She was born in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, then
part of the Russian Empire, in 1869, where she lived until 1882, when her family
moved to St. Petersburg, Russia. It was in St. Petersburg that Emma was first
acquainted with revolutionary ideas that she would follow throughout her life.
She immigrated to the United States in 1885, settling first in Rochester, NY,
and after 1889 in New York City. Her experience as a laborer as well as the
political unrest in Chicago in 1886 contributed to her adherence to Anarchist
circles and becoming a political activist. Before long, she became involved in
an assassination attempt and in 1893 was jailed following her call for the
overthrow of the political and economic system. In the early 1900's, she started
publishing Mother Earth - a radical journal that she used as a stage for
advancing her ideas in favor of women's emancipation, birth control and other
revolutionary ideas. Her opposition to WW1 and the American participation to it
brought about her expulsion from United States in 1918 back to Russia, then in
the middle of the Communist Revolution and the Civil War. However, Emma Goldman
rapidly became disillusioned with the Soviet regime and returned to the West,
obtained British citizenship in 1925 and then settled in Canada, from where she
strove to return to the United States. During the 1930's, she endeavored in
drawing the attention of the public opinion against the Nazi peril while
lecturing both in Europe and in Canada.
HFG
Bibliography:
GOLDMAN, Emma. My
disillusionment in Russia.
New York: Dover Publications, 2003.
GOLDMAN, Emma.
Patriotism; a menace to liberty. Pp. 16. New York: Mother
Earth Publishing Association, [1908?]
GOLDMAN, Emma. The
crushing of the Russian revolution. Pp. 42. London: Freedom
Press, 1922.
GOLDMAN, Emma.
Living my life. 2 v. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1931
GLASSGOLD, Peter (Ed.).
Anarchy!: an anthology of
Emma Goldman's
Mother earth. Pp. xxxvi, 428, ill. Washington, D.C.:
Counterpoint, 2001
SHULMAN, Alix Kates (Ed.). Red
Emma speaks: an
Emma Goldman reader.
Pp. xii, 464. 3rd ed. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 1998
FALK, Candace and al (Eds.).
Emma Goldman:
a documentary history of the American years. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2003
MORITZ, Theresa. The world's
most dangerous woman: a new biography of
Emma Goldman.
Pp. 232. Vancouver: Subway Books, 2001
WENZER, Kenneth C. Anarchists
adrift: Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman. Pp. xiii, 114. St. James, NY: Brandywine
Press, 1996
ZINN, Howard.
Emma: a
play in two acts about
Emma Goldman,
American anarchist. Pp. xxvi, 138. Cambridge, Mass.: South
End Press, 2002
Links:
Emma Goldman - A guide to her life and documentary sources -
Berkeley Digital Library
Emma Goldman - Spartacus Education
Emma Goldman - The Anarchist Encyclopedia
Emma Goldman - Biography and Resources
