Goldman, Emma (1869–1940)

EMMA GOLDMAN WAS born in a part of what was then Tzarist Russia. She emigrated to the United States in 1885, where she got in contact with the anarchist Johann Most and the radical Robert Reitzel (both German-born). Whereas this older generation was still largely culturally bound to the Old World, Goldman tried to establish a sort of U.S. anarchism. She became a public figure when Alexander Berkman—her partner in life and politics—was convicted for a murder attempt on an especially brutal capitalist (Henry Clay Frick). While Berkman was in prison, Goldman embarked on a crusade as a speaker across the United States: She was imprisoned several times and at last deported during the Red Scare following the Russian Revolution. Goldman went to Soviet Russia, ...