The American anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman
was arrested so often that she always carried a book to her
public-speaking engagements, so that she would have something to read to
help pass the time in jail. She often lectured on the social ills of
American workers in 1900. Her topics included
union organizing, the eight-hour workday, equality for women, and
free speech. Such issues were considered controversial in 1900. They earned
Goldman the appelation "red Emma." In addition she was perceived by many as a threat to established society.
Goldman was born in 1869 in the city of Kovno (
Kaunas), Lithuania. In order to avoid an arranged marriage, she
immigrated to America with her older half-sister in 1885. An early
sympathy with the martyrs of Chicago's
Haymarket Riot led her to embrace the ideals of anarchism. She
believed that large organizations---whether governmental, religious, or
commercial---were inherently contradictory to the interests of the
people. Throughout her life, she publicly opposed any institution,
including marriage, private property, and the military, that involved
the exploitation of individuals or the suppression of personal freedom.
Anarchists generally maintained that the triumph of their movement would inevitably uphold the rights and improve the
status of women. Goldman, however, did not agree with that theory.
Trained as a nurse and midwife in Vienna, Austria, she had worked among
the immigrant population in the Lower East Side of
New York City during the 1890s. Her experiences there engendered a
conviction that enforced childbearing restricted women's economic and
sexual freedom. She saw the burdens that having too many children
imposed on women. This was particularly true for women who needed to
work for a living. No political solution, she came to believe, would be
enough to overturn the inequality and subjugation of the sexes. Goldman
argued that women's issues needed to be addressed separately. Progress
would begin only when women took control of their sexual and
reproductive rights.
Goldman was well known for her incorporation of
sexual policy into anarchist politics. She invariably drew the biggest
crowds when she lectured on
birth control. She believed that women had the right to control
their bodies without governmental interference. She also saw the choice
of whether or not to bear a child as a matter of personal freedom.
Goldman first aired her views on birth control in
September 1900. She was in Paris participating in the International
Anti-Parliamentary Congress. While there she also attended a meeting of
the Neo-Malthusian Congress, a secret organization that advocated birth
control. There she obtained birth-control literature and contraceptives.
She brought both back to the United States. On her return to America,
Goldman continued to lecture on birth control. She was eventually
arrested on Feb. 11, 1916, in New York City, during a lecture on family
planning. She was charged under the Comstock Act of 1873, which banned
the "trade in and circulation of obscene literature and articles of
immoral use." Convicted, she was given the choice of paying a $100 fine
or serving 15 days in the workhouse. She chose incarceration. This
gained her widespread support among progressive writers and journalists.
An early mentor of
Margaret Sanger, Goldman was largely responsible for bringing Sanger
into the struggle for the legalization of birth control. Their goals,
however were different. Sanger focused her efforts on achieving the
legalization of contraceptives. Goldman, however, viewed birth control
as one aspect of the larger struggle of women to overcome the political,
economic, and social forces that were oppressing them. Goldman treated
the restriction of birth control as one instance of the suppression and
exploitation of women. She continued to address the wider issues of
personal freedom and equality.
When the United States went to war in 1917,
Goldman's public advocacy of anarchism alarmed the federal government.
Goldman was convicted of conspiracy against the draft. After two years
in jain, she was deported to the Soviet Union in 1919. Goldman lived the
remainder of her life outside of the United States. After her death in
1940, her body was buried in Chicago. Her grave was close to the
executed anarchists of the Haymarket Riot who inspired her.
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