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“[W]hen a law has outgrown time and necessity, it must go, and the only way to get rid of the law is to awaken the public to the fact that it has outlived its purposes, and that is precisely what I have been doing and mean to do in the future.” – Emma Goldman to the Press, February 15, 1916. The Emma Goldman Papers.

Emma Goldman was a radical anarchist champion of women’s equality and worker’s rights. She was born in 1869 in Lithuania to a Russian-Jewish family. During her childhood, the family moved to Russia and then Germany to escape persecution for their Jewish faith. In 1885, at the age of 16, she immigrated with her sister, Helena, to the United States. They settled in Rochester, New York. She obtained employment as a garment worker, but due to the miserable treatment she quickly became disenchanted by the promise of America. After witnessing several labor protests that were met with government violence – Goldman was inspired to speak out.

After a brief marriage, she moved to New York City. There, Goldman built a career as an agitator against capitalism by speaking at street corners and mass meetings. She was a gifted and charismatic speaker and often spoke in English, German and Yiddish. Her first arrest was in 1893 for inciting a riot when a group of unemployed workers reacted to a speech she delivered. Upon her release, she began a lecture tour across Europe and the United States. While Goldman advocated for change, she was against violence as a means to obtain it. After Leon Czolgosz claimed he was inspired by Goldman to assassinate President McKinley, Goldman was arrested again. However, she had nothing to do with the murder and was released.

In 1903, Goldman founded the Free Speech League. In 1906, Goldman launched the magazine Mother Earth that preached anarchism, birth control, and equal rights for women. The publication was later banned by the government in 1917. Goldman’s naturalization as a United States citizen was revoked in 1908, but she was not deported. She was arrested (again) in 1916 for her promotion of birth control under the Comstock Act, an 1873 law banning transportation of “obscene” matter through the mail or across state lines. In addition, Goldman was a believer in in theatre as a catalyst for change and was instrumental in introducing Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg and George Bernard Shaw to American audiences.

When America entered World War I, Goldman was seen as a threat to national security. She was once again be arrested and later released in 1919. However, her anti-war sentiment as well as anti-Communism mania led Goldman to be branded as a subversive alien and upon her release from prison she was deported to the Soviet Union. For the rest of her life, she moved throughout Europe and Canada. She released her autobiography called Living My Life in 1931. Goldman passed away on May 14, 1940 in Toronto, Canada.

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