WHM: Emma Goldman (1869- 1940)
Topic: Women's History Month
Radical At Large

One of history's more radical women, Emma Goldman was neither born, nor did she die on American soil, but she deserves a place in our history, as her extraordinary life effected so many women and families here, as well as around the world.

Goldman emigrated to America from Russia at the age of 16 in order to escape the practice of arranged marriages that was traditional in the Jewish ghetto where she grew up. After working in the garment industry in Rochester NY for four years, she moved to NYC, where she began a lifelong relationship with Anarchist Alexander Berkman. Four years later, after Berkman was imprisoned, Goldman found herself in jail for speaking out in favor of "food as a right" during the depression of 1893.

Goldman would be jailed time and time again, as every issue she espoused was radical to some element or another. She believed in anarchy, in "free love" and birth control, she did not believe in marriage and discouraged early maternity. She wrote of her opinions in the magazine she published with Berkman, Mother Earth, which enjoyed ten years of publications before WWI. Prior to WWI, America experienced a "political renaissance", where people were allowed to (and did) discourse on subjects like those advocated by Goldman. Systems of government like communism, socialism, and even anarchy were acceptable topics for average Americans. Discussion of notions we associate with the 1960's, like free love, birth control, and a strong peace movement were characteristic of the time.

Spending time in the slums of NYC as a midwife gave Goldman an understanding of the importance of birth control. Because of the "second wave" of immigrants at that time, Goldman was performing social work in the slums and saw how devastating birth after yearly birth was taking its toll on poor women. She decided to help in any way she could in educating poor and overburdened mothers on how to avoid pregnancy. Frankly discussing use of the diaphragm with these women was what eventually got her deported. A man by the name of Andrew Comstock was charged with policing the United States regarding the many "morality laws" passed under his name. He was finally successful in having her deported two years after the start of WWI.

"Red Emma" as she was called, with her outspoken ways and refusal to be silenced, left quit a mark in the annals of American Women's History, though she is little known today.