Emma Goldman, Russian-Jewish immigrant and anarchist, was an outspoken women when women were expected to only follow the direction of their spouses. Ms. Goldman was a strong proponent of the working class citizen, she was a woman who had been through much suffering. She started out in what appears to be a somewhat neglectful home with a overbearing father and a mother with no passion for life. Ms. Goldman longed for education, her father tried to squash this by telling her that women were only meant to keep house, prepare food and bear children. Ms. Goldman did not seem satisfied with this, even though her father insisted she not become educated she learned on her own. Ms. Goldman immigrated to New York in hopes of finding a life in which she could enjoy freedom. She had a deep commitment to freedom and once stated “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to be beautiful, radiant things.”
After the Haymaker riots in Chicago she became much more vocal about the causes she believed in. Ms. Goldman was said to be a great orator and author. She spoke passionately about the rights of workers and was the primary speaker at strike rallies. She was convinced that the capitalist ways of America were to the detriment of the people. She was arrested several times, once for ‘inciting a riot’, distributing information about birth control as well as inciting laborers to take food from their employers if they were not given what they had demanded. Ms. Goldman advocated that young men not sign up for the draft to be taken off to war. She spent two years in prison and eventually deported for her role in the attempted assignation of Henry Frick the manager of the Carnegie Steel Company for his part in the violent strike of steelworkers.
Ms. Goldman lived the life of a woman of passion, she was great speaker and was able to move people for her cause. Her cause was not popular with the capitalistic leaders of our nation, but without conflict we cannot grow together. It seems that Ms. Goldman’s anarchist ways helped move this nation to a place where there is fairness in labor and life.
Anarchists attack police (1906, October). In NY Times. Retrieved March 5, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/specials/ragtime/goldman.html
Simkin, J. (2003). Emma Goldman: Biography. In Spartucus Educational. Retrieved March 5, 2011, from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgoldman.htm
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