Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman, circa 1911
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14,
1940) was an anarchist known for her politic-
al activism, writing and speeches. She played
a pivotal role in the development of anarchist
political philosophy in North America and
Europe in the first half of the twentieth
century.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (now
Kaunas in Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to
the US in 1885 and lived in New York City,
where she joined the burgeoning anarchist
movement.[1] Attracted to anarchism after
the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a
writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist
philosophy, women’s rights, and social is-
sues, attracting crowds of thousands.[1] She
and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her
lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassin-
ate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda
of the deed. Though Frick survived the at-
tempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to
twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was
imprisoned several times in the years that
followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally
distributing information about birth control.
In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist
journal Mother Earth.
In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sen-
tenced to two years in jail for conspiring to
"induce persons not to register" for the newly
instated draft. After their release from pris-
on, they were arrested—along with hundreds
of others—and deported to Russia. Initially
supportive of that country’s Bolshevik revolu-
tion, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition
to the Soviet use of violence and the repres-
sion of independent voices. In 1923, she
wrote a book about her experiences, My
Disillusionment in Russia. While living in
England, Canada, and France, she wrote an
autobiography called Living My Life. After
the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she
traveled to Spain to support the anarchist re-
volution there. She died in Toronto on May
14, 1940.
During her life, Goldman was lionized as a
free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and
derided by critics as an advocate of politically
motiva