preface as My Further Disillusionment in Russia. Among Goldman’s speaking engagements is a talk before the American Students Club at Oxford University.
April Goldman is unable to solicit writing contracts with European and American magazines; finds that mainstream magazines are interested only in her experience in Russia, thus thwarting her attempts to earn a living.
November 12 In London, a reception for Goldman is sponsored by Bertrand Russell, Rebecca West, and socialist and sexual theorist Edward Carpenter; presided over by Col. Josiah Wedgewood, M.P. Her views on Russia are met with vocal protests.
January 21 Lenin dies.
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April Boni and Liveright publishes Berkman’s The Bolshevik Myth in New York. In an attempt to refute the report of the British trade union delegation, Goldman and her comrades— as the British Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoners in Russia—publish a pamphlet, Russia and the British Labour Delegation's Report: A Reply. Goldman continues speaking on conditions in the Soviet Union with a lecture at South Place Institute on April 16, “An Exposure of the Trade Union Delegation’s Report on Russia”; she delivers a second lecture in London on April 27.
December Writes an article on Russia for the New York HeraldNew York Tribune Sunday edition.
1925 January In London, Goldman continues her efforts to expose the Bolsheviks as betrayers of the revolution and violators of civil liberties, a task made more difficult and more urgent by the return of a British trade union delegation that reports favorably on conditions in the Soviet Union.
April 19-29
Goldman fills speaking engagements in Norwich, Leeds, and Manchester with lectures on Soviet Russia.
January 29 Goldman lectures on “The Bolshevik Myth and the Condition of the Political Prisoners” at South Place Institute, London, her first public meeting in England at which she denounces the Bolsheviks, prompting vocal protests from some members of the audience.
May in Bristol, Goldman lectures on “Labour under the Dictatorship in Russia” at the YM.CA on May 1. and on “Heroic Women of the Russian Revolution” at the Folk House on May 4. At the end of the month she meets in the same week with Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis, two writers she admires for their pioneering work on sexuality. Time and Tide (London) publishes her article, “Women of the Russian Revolution.”
February Goldman and her political associates organize the British Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoners in Russia, The committee solicits support from celebrities and organizes a conference of trade union branch secretaries to discuss conditions in the Soviet Union. Many political figures and intellectuals are alienated by Goldman’s stand, though novelist Rebecca West and publisher C. W. Daniel remain her stalwart supporters. Goldman lectures on the Soviet Union at a meeting in the East End of London on Feb. 26.
June Discouraged by the public response to her lectures on Russia and with little enthusiasm left among the active members of the committee, Goldman focuses on her own precarious financial situation. During the summer she writes lectures on drama, hoping to reach British drama societies, and, at the same time, tries to interest London producers in American plays.
March Goldman’s lectures on conditions in the Soviet Union include two in London—in Islington on March 6 and the East End on March 17—and one at Northampton Town Hall. At the end of the month she gives three lectures on “Heroic Women of the Russian Revolution,” and “The Bolshevik Myth” in the Amman Valley, a series organized by the South Wales Freedom Group.
June 27
On her birthday, Goldman marries James Colton, an elderly anarchist friend and trade unionist from Wales, in order to obtain British citizenship and the right to travel and speak more widely.
March 4 Goldman convenes an informal meeting in London of branch secretaries of trade unions to discuss condi tions in Russia.
July Time and Tide publishes Goldman’s article, “The Tragedy of the Russian Intelligentsia.”
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November 12-December 17 Goldman repeats her lecture series on Russian drama at Keats House, Hampstead, London; despite excel lent publicity, her lectures draw’ only a small audience and receipts barely cover her expenses. Publisher C. W. Daniel, however, considers issuing a book of her lectures on Russian dramatists and supplies a stenog rapher to record them. In East London, Goldman repeats the lecture series on Russian drama in Yiddish.
Goldman spends two weeks vacationing in Bristol, where friends propose that she deliver a series of lectures on Russian drama in the fall and offer to raise die initial expenses. August Goldman spends most of die month in the British Museum reading Russian dramatists in preparation for her upcoming lectures. M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, Goldman’s close associate from New York, visits at the end of the month and through her Goldman meets African-American singer and actor Paul Robeson, who is starring in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones in London. Prompted by a publisher’s fleeting interest in a book of reminiscences, Goldman begins asking her correspondents to send her the letters she had written them over the years.
November 21-22 Goldman speaks twice—-once on birth control—under the auspices of the Trades and Labour Council in Neath, South Wales. December 20 After the lecture series ends, Goldman leaves for France where she spends the holidays in Nice at the home of Frank and Nellie Harris.
September The one-volume English edition of My Disillusion ment in Russia, with an introduction by Rebecca West, is published by C. W. Daniel of London; Goldman has borrowed $250 from Michael Cohn to underwrite its publication, Through the British Drama League Goldman solicits lecture dates from 250 affiliated local playgo ers societies. Continues her reading of Russian dramatists in the British Museum.
1926 January Goldman remains in Nice for most of the month, finishing a prospectus for “Foremost Russian Drama tists,” a book based on her lectures, for which she hopes to receive an advance from Doubleday, Page and Company. Berkman is also in Nice, helping Isadora Duncan edit her autobiography. Goldman leaves for Paris Jan. 25.
October In the middle of the month Goldman travels to Bristol fora lecture series; she also delivers individual lectures, including one at exiled American pastor Gustav Beck’s church on “Trends in Modem Educa tion.”
February Goldman works at the Bibliothèque Nationale researching lectures on Ibsen; at the same time she writes a character sketch of Johann Most for the June issue of American Mercury. She returns to England Feb. 27. Berkman receives temporary permission to stay in France.
October 19-November 5 Goldman teaches a six-lecture course on Russian drama at Oakfield Road Church, Bristol, October 30-31 Attends British Drama League conference in Bir mingham.
March After returning to England, Goldman delivers a number of lectures in Bristol on drama, especially Ibsen’s plays; she also travels to Liverpool in midMarch to lecture on drama.
November 1-9 Goldman lectures on drama in Birmingham, Bath, and Birkenhead, and in Manchester delivers her first lecture on Eugene O’Neill.
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October 31 Goldman gives her first lecture in Montreal before an audience of seven hundred at Ills Majesty’s Theatre on “The Present Crisis in Russia.”
March 25-April 29 Goldman returns to London for a series of six lectures on dramatists, including O’Neill, Ibsen, Susan Glaspell, and the German expressionists; she also delivers the same lectures in Yiddish as well as lecturing on Yiddish drama, and on political topics, such as “The Menace of Dictatorship: Bolshevist or Fascist,” with British feminist Sylvia Pankhurst and William C. Owen at Essex Hall on April 14.
November Most of the remaining lectures in Montreal are in Yiddish; Goldman focuses on raising funds for political prisoners in Russia, an impassioned appeal at one banquet yields $300. Travels to Toronto on Nov. 26, where she finds the anarchists more numerous and better organized than in Montreal.
April Goldman continues her work for political prisoners in Russia, focusing her efforts on imprisoned women; enlists the support of influential women politicians like Lady Astor. Ben Reitman and his family visit Goldman in London. Goldman lectures in Norwich on April 8.
November 29 Goldman lectures on Ibsen to an audience of five hundred at Hygeia Hall; the interest shown persuades her to initiate a series on drama.
May
December Goldman’s lectures on Russian drama cover Griboyedov, Gogol, and Ostrovsky, though the attendance is disappointing. More successful arc her three lectures to the Arbeiter Ring: six hundred attend her Dec. 12 lecture in Yiddish on Gorki. In addition, she lectures twice at Hygeia Hall, on modern education on Dec. 3 and on the dictatorships of Bolshevik Russia and Fascist Italy on Dec. 5. Among her visitors are her brother Morris, her sister Lena, and Lena’s children, Saxe Commins and Stella Ballantine.
The British genera] strike is called off by the Trades
Union Congress after nine days, though the coal miners remain out through the summer. May-Scptember Goldman returns to France and with Berkman rents a cottage in St. Tropez, where she finishes her manu script on “Foremost Russian Dramatists” and writes a sketch of Voltairine de Cleyre. Friends and political associates in the United States raise money for Goldman to visit Canada to lecture. During the summer American visitors, including authors Howard Young and Theodore Dreiser and philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim, encourage Goldman to write her autobiography.
1927 January Goldman concludes her lecture series in Toronto on Russian dramatists with talks on Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreyev; she also goes to London, Ontario, to lecture on Communist and Fascist dictatorships on Jan. 7. After Leon Maimed visits briefly, at the end of the month she travels to Winnipeg to lecture.
October Goldman sails for Canada, where she arrives Oct. 15, to lecture; proximity rekindles her hope for readmis sion to the United States. Shortly after Goldman’s arrival, Leon Maimed, her longtime friend from Albany, N.Y., visits and they become lovers. October 20 Eugene Debs dies.
January 27-30 Goldman’s first two lectures in Winnipeg draw large audiences: a Yiddish lecture attracts four hundred, and a thousand attend an English lecture on “The Labor Situation in Europe.”
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A fund is established to support Goldman while she writes her autobiography; Peggy Guggenheim and Howard Young are among the first contributors, and W. S. Van Valkenburgh coordinates an appeal to raise funds.
February Goldman discovers that Communist influence is stronger and opposition to her is more organized in Winnipeg than in other cities. Nonetheless, she speaks nearly twenty times to large and varied audiences during her month in the city, including Yiddish groups, a group of college women, even the local Kiwanis Club (on “ideals in Life”); among her topics are drama, anarchism, birth control, and women and the Russian revolution.
Junc-Scptcmbcr Goldman spends much of the summer researching and writing new lectures for her fall series. She is greatlydistracted, however, by the impending execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. She addresses a meeting on the case in Toronto on Aug. 18, a few days before their execution on Aug. 23. Goldman speaks at a memorial meeting on Sept. 1.
March 3-11 in Edmonton, where Goldman expects to give just two lectures, she addresses fifteen meetings in a week, speaking on trends in modem education, Ibsen, birth control, women’s emancipation (to the Women’s Press Club); she speaks to factory girls during their lunch hour and to large Jewish audiences under the auspices of the Jewish Council of Women, the Arbeiter Ring, Hadassah, and Poale Zion, as well as to professors at the University of Alberta and a
October 11-December 8 Goldman’s ambitious lecture series at Hygeia Hall, Toronto, consists of eighteen lectures and covers drama as well as social and literary' topics, including the plays of Shaw, Galsworthy, and Ibsen, Walt Whitman, “Crime and Punishment,” “The Menace of Military Preparedness," “Evolution versus Religious Bigotry,” “The Child and Its Enemies,” “Sex—A Dominant Element in Life and Art,” and “1las Feminism Achieved its Aim?” The audiences for her lectures are disappointing, and Goldman determines to return to Europe in die new' year and begin writing her autobiography.
Sunday audience of fifteen hundred. March 18 Goldman returns to Toronto. March 24-April 26 Goldman’s English-language lecture series in Toronto covers social topics as well as drama, including plays of Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, and Russian drama. She also researches a new lecture on “The Awakening in China,” which draws eight hundred people. After protests from the Catholic community, Goldman delivers the final lecture of the series, on birth control, to a packed hall. She also lectures in Yiddish on the history of anarchism and on art and revolution.
1928 January Family members visit Canada from the United Slates to see Goldman before she departs for France; a farewell banquet is held in her honor on Jan. 29. As she anticipates writing the autobiography, Goldman asks a wider circle of friends to loan her her past correspondence to refresh her memory.
May Goldman gives a May Day lecture in Toronto on “The Spirit of Destruction and Construction.” Her drama lecture course covers Russian theater, Strindberg, and the German expressionists. Also lectures on China in London, Ontario. Leon Malmed’s wife discovers his correspon dence with Goldman, revealing their relationship, and the intensity of Goldman’s tie to him wanes.
February On Feb. 7, in her final appearance in Toronto, Goldman lectures on two books by Judge Ben Lindsey, The Revolt o f Youth and Companionate Marriage. On Feb. 9, Goldman travels to Montreal, where she gives two lectures in Yiddish—on birth control and on art and revolution—and one on Walt Whitman delivered in a private home. She leaves Montreal on Feb, 18 for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she embarks for France on Feb. 20.
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Goldman takes time out of her busy writing schedule to celebrate her sixtieth birthday on June 27 with Berkman and visiting American friends Ben and Ida Capes. American publishers express interest in Goldman’s autobiography; eight of them make offers.
March-May In Paris, Goldman is reunited with old friends and comrades, including Berk man, Mollie Steimer, and Scnya Fleshin. She arranges to rent the same collage in St. Tropez that she had in the summer of 1926, and makes a brief excursion to London in May to pick up material site had left two years earlier. Goldman tries to organize a small gathering of anarchist writers and theoreticians in Paris in May to discuss the future of anarchism and especially its propaganda, circulating an agenda and soliciting comments. Though the meeting does not occur as planned, Goldman is gratified that the effort generates ideas and discussion.
July-Septcmbcr 1.awyer Arthur Leonard Ross and Saxe Commins act as Goldman’s representatives in New York, negotiat ing the terms of the book contract with publisher Alfred A. Knopf. As Goldman writes, she continues to ask friends to corroborate her memory of events and furnish details of personalities; some of her former acquain tances, however, request to be omitted from her book.
June-December Goldman settles in St. Tropez to write her autobiogra phy; a young American writer Emily Holmes Coleman, “Demi,” acts as her secretary. Rudolf and Milly Rocker spend much of the
September 30 Goldman’s representatives sign a book contract with Knopf; she receives an advance of $7,000.
summer with Goldman in St. Tropez. Bv October she has written 100,000 words.
October A slow decline in stock prices accelerates dramati cally; on Oct. 29—Black Tuesday—the slock market crashes, precipitating the Great Depression. By mid-month Goldman has reached 1915 in the narrative of her life. At the end of the month Goldman moves to Paris for the winter to continue work on her autobiography; British friend Doris Zhook acts as her secretary.
December 14-30 Goldman, accompanied by Henry Alsberg and Otto Kleinberg, vacations in Spain; in Barcelona, she meets anarchist intellectuals Federico Urales and Soledad Gustavo, and their daughter Federica Montseny.
1929 1930 .1anuary-Fchru ary After two weeks in Paris, Goldman returns to St. Tropez, where she lea ms that friends, principally Peggy Guggenheim and Mark Dix, have contributed enough money to help her purchase the cottage and ensure her a place to live and write. Goldman returns to working full-time on her autobiography, interrupted only by the visit in February of her nephew Saxe Commins and his wife Dorothy.
January’ In Paris for the winter, Goldman continues writing; Berkman, who lives nearby in St. Cloud, helps edit her manuscript. Goldman mails the first installment of her autobiography to Knopf. American journalist and editor H. L. Mencken visits Goldman. March Presented with an expulsion order dating from March 1901, Goldman is taken immediately to police headquarters. She demands and receives a stay often days; lawyer Henri 'Forres ultimately succeeds in overturning the expulsion order.
March-Juiy Goldman is completely absorbed in writing her book, though the departure in May of Emily Holmes Coleman, whose assistance and companionship have been invaluable, is disruptive; eventually her friend’s daughter Miriam Lerner serves as secretary’ through the summer.
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On Nov. 21,450 people attend a fund-raising banquet for Berkman in New York City to celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
Mencken petitions the U.S. Department of State to revoke Goldman’s deportation and grant her a visitor’s visa, and requests that the Department of Justice return her personal papers seized in the 1917 raid on the Mother Earth office.
December Stella Ballantine and her son David join Goldman in St. Tropez.
April-May Goldman sends the publisher what she assumes is the last installment of her autobiography—concluding with her deportation from the United States aboard the Buford—but Knopf insists on additional chapters covering her years in Russia and Europe.
1931 January Goldman finishes her autobiography, Living My Life, having written 100,000 words since she began the last two chapters in July 1930.
May 1 Berkman is arrested and expelled from France the same day; spends next three weeks in Antwerp and Brussels, applying for a new French visa. Both French attorney Toitcs and French deputy Pierre Renaudel work for Berkman’s readmission. By the end of the month Berkman’s expulsion is revoked, and he is promised a three-month renewable visa for France.
February Ben Reitman’s The Second Oldest Profession, a study of pimps, is published. Fcbruary-April Goldman, Stella Ballantine, and her son David vacation in Nice; Goldman catches up on her much delayed correspondence. Berkman, now living in Nice, contemplates opening a typing and translation bureau.
June Goldman travels to Bad Eilsen, Germany, for treatment of her eyes by Dr. Graf M. Wiser; she is visited by Danish novelist Karin Michael is. Goldman then vacations in Berlin.
April Fall of the monarchy in Spain. Many anarchists, including some of Goldman’s closest associates, are enthusiastic about the prospects for anarchism there, while Goldman remains skeptical.
July Returns to St. Tropez; pleased with the editor’s revisions of her manuscript, she begins work on the two final chapters.
May Goldman learns that, despite the dreadful economic situation, Knopf intends to publish Living My Life in two volumes at what she considers an exorbitant price.
November Knopf postpones publication of Goldman’s autobiog raphy until the fail of 1931. Eunice M, Schuster, writing a Master’s thesis on anarchism, asks Goldman for information and assistance; Goldman encourages comrades—W. S. Van Valkenburgh, Hippolyte Havel, MaxNettlau, and anarchist publisher Joseph ishill—to assist Schuster; her thesis is published in 1932 as Native American Anarchism, one of the earliest studies of American anarchism.
May 17 Goldman is included in John Haynes Holmes’s sermon in New York on “The Ten Greatest Living Women.” May 18 Together in St. Tropez, Goldman and Berkman celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his release from prison.
November 8 Berkman, denied renewal of his visa once again, is given fifteen days to leave France; by mid-month he receives another three-month extension.
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At the end of September, Berk man gels an extension of his papers to Dec. 21.
May 30 The Forward, a Yiddish socialist daily in New York, begins serialization of Goldman’s autobiography; Goldman is dissatisfied with both the translation and editor Abraham Cahan’s introductory reminiscence of her.
October Unable to bear the thought of being alone at Bon Esprit, Goldman begins considering where she will spend the winter and what she will do after the publication of her autobiography. She hopes to arrange a lecture tour. Dutch anarchist Albert de Jong assures her that lectures could be arranged in the Netherlands, the German Civil Liberties League expresses interest in Berlin lectures, and other engagements elsewhere in Germany are possible. Goldman travels to Nice to visit Berkman on Oct. 12, and to Paris with Nellie Harris on Oct. 15. Living My Life is published; a laudatory review appears on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.
June Goldman continues to catch up on her correspon dence, returning all the material—correspondence, clippings, etc.—she borrowed from friends to write her autobiography. The Bailantines leave after nearly six months with Goldman. June 11 National Congress of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) begins in Madrid. June 28
November Inscribes copies of her autobiography slated for friends as she awaits book reviews from the United States.
Berk man is presented with another expulsion order, the third in fifteen months; he rushes to Paris to try to get an extension of his papers.
December Earlier prospects for lectures in Germany, Holland, and Norway dim. Growing interest in dramatizing Living My Life prompts Goldman to grant lawyer Arthur Leonard Ross full charge of negotiations over dramatic, radio, and cinema rights to her life. John Haynes Holmes lectures on Living My Life to an overflow audience at Temple Emanu-EI in New York City on Dec. 31.
July The Buford episode from Goldman’s autobiography appears in the American Mercury. Goldman contributes an essay to an anthology being compiled by Peter Neagoe, published as Americans Abroad (1932). Modest Stein and German anarcho-syndicalists Augustin and Therese Souchy visit Goldman at Bon Esprit, the name of her St. Tropez cottage.
August-September Goldman is preoccupied throughout the summer with the urgency of Berkman’s need to secure new papers and with Mol lie Steimer and Senya Fleshin’s precari ous financial situation in Berlin, and consumed by mounting disappointment over the prospects for Living My Life. Among the visitors to St. Tropez are Harry Kelly, Anna Strunsky Walling and her three daughters, American sculptor Jo Davidson, and Peggy Guggenheim. Writer and editor Frank Harris dies in Nice on Aug. 26; Goldman hurries there to be with Nellie Harris, Frank’s widow, and to help arrange his funeral; spends the last week of September in Nice helping Nellie Harris sort out her affairs.
1932 January The Nation includes Living My Life, among its list of most notable books of 1931. The Rand School in New York City holds a symposium on Living My Life on Jan. 15. February 13 Goldman lectures at Copenhagen University on “Dictatorship, a World Menace” to an audience of one thousand after lectures scheduled there earlier in the month are canceled for fear of Communist demonstrations.
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“Social Problems in a Contemporary Light”; in Odense; and in Aarhus to a large and enthusiastic audience on the effects of prohibition in the United Slates.
February 16-20 Goldman's tour of Germany, organized by the Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (LAUD), begins with a meeting in Hamburg followed by meetings in Bremen, Braunschweig, and Magdeburg. While the meetings of the Gilde freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde book club are open to the public, the FAUD meetings are open to members only, which accounts in part for the meager attendances.
April 16-1S Goldman in Oslo, her first visit to Norway, where she has “three wonderful meetings.” One lecture is canceled by the Communist-controlled student association, which objects to her criticism of the Soviet Union.
February 22-March 10 In addition to lecturing, in Berlin Goldman is preoc cupied with schemes to earn money—a CBS radio broadcast to America, for which Bcrkman works up themes; a German translation of her autobiography; arid German translation projects for Bcrkman. Goldman speaks to a we 11-attended meeting of the League for Human Rights on “Crime and Punish ment in America,” confining herself to political and labor cases; to the Gilde freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde on “The Drama as a Social and Educational Factor”; to the Anarcho-Syndikalislischer Frauenbund on “The Child and Its Enemy”; and to a FAUD meeting on “Is the Spirit of Destruction a Constructive Spirit?” She also speaks in Oberschöne weide and Potsdam.
April 20 In Stockholm, Sweden, Goldman lectures on the Moonev-Billings case. April 22 Arrives back in Berlin, where she learns that CBS has canceled her planned radio broadcast, fearing that it will be interpreted as an effort on her part to reenter the United States. April 25-May 15 On the last leg of her German tour—through Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and Hessen—all meetings are sponsored by the FAUD. She lectures in Schwein flirt, Fürth, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Göppingen, Ulm, Offenbach, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Ludwigshafen. Among her lecture topics are “Birth Control,” “The American Labor Movement,” “Art and Revolution,” and “Women’s Role in the Russian Revolution.”
March 11-12 The second leg of Goldman’s tour begins with two successful meetings in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland)—a lecture to FAUD members on the American labor movement and a public meeting of the Gilde freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde. March 14-23 The tour continues with two meetings in Dresden and Leipzig, and further engagements in Naumburg, Zella-Mehlis, Erfurt, and Sömmerda.
May 17-Deeember Goldman returns to St. Tropez on May 17, exhausted from her lecture tour, which earned her little income; spends much of the rest of the summer trying unsuc cessfully to interest American publishers in transla tions of three Malik Verlag books, and German and Swedish publishers in translating her autobiography. She is assisted financially by her brothers Morris and Herman, the latter contacting her for the first time in years. Among Goldman’s visitors in St. Tropez are Modest Stein, who contributes to Goldman and Berkman’s economic survival; Henry Alsberg; Harry T. Moore, biographer of D. II. Lawrence; and artists Edmund and Alice Kinzinger. Goldman starts making plans for the coming winter; she considers a visit to Spain to collect material for articles and possibly for a book, and
March 24-April 10 Back in Berlin, Goldman continues to solicit the interest of American publishing houses in translations of German and Russian works for Berkman. Lectures to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) on “Woman’s Achievement in the United States”; and to the women of the FAUD. April 11-13 In Denmark, Goldman lectures in German at the student union in Copenhagen under the auspices of the Society for the Defense of Personal Liberty on
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writes Federica Montseny in Barcelona, asking her advice; Montseny encourages her to come. She also considers another lecture tour, for which initially German and Dutch comrades express enthusiasm. In November she determines to lecture in Holland in the new year, but the German comrades discourage a tour due to lack of funds—only the Berlin and Dresden branches of'WILPF offer definite bookings.
1933
February-Mareh Goldman tries to interest London publishers in Berkman’s proposed translations of German and Russian books. February 4-16 Goldman’s vacation in Bristol at the home of English friends Thomas and Nell Lavers includes informal meetings with local anarchists.
July 22 Errico Malatesta dies.
February 16-22 Delivers four well-received lectures in South Wales, including “Crime and Punishment” and “The Spirit of Destruction and Construction.”
October 20 Living My Life published by Duckworth in London; Goldman is appalled at the high price of two guineas. Because of low sales, within a month the price is reduced in hopes that good reviews will spur library sales.
February 24 Lectures in London on “Constructive Revolution.” March After fire destroys the Reichstag building in Berlin on Feb. 27, the Nazis move to consolidate their power: Communist deputies are arrested, opposition meetings broken up, speakers assaulted, and newspapers suppressed. Goldman’s attempts to organize a mass meeting in London to protest the Nazi takeover ultimately fail because she insists on denouncing dictatorship in the Soviet Union as well, a position that alienates many on the British Lett. At the end of the month Rudolf and Milly Rocker arrive in London, exiles from Hitler’s Germany.
November 8
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president of the United States. December 17 Goldman leaves St. Tropez, arriving the following day in Paris, which she finds the perfect antidote to the loneliness and drudgery o f her last seven months.
1933 January 10-13 Goldman travels from Paris to the Netherlands via Reims, Brussels, and Antwerp.
March 1 “An Anarchist Looks at Life” is Goldman’s subject at Foyle’s literary luncheon attended by six hundred; Paul Robeson sings and proposes a vote of thanks, seconded by Rebecca West.
January 13-23 Goldman's lecture tour of the Netherlands takes her to The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Hengelo; she speaks on “Dictatorship, the Modern Religious Hysteria.”
March 4-5 Goldman acts as a delegate to the International AntiWar Congress, London; finds the congress dominated by Communists.
January 24 In London, Goldman begins her stay with a dizzying week of welcome meetings and dinners with political associates and old friends, including Paul Robeson and Emily Holmes Coleman; prepares her British lecture series.
April 3-10 Gives three lectures in Bristol, including “Modem Trends in Education” and “Dictatorship—A Modern Religious Hysteria.”
January 30 Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
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May-June Before returning to St. Tropez for the summer, Goldman is reunited fn Pans with Mo (lie S’teitner, Senya Fleshin, and Alexander Schapiro, who have escaped from Berlin. Visitors at Bon Esprit include American liberal Mabel Carver Crouch and Rudolf and Milly Rocker. Goldman begins considering a tour of Canada in early 1934, after Rocker has completed his projected tour of Canada and the United States.
Goldman is offered, but declines, a large sum to appear in vaudeville theaters in the United States,
1934 January U.S. Department of Labor approves a three-month visa, effective Feb. 1, for Goldman to lecture on nonpolitical subjects, which may include Living My Life under the category of literature. Once word of her tour leaks out, many lecture agencies in the Llnited States offer their services. Goldman’s brother Morris suffers a mild heart attack.
July-August Goldman solicits fall lecture dates in both Canada and England. October Mabel Carver Crouch works furiously for Goldman’s readmission to the United States, organizing a committee and soliciting the help of lawyers and others with contacts in the new administration in Washington, D.C. Toronto anarchists pledge funds to pay for Goldman’s passage to Canada.
January 15-31 Goldman gives a well-attended series of lectures at Hygeia Hall in Toronto; her topics include “Germany’s Tragedy and the Forces That Brought It About,” “Hitler and Ilis Cohorts,” “The Collapse of German Culture,” and “Dictatorship Right and Left— a Religious Hysteria.” A talk to a Jewish meeting also raises money for anarchists forced to flee repression in Nazi Germany.
November 1-16 In Paris, at a Yiddish meeting she addresses on Nov. 11, she learns from German refugees about the growing horrors in Nazi Germany.
February Goldman stops to visit relatives in Rochester, N.Y.. before arriving Feb. 2 in New York City, where she is mobbed by reporters and photographers at Pennsylva nia Station and the Hotel Astor. Overwhelmed by the demands on her time, she is nevertheless pleased and surprised by the warmth of the reception. The major exception is the hostility of the Communists toward her.
November 17-24 Lecture tour of the Netherlands meets with mixed success: Goldman lectures in Hilversum and Amsterdam on Living My Life, but her lecture in Rotterdam on dictatorship is prohibited. Under surveillance throughout the trip, she is arrested at Appeldorn on Nov. 23 and expelled from the country the following day.
February 6 “Welcome home” dinner meeting at Town Hall, New York City, is oversubscribed: a thousand people apply for the 350 tickets.
December Roger Baldwin works with the U.S, immigration authorities, attempting to secure a visa for Goldman, while the committee organized by Mabel Carver Crouch issues a formal invitation to Goldman to visit the United States. Commissioner oflmmigration Daniel W. MacCormack advises Baldwin that it is Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins who has the legal right to admit Goldman. Goldman leaves Prance for Canada; she arrives in Toronto on Dec. 15, where she applies for a visa at the U.S. consulate for a proposed three-month lecture tour.
February 10 Goldman speaks at a Yiddish meeting at the Cooper Union organized by the Jewish Anarchist Federation, the Arbeiter Ring, and several unions. February 11 Goldman speaks on Kropotkin’s life and work at John Haynes Holmes’s Community Church services at Town Hall; the lecture draws a huge audience, and more than a thousand people are turned away.
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March 15-20 On a whirlwind visit to her former home town, Rochester, N.Y., on March 17, Goldman addresses members of the City Club, one of her most successful meetings since the opening week of the tour. The first part of Goldman’s tour of the Midwest meets with mixed success: disappointing turnouts in Toledo on March !9 and Cleveland on March 20, though eight hundred attend her March 18 lecture in Detroit.
February 13-28 Goldman’s lectures on Living My Life under the auspices of the Pond lecture bureau draw disappoint ingly small crowds; she chafes under the Labor Department’s restrictions on the subjects she may address, especially as questions from the audience are almost invariably about the current world situation, which she is forbidden to discuss; grows critical of Pond’s management of her tour. She speaks three times in New York, and in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. At the end of the month Goldman’s attorney appeals to the secretary of labor to lift the restriction on her public utterances and allow' her to address contemporary affairs.
March 21-April 2 Goldman’s five lectures in Chicago, organized by her political associates, arc the most successful of her tour: sixteen hundred attend the lecture under the auspices of the Free Society Forum on March 22, twelve hundred at the University of Chicago on March 23, and a thousand at Northwestern University on March 26. Fifteen hundred attend a banquet in her honor at the Medinah Hotel on March 28. The warmth of the reception boosts her morale and convinces her that her ideas still have an audience. In Chicago she meets new' comrades who become valued friends, especially Jeanne and Jay Levey, and Frank Ileiner, a blind sociology graduate student at the University of Chicago, who impresses Goldman as a promising anarchist leader. Goldman also lectures twice in Wisconsin, on March 24 in Milwaukee, an afternoon meeting that draws only a small audience, and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on March 27.
March Generally dismal response to Goldman’s lectures outside New York continues in Newark, N.J., where she lectures to the Essex County Socialist party on “The Menace of Reaction” on M arch 1 and in Baltimore on “The Collapse of German Culture” on March 4 where she also attends the “War and the Student” conference at Johns Hopkins University. Only the meetings organized by Goldman’s anarchist associates are successful-- a luncheon and lecture organized by the Jewish anarchists in Philadelphia on March 2 and a lecture on “The Drama of Europe” at Webster Hall, New York City, on March 5 that draws an audience of twelve hundred. The money Goldman raises at the latter function she pledges to the Van guard and Freedom groups to publish a pamphlet on the CN F in Spain. Goldman grows increasingly frustrated wdth the efforts of the Pond Bureau, complaining that the theaters booked for her lectures are too large, that ticket prices are too high, and that advertising is jnisdireeled. By contrast, publicist Ann Lord’s advance work for Goldman’s lectures, directed especially to Goldman’s anarchist associates and the Yiddish Left, improves the overall audience turnout. Goldman pins her hopes for a successful tour on obtaining an extension of her visa, which Roger Baldwin pursues in Washington, D.C.
April 3-9 Goldman visits St. Louis, where the receipts for her April 5 lecture on “The Collapse of German Culture” fail to cover the rental expenses for the large hall. Her brother Morris and his wife Babsic visit Goldman in St. Louis. April 10-20 Goldman’s lectures on the last leg of her tour con tinue to meet with mixed success despite the advance work of Ann Lord. In Pittsburgh on April 11 she draw's eight hundred people; in Rochester, seven hundred, where she lectures under the auspices of the Rochester branch of the National Council of Jewish Women on April 15; the turnouts in Buffalo on April 16 and Albany on April 18, by contrast, are disappointing, though the Yiddish meetings in those cities are comparatively successful.
March 10 Goldman’s lecture in New' Haven on Living My Life and “Today’s International Problems” attracts only a small audience.
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April 21-30 Goldman’s last days in New York are occupied by visits with friends, families, and political associates. On April 25 she speaks at Dana College in Newark, N.J. Farewell gatherings include one at Webster Hall on April 26 and a luncheon sponsored by the Freie Arbeiter Stimme on April 29, Goldman leaves New York for Canada on April 30. Though her lecture tour brings her little financial reward, in the course of it she raises over $1,000 for the political prisoners in and refugees from Russia and Germany.
June Goldman has difficulty settling down to write especially without Berkman’s editorial assistance; Redbook rejccLs the article she submits about her impressions of the United States. Goldman finds Toronto dull and feels starved for intellectual companionship; she urges her American friends and comrades to visit over the summer. Goldman’s affection for Heiner grows as does her anticipation of his visit; she expects him to become an important force in the American anarchist movement. June 27 Goldman celebrates her sixty-fifth birthday in Toronto with a party attended by forty friends.
May Fatigued from her tour of the Unites States but with the continuing assistance of Ann Lord, Goldman spends the first three weeks of the month in Montreal organizing and delivering lectures. Despite her disappointment over the failure of her tour, Goldman feels more acutely than ever the pain of her exile from the United States, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover writes to the attorney general asserting that Goldman violated Lhe agreement on which she entered the country, thus jeopardizing her chances of return. Following on the heels of Rudolf Rocker’s U.S. and Canadian lecture tour, Goldman continues her efforts to find an American publisher for his manu script “Nationalism and Culture”; Berkman begins translating it, after he finishes drafting ideas for the articles that the American Mercury, Harper’s, the Nation, and Redbook have commissioned Goldman to write. Through correspondence with her new protégé Frank Heiner about anarchism and its prospects, their relationship grows more intimate.
June 30 Erich Muhsam, German anarchist poet, dies in a Nazi concentration camp. July The American Mercury accepts Goldman’s article, “Communism: Bolshevist and Anarchist, A Compari son,” which it publishes—to Goldman’s disgust—in a truncated form as “There is No Communism in Russia” in April 1935, violating the spirit of the original article. Harper’s rejects her article “The Individual, Society, and the State”; unwilling to revise it, she submits instead the article about her U.S. visit that Redbook rejected. She finishes writing “The Tragedy of the Political Exiles,” which the Nation accepts. Goldman hosts a gathering of young people with the aim of starting an anarchist group in Toronto and meets with them weekly throughout the summer. Among her visitors are Jeanne and Jay Levey from Chicago and her brother Herman and his son Allan. Berkman’s health and mental state decline while translating Rocker’s manuscript.
May 14-21 Goldman’s lectures in Montreal draw audiences of three to four hundred: she speaks on Hitler and Nazism, “The Collapse of German Culture,” and Living My Life, as well as lecturing in Yiddish on May 21.
July 16 San Francisco general strike, the first general strike in U.S. history, begins in support of twelve thousand striking international Longshoremen’s Association members.
May 22-31 Back in Toronto, Goldman finds an apartment; after a disappointing lecture on the New Deal on May 28 she determines to curtail her public speaking and concen trate on writing.
July 25 Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist leader, dies in exile in Paris.
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August Goldman’s sister Lena and her family visit. The weekly gatherings of young people at her apartment continue; Goldman finds it hard to disabuse them of their attachment to the state or dictatorship and is pessimistic about making any new converts. Goldman hatches a scheme Lo get Berkman a Lithuanian passport so he can at least travel to Canada. August 10-11 Anarchist conference at SLc-llon, N.J., organized to discuss the creation of an English-language anarchist weekly; Goldman contributes in writing her ideas on anarchists building alliances with other groups. August 18 Frank Heiner arrives and stays with Goldman until the beginning of September; they become lovers. August 23 Goldman presides over a poorly attended meeting at Hygeia Hal! organized by the Libertarian Groups of Toronto to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the executions of Sacco and Vanzctti; Heiner also speaks at the meeting. September Goldman misses Heiner after he returns to the United States, and hopes that Roger Baldwin will be success ful in his efforts in Washington to gain a U.S. visa for her. Works hard writing the lectures for the following month. Submits “Was My Life Worth Living?” to Harper’s; later it was accepted for publication. September 25 Lectures to a Jewish women’s organization in Toronto on “The New Approach to the Child.” October Goldman delivers a scries of eight lectures at Forester’s Hail, Toronto, on literary and political topics, including George Bernard Shaw, munitions manufacturers, Russian literature since the revolution, and German literature and the Nazi book-burnings. Attendance is very disappointing, and Goldman worries about financial survival if refused permission to reenter the United States; considers the possibility of dramatizing Living My Life for theater or film.
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She is concerned about her brother Morris who suffers repeated heart attacks. Of five other meetings during the month, only a lecture to a mostly unemployed workers’ organization on “The American Labor Movement and the General Strike” on Oct. 2 gives her much satisfaction; even a free anarchist meeting on Oct. 31 fails to draw a good crowd. Roger Baldwin discusses Goldman’s application fora new U.S, visa—and Rudolf Rocker’s application for an extension of his stay—with the authorities in Washington, who advise him that at present they would deny Goldman’s request; only Rocker’s application is approved. October 5-18 The uprising in the mining districts of Asturias, Spain, is followed by severe repression; thousands of miners are executed, thousands more tortured, and thirty to forty thousand are imprisoned. November Goldman decides to stay in Canada until the spring in the hope of reentering the United States and seeing Heiner again. Goldman is more sanguine about her work in Toronto: she sees promise in the small group of comrades—especially Dorothy Rogers and Ahrne Thomberg [as Ahrne Thome, later the editor of the Freie Arbeiler Slimme]—and is gratified by the circular against war and fascism they publish at the end of the month. After farewell parties in Toronto, Goldman travels to Montreal, where she discovers little preparatory work has been done for her lectures. Jeanne Levey informs Goldman that she is discreetly raising a fund to support her and, if necessary, pay her passage hack to Europe. November 12-December 11 Goldman’s lectures at the Windsor Hotel and the YMCA in Montreal include topics such as George Bernard Shaw, the individual in society, and a comparison of Bolshevik and anarchist communism. Again the lectures are not well attended; furthermore, a Quebec law prohibits Goldman from selling or distributing literature at her meetings unless it is first submitted to the police, a condition she refuses to accept.
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and raising some money for the first time in Montreal w-hen she speaks again to the women’s branch of the Arbeiter Ring on Feb. 17. Goldman decides to return to France in the spring after receiving further discouraging reports from friends who have met with Labor Department officials in Washington, D.C., about chances for readmission. As other possibilities close, Goldman looks increasingly to her proposed book venture as a means of support; she also pursues the idea of a sustaining fund as she inquires about receiving an advance from a publisher.
After a promising start, neither .the Yiddish meetings nor the English meetings Goldman ad dresses are well attended, so she determines to organize a series for the new year on a subscription basis instead. December Harper’s publishes Goldman’s “Was My Life Worth Living?” Roger Baldwin advises Goldman that in the current atmosphere of hostility toward alien radicals she is unlikely to be granted a U.S. visa. December 12 Goldman’s brother Herman dies.
March Two further lectures to Jewish groups—on “Crime and Punishment” on March 4 and birth control on March 15—and the last in her drama series conclude Goldman’s lectures in Montreal; she returns to Toronto on March 17. Goldman speaks at two Yiddish meetings in Toronto at the end of the month, one a lecture, the other a seventieth birthday celebration for Chaim Zhitlovsky, the exiled Russian revolutionary. By the end of the month a formal committee to raise a “Sustaining Fund for Emma Goldman” is organized in New York by her niece Stella Ballantine and Roger Baldwin, and three hundred fund-raising letters solicit $3,000 in contributions to support Goldman while she is writing a book; Jeanne Levey helps with the appeal from Chicago. Goldman grows increasingly concerned about Bcrkman’s financial condition and raises emergencyfunds for him and Emmy Eckstein.
1935 January In Canada, Goldman is absorbed writing lectures with the hope that a new lecture series and published articles will provide a meager livelihood, as well as spread anarchist ideas. She considers writing a book of portraits of famous people she has known, an idea first suggested by Frank Heiner. She suggests that the sustaining fund Jeanne Levey is helping to raise might be designated to support its writing. After a disappointing turnout for her Jan. 17 lecture on moral censorship of current films Goldman cancels further lectures; by contrast, talks to Jewish audiences— the Temple Emanu-El adult school on Jan. 7, the second meeting arranged by Rabbi Harry Stern, and the women’s branch of the Arbeiter Ring on Jan. 12—are well received and buoy her spirits.
March 19-ApriI 9 Goldman delivers a series of four lectures at Toronto’s Ilygeia Hall organized by a group of young anarchists; she speaks on “The Element of Sex. in Life,” “Youth in Revolt,” “The Tragedy of the Modern Woman,” and “Crime and Punishment.”
January 9-March 13 Goldman’s ten-w'eek lecture series on drama and literature at the Central YMCA in Montreal includes lectures on Russian and Soviet drama, German literary works destroyed by the Nazis, and American drama, especially Eugene O’Neill. Only fifty people
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In her last month in Canada Goldman speaks in Hamilton, Ontario, under the auspices of the National Council of Jewish Women on April 11, and twice in Toronto, on “Youth in Re volt” to a branch of the Arbeiter Ring on April 14, and on birth control at Hygeia Hall on April 16, after meeting with the head of a Toronto birth control clinic.
February Goldman’s four lectures in Yiddish this month continue to be her most successful in Montreal, drawing an audience of two hundred when she speaks on “the element of sex in unmarried people” on Feb. 1
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even further away from Frank Heiner. She weighs her options for the fall and winter, and considers returning to Canada or lecturing in England. Relations between Goldman and Eckstein deteriorate to the point that they can no longer live in the same place; at the end of the month Goldman goes to Nice with Berkman and visits Nellie Harris; on Goldman’s return Eckstein leaves St. Tropez.
Harper’s rejects Goldman’s suggestion that she write a monthly column about the European situation. The effort to aid Berkman is formalized with the creation in New York of the Alexander Berkman Provisional Committee which plans fund-raising events to celebrate the anniversary of his release from prison and his upcoming sixty-fifth birthday. April 15 Goldman attends a farewell dinner in her honor in Toronto that raises $95 toward her sustaining fund.
August Among Goldman’s visitors this month in St. Tropez are Ben Reitman’s son Brutus and Dutch friends Dien and Tom Meelis from Toronto. In the middle of the month Berkman returns to Eckstein in Nice; once apart, Goldman and Berkman arc able to discuss their differences and their disap pointment with each other’s attitude after a long separation.
April 22 Goldman returns to Montreal where her niece Stella Ballantine visits her on April 26. May 2 Telegrams of tribute greet Goldman at a farewell event hosted by Rabbi Stern of Montreal.
September Mollie Steimer and Senya Fleshin from Paris and Modest Stein from New York visit Bon Esprit. At the end of the month Goldman begins organizing her papers, manuscripts, lecture notes, and letters before she leaves Bon Esprit for the winter. Emmy Eckstein reports that Berkman is weak and tires quickly, though he edits Goldman’s “Two Communisms; Bolshevist and Anarchist.”
May 4-14 Goldman sails from Canada to Le Havre, France; she reaches Paris on May 15. May 18 Goldman arrives back in St. Tropez in time to celebrate the anniversary of Berkman’s release from prison in 1906; she finds him in better health than she expected.
October Berkman helps Goldman to organize her papers and writes letters to publishers on her behalf asking for review copies of books to use in her upcoming lecture tour of England.
June Relations between Goldman, Berkman, and his companion Emmy Eckstein arc surprisingly harmoni ous given that the three are living in close proximity'
at Goldman’s cottage in St. Tropez. The serenity is disrupted by the new's of Rudolf Rocker's dissatisfaction with Berkman’s translation and ediiing of Rocker’s book and his decision to abandon the project. Goldman receives reports of the progress of the fund-raising appeal that ultimately brings over
October 3 Italian troops invade Ethiopia, prompting League of Nations sanctions against Italy. October 19-No vein ber 14 Goldman stays in Paris, visiting friends and political associates, including Jacob Abrams, who encourages her to lecture in Mexico. While there .she learns that Berkman’s weakness may be attributable to prostate trouble.
$ 1, 000 .
Begins mobilizing anarchist writers and editors of the movement’s press—for example, Rocker, Nettlau, and Albert de Jong—to publish articles to mark Berkmaifs sixty-fifth birthday in November.
November 14-27 After traveling to London, where she plans to make her home for the winter, Goldman begins a series of lectures on Nov. 21 with “Traders in Death” to an
July As the weeks pass. Goldman grows restless without an outlet for political activity' and wonders whether returning to France was wise, especially as she is
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audience of about one hundred at the National Trade Union Club. She follows this with “Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin” at a packed meeting at Workers’ Circle House, where she is heckled by Communists, and “Fallacies of Political Action” at Broadway Congre gational Hall, Hammersmith.
February Goldman considers publishing a new book of essays drawn from her recent lectures, not only as a source of income but also to appease contributors to the Emma Goldman Publication Fund established to enable her to write another book. Jeanne Levey organizes the publication of twelve thousand copies of “The Place of the Individual in the Society” in pamphlet form to raise additional funds. Berkman has a prostate operation in Nice, unbeknownst to Goldman. Later in the month, Emmy Eckstein enters the hospital for gastrointestinal observation. Berkman has a second prostate opera tion the following month. Goldman learns of their condition while completing her scheduled lectures.
December In Leeds on Dec. 1 Goldman gives such a highly successful lecture on German literature to the Workers’ Circle that the members ask for other dates. In Plymouth Goldman speaks to the Tamaritans on Dec. 7 on “The Soviet Theatre.” The success of her lectures on political topics surprises her. Six hundred people—the largest meeting she has ever had in England—attend her lecture on “Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin” on Dec. 9, though two subsequent lectures draw smaller crowds.
February 17-23 Goldman’s three lectures in Plymouth draw enthusi astic audiences, though at the last she is heckled bylocal Communists.
1936 February 28 Goldman lectures again to the Workers Circle in London.
January Goldman begins a lecture tour, hopeful that she can establish a lecture base in London for six to eight months a year and spend the summers in St. Tropez. The death of King George V on Jan. 20, however, plunges the country into mourning, resulting in poor attendance at her lectures. Deaths of Louise Bryant, journalist and compan ion of the late John Reed, and Dr. William Robinson, early birth control advocate in the United States.
March Goldman’s Iriendship with Eslanda and Paul Robeson deepens, as does her friendship with her new admirer and benefactor, Shloime Sutton. Garden City Publishing Company prints a cheaper edition of Living My Life after purchasing the rights from Knopf.
Lectures to the Leicester Secular Society on “Traders in Death (The International Munitions Clique).”
March 7 Germany remilitarizes the Rhineland in direct contravention of the Treaty of Versailles.
January 19 Lectures to the Southend Labour League of Youth on “Youth in Revolt.”
Goldman lectures again to the Leicester Secular Society.
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March 15 Speaks on “The Russian Theatre” to a thousand members of the Coventry Repertory Circle, one of the most successful meetings she has ever had in En gland.
January 20-30 Goldman gives three lectures in London. The first, at the Workers Circle House on “The Two Communisms (Bolshevist and Anarchist—A Parallel),” is disrupted by Communists. She also lectures on “Russian Literature” at the National Trade Union Club, and on “Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin (How Far Do Their Common Methods Lead To Similar Results?)” in Hammersmith.
March 19 Goldman’s lecture in Hammersmith, London, on “Anarchism (What It Really Stands For)” is sparsely attended.
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June 28 in the early hours, unable to endure the physical pain, Berkman shoots himself; the bullet lodges in his spinal column, paralyzing him. Goldman rushes to Nice to be at his side. He sinks into a coma in the afternoon and dies at 10 p.m.
March 25-27 Goldman delivers three lectures to miners in South Wales—at Mountain Ash, Ystradgynlais, and Aherdare—sponsored by the National Council of Labour Colleges. Her lectures on “Mussolini and Hitler” and on “The Two Communisms” are surpris ingly well received, as it is the first time that the Labour Colleges had provided a hearing for anar chism and a critique of Soviet Russia,
June 30 Berkman is buried in Nice. July Grief-stricken, Goldman tries to fulfill Berkman’s charge that she take care of Emmy, who is impaired by her continuing illness. Memorial meetings for Berkman are held in New York City, organized by the Freie. Arbeiter Stimme; at Mohegan Colony, N.Y.; and in Paris.
March 31 Goldman lectures on Living My Life at Conway Hail, London. April Goldman leaves London, arriving in Nice on April 6. Berkman is still hospitalized; in spite of Emmy Eckstein’s worsening health, the two women visit him daily. Goldman writes to drama organizations in Britain and places advertisements in drama publications, soliciting lecture dates for the fall: she offers to speak on Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets, and other contem porary playwrights, as well as on “Soviet Literature, Its Struggle and its Promise.”
July 19 Spanish civil war begins. August Mollie Steimer and Senya FJeshin arrive in St. Tropez to comfort Goldman during her worst period of grief and psychological depression. Her spirits are lifted by Augustin Soucby’s invitation to Barcelona to work for the foreign-language press office of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo-Federación Anarquista Ibérica (CNT-FAI). Convicted of high treason in the first of the Moscow show trials, the old Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev are executed.
May 27 Berkman is released from the hospital and returns to his domestic life with Emmy Eckstein and Goldman in Nice. June Goldman returns to St. Tropez for the summer, unable to bear the building tension between her and Emmy Eckstein; she determines Lo sell Bon Esprit and advertises it for rent with an option to purchase. Berkman—whose recovery is slow—discovers that, for the first time, his residency papers have been renewed for a whole year.
August 5 James Colton, the man Goldman married in 1925 to establish British citizenship, dies of cancer. September 15 Goldman leaves St. Tropez for Spain. September 16-December 10 Based in Barcelona, the anarchist stronghold in Catalonia, Goldman helps to write the Englishlanguage edition of the CNT-FAI’s information bulletin, visits collectivized farms and factories, and travels to the Aragon front, Valencia, and Madrid. She spends the first weeks working closely with Russian-born anarchist Martin Gudell of the CNTFAl’s Foreign Propaganda Department and broad
June 27 Goldman celebrates her sixty-seventh birthday with visiting American anarchist and benefactor Michael Cohn and his family. Too ill to celebrate with her, Berkman telephones in the afternoon.
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casts two English-language radio addresses; Goldman hopes to conduct publicity from Barcelona, as she does not want to leave Spain.
December 10 Leaves Barcelona for Paris with the Kaminskis, arriving on Dec. 14.
October Visits the Aragon front for two days where she is honored to meet Buenaventura Durruti, a leading FAI activist and militia commander.
December 23 Goldman arrives in London and finds the propaganda bureau of the Gcneralitat in a shambles. Vernon Richards’s twice-monthly Spain and the World appears to be Goldman’s most reliable vehicle for communicating about the conditions and aspirations of the Spanish anarchists.
October 18 Goldman addresses a mass meeting of sixteen thousand people organized by the FAI youth in Barcelona.
1937 October 20-26 In Valencia, with German exiles Anita and HannsErich Kaminski, Goldman tours collectivized villages and farms.
January Begins organizing publicity campaign about the Spanish revolution, including planning mass meetings in London and the provinces, but is hampered by poor communication with and lack of urgency among key anarchist leaders in Barcelona. Aside from the London anarchists, Goldman finds allies among leading members of the Indepen dent Labour Party (1LP), including Fenner Brockway and especially writer Ethel Mannin, who becomes a close friend. The first fruit of this alliance is Goldman’s joining forces with a broad English coalition sympathetic to the Republican cause to mount an exhibition in February of photographs, cartoons, posters, and pamphlets from Spain. The death on Jan. 1 of Commissioner of Immi gration Daniel W. MacCormack threatens to weaken the confidence built up in the Department of Labor and delay any chance of Goldman’s return to the United States.
November Increasingly aware of how her inability to speak Spanish hinders her work in Spain, Goldman plans to shift lo publicity work and fund raising in Great Britain or the United States, where she could make a greater contribution. The threat of Nationalist forces to Madrid prompts the government to relocate to Valencia on November 7. November 3 The CNT joins the Largo Caballero government, accepting four ministries. While recognizing the paramount need to fight the fascists, Goldman is troubled by the CNT-FAI’s direction, especially its decision to join the government and effectively align itself with pro-Soviet forces. In her correspondence with close friends, Goldman is highly critical of the collaborative direction of the CNT, while publicly she remains supportive.
January 18 Goldman, speaks on. “The. Spanish Rev olnllon and \Yvt
CNT-FAI” at a large meeting chaired by Ethel Mannin in London.
November 19 Durruti is shot by an unknown gunman during the defense of Madrid; his funeral in Barcelona on Nov. 22 draws hundreds of thousands of mourners.
January 31 Lectures on Spain in Plymouth. February 8 Malaga falls to Franco’s forces.
December Goldman is named official representative in London of the CNT-FA J and of the Generali tat of Catalonia.
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April 25 The benefit conceit for the Spanish refugees, which Goldman has worked frantically to produce, takes place at Victoria Palace. With Paul Robeson’s performance, it is an artistic success but raises less money than Goldman had hoped.
February 13-14 In Glasgow, Goldman meets with local anarchists at the home of Frank Leech, secretary of the AntiParliamentary Communist Federation. On Feb, 14 she speaks in Glasgow to an audience of six hundred on “The Part of the CNT-FAI in the Spanish Revolu tion'’ in the afternoon; and in Paisley on “The CNTFAI and Collectivisation” in the evening.
April 28 Manchester Guardian publishes Goldman’s letter criticizing its report that Catalonia had contributed little to the defense of Madrid.
February 19 Goldman and Ethel Männin speak on “The Relation of the Church in Spain with Fascism,” at Friends House, London, under joint auspices of the CNT-FAI London Committee and the ILP.
May I Sixty thousand people take part in a May Day demonstration and march that includes anarchists for the first time in thirty years. Under the auspices of the London Committee of the CNT-FAI, Goldman speaks at the conclusion of the march in Hyde Park.
February 28 With Ethel Mannin, Goldman speaks on Spain in Bristol.
March Disappointed by the financial failure of the Spanish exhibition that opened Feb. 20, Goldman begins organizing a benefit performance in London for the refugee women and children in Spain. March 11 Gudell notifies Goldman of the establishment of a new committee composed of members from the CNT and the FAI to handle all foreign propaganda matters, in order to alleviate inefficiency caused by the personal and political rivalry between Souchy and Rudiger over propaganda. March 31 Goldman lectures on Spain at a meeting in East London.
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May 3-7 The “Ma}' events” in Barcelona pit rank-and-file anarchists and members of Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxists (POUM) against Catalan government troops in armed clashes after assault guards attempt to take over the CNT-control led telephone exchange; anarchist workers interpret this action as the beginning of an attempt by Moscowaligned forces to suppress the anarchists and destroy the social revolution in Spain; CNT-FAI leaders, bycontrast, are less alarmed by the actions and, rather than fight, call for a cease-fire. The Republican government dispatches troops from Valencia, but by their arrival on May 7, resistance has virtually collapsed, May 17 The Largo Caballero government is replaced by a government led by Juan Negrin that excludes the CNT and reflects an increase in Communist influ ence.
April Tn her correspondence with the Spanish comrades Goldman criticizes the CNT for collaborating with the Communists and accepting Soviet support; publicly she remains an unwavering supporter.
May 23 Goldman speaks on the Spanish revolution in Nor wich at a well-attended meeting sponsored by the Norwich Freedom Group, the ILP, and the Labour League of Youth.
April 4 In Bristol Goldman speaks in the afternoon to a conference of ILP delegates and in the evening on “The Relation of the Church in Spain with Fascism” at a meeting arranged by the local ILP.
Tune 4 Goldman and Fenner Brockway speak on “Conditions in Spain” in London.
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July Goldman writes the introduction to a new commemo rative edition of Berkinan’s ABC o f Anarchism to be published by the Freie Ar beiter Stimme. Views “Fury Over Spain,” a film by American Louis Frank; considers organizing a public showing of the film to raise funds for Mujeres Libres,
August in Paris, Goldman is troubled by the violent opposi tion among her closest anarchist comrades to the CNT-FAI’s unwillingness to confront the Commu nists ’ assault on its opponents on the Left and its undermining of the revolution. Obtains Spanish and French visas that will enable her to travel to Spain after all. On Aug. 2 l, she travels to Nice and later in the month to St. Tropcz for her final stay at Bon Esprit, which is sold shortly after her departure for Spain the following month, temporarily freeing Goldman from financial worries and allowing her to continue her work for Spain. September 15 Goldman leaves Marseille for Valencia. September 16-November 5
Goldman in Spain, primarily Barcelona: finds the agricultural and industrial collectives in Catalonia in better condition than a year before, though overall conditions in Barcelona are discouraging compared to Madrid and Valencia, especially for refugee women and children. Alarmed by the number of political prisoners being held by the Republican government, especially anarchists and POUM members. Receives promises of support for a more inten sive campaign on behalf of the CNT-FA1 in England, including funds for an office and for the publication of Spain and the World.
O ctober
Pedro Herrera confirms Goldman’s new role as the London representative of the STA (International Antifascist Solidarity), which was formed during the summer to provide relief to Spanish refugees and to promote international solidarity for the Spanish anarchists. Goldman’s chances of receiving a U.S. visa are slim, the commissioner of immigration informs Roger Baldwin, due to pending legislation and the potential for adverse publicity'. October 31 Republican government begins move from Valencia to Barcelona. November 6-15
Goldman meets and consults with many anarchists in Paris. November 16
Returns to London; begins searching for premises for an SIA office and reading room.
December Goldman continuevS her campaign against the impris onment of anti-Stalinist leftists and anarchists in Spain, writing an article on the subject for Spain and the World and trying to enlist the assistance of sympathetic members of parliament. December 8-17
In Paris for the International Working Men’s Associa tion (1WMA) Congress at Vazquez’s request: French comrades, knowing that publicly she is sympathetic to the CNT-FAI’s policies, try' to prevent Goldman from addressing the Congress because she is not an official delegate. The Spanish and Swedish delegates prevail in their aiLempt to have her speak, and she defends the CNT-FATs actions and the difficult decisions it has made against criticism from comrades outside Spain.
September 20-24 Visits Madrid and the front.
1938 September 28 With Souchy, Goldman leaves Valencia for Barcelona, which comes under bombardment by Franco’s forces a few days later.
January Moves into new' offices for the CNT-FA1, SIA, and Spain and the World in central London, but finds little enthusiasm for the SIA venture, as numerous anti fascist organizations and Spanish aid committees already exist.
no
CHRONOLOGY
Having read Goldman’s article in December’s Spain and the World, Vázquez and Herrera warn her that frequent publicity about political persecution by the Negrin government and Lhe Communists only undermines enthusiasm among the international proletariat for the cause of anti-fascism; Goldman replies by noting widespread distrust of the Commu nists and concern that CNT-FAI tactics have damp ened the workers’ general enthusiasm for the revolu tion, Goldman acknowledges that Paul Robeson and his wife are distancing themselves from her as a result of their close association with the Communists. U.S. labor leader Rose Pesotta meets with Goldman in London; promises to help organize a committee to obtain a U.S. visa for Goldman. January14 Goldman and Ethel Mann in speak on “The Betrayal of the Spanish People” at a CNT-FAI program in London; Lhe audience turns against the Communists when they attempt to break up the meeting. February Goldman plans a spring benefit for the SIA; feels more confident about its prospects when more individuals agree to serve as sponsors, including art critic Sir Herbert Read, Laurence Housman, Havelock Ellis, John Cowper Powys, George Orwell, and Rebecca West, among others. Exhibition of drawings by children in Barcelona schools and lace work by women refugees opens at the SIA office but draws only a handful of visitors despite extensive publicity. First issue of the S.I.A. bulletin is published. February 20 Goldman speaks at a small meeting arranged by the 1LP in Eastbourne at which Communists in the audience attack her. March Goldman determines to go to Canada in the fall regardless of the chances of getting a U.S. visa, convinced that she could do more good for Spain there than in England. Goldman writes the preface for a collection of writings by Gamillo Bemeri, the exiled Italian anarchist intellectual kidnapped and murdered in Barcelona during the 1937 “May events,” which the Italian comrades are publishing in his memory.
I9SS
March 6-13 In Scotland, Goldman lectures on Spain three times in Glasgow and once in Edinburgh; her topics include “The Betrayal of the Spanish People” and “The Constructive Achievements of the CNT-FAI,” but the meetings are not well attended. March 9 Franco’s forces, with overwhelming air superiority, launch a major assault on the Aragon front; the Republican forces, torn by internal disputes, collapse; and by Apr. 15 the Nationalists reach the coast, splitting Republican territory in two. March 12 German troops occupy Austria; the following day the Anschluss is proclaimed. March 19-20 Goldman speaks at a well-attended fund-raising meeting in Leicester for the SIA; also shows the Louis Frank Film, “Fury over Spain.” March 24 Large meeting and showing of the Louis Frank film in Peckham, East London. April Herrera calls on Goldman to do all in her power to prevent the repatriation of the refugee Basque children (most of their parents are supporters of Loyalist Spain) from England to Nationalist Spain. Goldman suffers from shortness of breath, fainting spells, and general fatigue, April 10-11 In Liverpool, Goldman speaks on Spain at two meetings: on the first day to a thousand people at an ILP-sponsored event; on the second, to a small gathering of the Workmen’s Circle. Both meetings are disrupted by Communists. April 13 “Fascism is Destroying European Civilisation” is the theme of a protest meeting in London sponsored by the CNT-FAI; Goldman makes an appeal for money for anus—illegal under the terms of the Non intervention Pact.
1938
CHRONOLOGY
April 23 As a delegate. Goldman attends an all-day National Conference on Spain in London, which she is convinced is contrived by the Communist party.
June 8 Goldman attends a Writers against Fascism meeting organized by the Association of Writers for Intellec tual Liberty; Goldman describes it as “almost entirely C.P.”
April 29 Literary and musical evening in London for the SIA draws a small audience and is a financial flop; Mannin finds Goldman’s militant speech inappropri ate to the occasion, organized to promote humanitar ian ends.
June 26 Thomas H. Keell, British anarchist and one-time editor of Freedom, dies. July 17 Goldman is one of several speakers at a Hyde Park demonstration to celebrate the second anniversary of the Spanish revolution; it draws a small crowd, largely because the Communists and their allies hold a rally in Trafalgar Square at the same lime.
May At the beginning of die month, Goldman is reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and writing “Trotsky Protests Too Much,” a reply to two articles on the Kronstadt rebellion that appeared in the New York Trotskyist journal New International. Herrera announces his intention to leave his position as secretary of the General Council of the SIA; his replacement will be Lucía Sánchez Saomil.
July 30-31 At the anarchist Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire, Goldman examines the late Thomas H. Keell’s papers on behalf of IISH, which hopes to acquire part of his collection.
May 1 l.arge demonstration ends at Hyde Park where the CNT-FAI platform speakers-—Goldman, British anarchist Ralph Barr, and veteran activist Matt Kavanagh—attract an enthusiastic crowd.
August Goldman offers IISH her unpublished sketches and large collection of newspaper clippings as well as Berkman’s diary. She agrees to help IISH obtain other collections of persona! papers from her circle of anarchist friends. Goldman receives several hundred dollars from anarchists in New York and Chicago to pay for her travel expenses. She is disturbed by reports of her niece Stella Ballantine’s depression and awaits news about her condition.
May 22 W. S. Van Valkenburgh, American anarchist editor and devoted friend and correspondent of Goldman’s, dies of a heart attack. June Goldman asks anarchist friends in the United States and Canada to begin again to raise funds for a trip to Canada; encourages Carlo 'fresca and Margaret De Silver to help her get a U.S. visa through their contacts in Washington, D.C. Advises Vázquez that the CNT-FAI bureau should continue its operation while she is in Canada and urges him to support Spain and the World. Herrera, in his new capacity at the anarchist Tierra y Libertad publishing company, expresses interest in publishing Spanish translations of Living My Life and Berkman’s Prison Memoirs. The Internationa! Institute of Social History (11SH) contacts Goldman about depositing her and Berkrrian’s correspondence at their archive in Amsterdam.
August 25 Leaves London for Paris, having secured a British visa for Spain al the last moment.
September The war scare over events in Czechoslovakia trans fixes Goldman as it does all other Europeans. She learns that her niece has been hospitalized after suffering a nervous breakdown; though the long term prognosis is good, Ballantine’s recovery is very slow. September 14 Leaves Paris for Toulouse, and from there flies to Spain the following morning.
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September 15-October 29 In Spain, many leading anarchists express to Goldman their strong opposition to the policies of the CNTs National Committee and its conciliation of the Negrin government. They are especially critical of Vázquez, who now acknowledges the destructive actions of the Communists but still wants them treated gently. Goldman complains to him, for example, that all the money raised in other countries for antifascist women goes to Communist organizations and none to the anarchist organization Mujeres Libres. The FAI by contrast is anxious to begin a campaign abroad exposing die activities of the Communists in Spain. Goldman is shocked by the number of anarchists and other leftists held in prison, among them Jeannette Kiffel, a Polish anarchist and acquaintance of Goldman’s, who has been held incommunicado three months but is released after Vázquez and Goldman appeal to Segundo Blanco, CNT minister of education in the Negrin government. Goldman visits the metal, transport, and milk syndicates; schools modeled on libertarian principles; and the SIA colonies for refugee children. Notes that many collectives have been destroyed. Goldman witnesses the continuing bombardment of Barcelona from Lhe air and the chronic shortage of food and electricity. Attends the CNT-FAI plenum (Oct. 16-30) and the trial of POUM militants charged with espionage and desertion (Oct. 11-22), charges on which they are found innocent; they are found guilty, however, of rebellious acts during the “May events” of 1937.
1938
November Ethel Mannio successfully assumes Goldman’s role as SIA representative in London; raises significantly more financial support for the SIA than Goldman had. Goldman advises Gudell that the next propa ganda campaign undertaken by the CNT-FAI should be aimed at the release of the political prisoners in Spain. November 9 Krislallnacht in Germany: This episode, coming on the heels of the Munich crisis, causes outrage in the Western democracies and diverts attention from developments in Spain. December Goldman spends much of the month in London completing a report on her visit to Spain for publica tion in the anarchist press. CNT decides to close its offices in London and North America for economic reasons. Saornil pledges to continue relations with Goldman and Ethel Mannin and hopes that, despite the closure of the CNT-FAI London bureau, the propaganda for the SIA will continue. Goldman sends five hundred pounds of clothing to Spanish refugees through the SIA in Perpignan. Goldman learns that Emmy Eckstein’s health is in serious jeopardy and that she must undergo surgery' again. December 12 Goldman and John McNair of the ILP speak at a poorly attended meeting in London on the crisis in Spain.
September 25-26 Accompanied by Gudell and Herrera, Goldman visits the 28th division headed by Gregorio Jover and the 26th division headed by Ricardo Sanz at the battlefront.
December 22 Goldman travels to Amsterdam to organize Bcrkman’s and her papers at the International Institute of Social History.
September 30 Munich agreement signed by Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, ceding the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany.
December 23 Franco’s forces launch an offensive in Catalonia.
October 30 Goldman arrives in Paris from Barcelona for the SIA congress, which meets at the same time as the IWMA; Goldman joins delegates from Sweden, Spain, and France.
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1939
CHRONOLOGY
1939 January Working every day since late December at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Goldman finds it impossible to arrange Berkman's papers without also organizing her own; she finally finishes the work on Jan. 14. Learns that Emmy Eckstein’s entire large intestine must be removed. January 7 Tom Mooney, wrongly convicted of murder in the San Erancisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, is granted an unconditional pardon and released by Governor Culhert Olson.
February 24 Vázquez and Herrera’s circular letter announces that the CNT-FAI will cease activities abroad and thanks the international community for its efforts on behalf of the Spanish anarchists. February 27 Great Britain and France extend diplomatic recogni tion to Franco’s government. March 5-6 The Negrin government is overthrown in an overnight coup in Madrid; CNT members in the south-central zone are involved in the coup and occupy posts in the new National Council of Defense. March 15 Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.
January 19 Goldman arrives back in London.
March 26 Goldman travels to Paris to meet refugee Spanish anarchists who are demoralized and fraught with misery and internal recriminations and suspicion.
January 26 Barcelona falls to Franco’s forces. February Goldman is frantic with worry until she receives firm news of the whereabouts of anarchists who have escaped from Catalonia after the collapse of the resistance in Spain. Most lind sanctuary in France but face harsh conditions in internment camps; others reach Paris without permits. Vazquez’s account for the suddenness of the collapse in Catalonia names exhaustion among the armies after the counterattaek by Franco’s forces on the Ebro front, shoriages of military personnel, war weariness and declining morale among the civilian population exacerbated by food shoriages, and the hurried and open removal of the government from Barcelona that led to panic among the population. USH informs Goldman that her archive has been sent to England in case the Nazis invade the Nether lands.
April 1 Franco declares the Spanish civil war at an end. April 3 Goldman returns to London: on the trip she meets a group of fifty refugees from Madrid and Valencia and in her final days in London organizes a committee to support them. April 8 Goldman sails for Canada, arriving in Toronto on April 21, where she establishes residence. April-May Beginning April 27, Goldman lectures in English and Yiddish in Toronto and Windsor on “Who Betrayed Spain?” to raise money for Spanish refugees. June 8 Emmy Eckstein, Berkman’s longtime companion, dies.
February' 7
Goldman’s letter protesting Zenzl Muhsam’s second disappearance in the Soviet Union appears in the Manchester Guardian.
June 27 Goldman’s seventieth birthday is marked in Toronto with a celebration that elicits cables from friends, comrades, and labor organizations around the world.
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CHRONOLOGY
1940
The sentence of Warren Billings, convicted in the 1916 San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing, is reduced to time served and he is released from Folsom Prison.
August 15 Marks the fiftieth anniversary of Goldman’s entry into anarchist ranks; she organizes a celebration for September to mark the occasion and to create a long term Spanish Relief Fund.
November
Fortieth anniversary of the New York anarchist newspaper, the Freie Arbeiter Stimme. On Nov. 2, Arthur Bortolotti’s trial begins.
August 23 Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed. September i I litler invades Poland; two days later Great Britain and France declare war on Germany, and World War II begins.
December
Goldman spends the first two weeks in Winnipeg and speaks five times, reaching fourteen hundred people in two weeks: once in Yiddish to a women’s organi zation on Living My Life; to a large audience on the Nazi-Soviet Pact; a lecture on Hitler and Stalin; a talk to the IWW; and a lecture on “The Jew in Literature in England until the End of the Nineteenth Century” to the Jewish Woman’s Cultural Club. Goldman attempts to raise $5,000 bail for Bortolotti’s release, with the help of Dorothy Rogers.
September 19 Goldman delivers a lecture in Toronto on the NaziSoviet Pact to an audience of eight hundred, September 27-30 Goldman addresses two long-promised though poorly altended meetings in Windsor. September 30
Dinner to honor Goldman and to launch the Emma Goldman Spanish Refugee Rescue Fund features labor leader Rose Pesotia as guest speaker and attracts the attendance and financial support of many of Goldman’s closest friends and family.
1940 January Goldman’s mail is intercepted by Canadian censors, their suspicion raised by the many letters containing money pouring into her address for the defense of Bortolotti, whose case attracts further attention in the United States through articles in the Nation and the New Republic solicited by Goldman. Bortolotti is released on bail, charged now with immigration violations rather than a breach of the War Measures Act. By mid-January, Goldman returns to raising funds for the Spanish anarchists and continues to raise funds and awareness about Bortolotti’s case. Goldman’s niece Stella Ballantine recovers from a nervous breakdown after almost two years.
October On Oct. 4, under the provisions of Canada’s War Measures Act, three Italian immigrant anarchists, Arthur Bortolotti, Ruggero BenvenuLi, Ernest Gava, and a Cuban, Marco Joachim, are arrested for possession of antifascist “subversive literature,” including anarchist classics. Bortolotti is also found in possession of a handgun and faces deportation to Mussolini’s Italy if convicted. Goldman works tirelessly over the succeeding months for Bortolotti’s defense, organizing a committee, hiring counsel, and raising funds from sympathizers in Canada and the United States, Goldman postpones her proposed lecture tour to western Canada in order to give her full attention Lo the defense of the Italian comrades. Goldman contacts Viking Press with a proposal to write a book about her experiences in Spain. Ben Heilman suffers a mild stroke.
February 17 Goldman suffers a stroke that leaves her paralyzed on the right side and unable to speak; she is rushed to the hospital where she remains for six weeks. April Goldman returns home to her Toronto apartment on April 1 after regaining consciousness but not the ability to speak.
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1940
CHRONOLOGY
May Stella Bal Ian tine and Goldman’s brother Morris and his wife Babsie travel to Toronto to join Dorothy Rogers and Arthur Bortolotti at Goldman’s bedside after she suffers a second hemorrhage on May 6.
May 17 Goldman is buried in Waldheim Cemetery, Chicago, close to the Haymarket martyrs, her casket covered by an SIA-FAI flag and bouquets of flowers sent byfriends and organizations across the nation.
May 14 Goldman dies at the age of seventy; tributes and messages of condolence stream in from around the world; her body is taken to the Labor Lyceum in Toronto to allow friends and comrades to pay their ■ last respects; Rev. Salem Bland delivers a eulogy.
May 31 A memorial meeting is held at New York’s Town Hall, presided over by Leonard Abbott; fdms of Goldman in Spain, Canada, and of her funeral are shown; and speakers include Norman Thomas, Rudolf Rocker, Roger Baldwin, Harry Kelly, Carlo Tresca, Eliot White, Rose Pesotta, Martin Gudell, Dorothy Rogers, and Harry Weinberger.
S ally T homas S tephen C ole C andacf. Falk
116
Illustrations
Goldman included this photograph of herself at the age of seventeen in her autobiography, Living M y Life.
The young immigrant anarchist educated herself and drew inspiration from a vast array of literary and political writ ings.
Goldman family portrait, taken in St. Petersburg, shows Emma, her half-sister Helena (from her mother’s first marriage), brother Morris in Helena’s lap, mother Taube, brother Herman, and father Abraham (ca.
1883).
118
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Miss Emma Goldman, of Now York, de. livt*red two addresses-lO-Workingmcn In.this city on Sunday laut. . .The IIm one »■« at Industrial Hall, where ehe apoka to tha International Workingmen In the afternoon, and at night «poke before the Workingmen's Educational Society at Canmakera’ Hall. Miss Goldman fa a young woman of per-
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Goldman quickly gained a reputation as a talented speaker, earning praise in English-language news papers like the Baltimore Critic, which reports her observations about inequality in one of the earliest accounts (Oct. 25, 1890) of a Goldman lecture.
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