Emma Goldman

Russian-born American anarchist (1869-1940) · United States · Journalists · Died at 70

Emma Goldman is read about 1,253 times a day, in 97 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 27 October 2026

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She gave speeches that packed halls and got her thrown in prison - for talking about anarchism, birth control, and why the state itself was the problem. Deported from America, disillusioned by the Soviets, she spent decades as the most uncompromising voice on the left.

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A life in dates

1940Died14 May 19401920“The statements published in American newspapers which have been attributed to me are absolute falsifications full of lying insinuations. I love America of the common people.”In their wordsprinted in The Liberator (1920), note in magazine: "The following radiogram about Emma Goldman received by the Federated Press, October 27,Read the whole statement

1914“When we can't dream any longer we die.”In their wordsDecember 1914Quoted by Margaret C. Anderson in "Emma Goldman in Chicago", Mother Earth magazine (December 1914)Read the whole statement

1911“The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief...”In their words"Mother Earth" (1911)Read the whole statement

1910“The supreme effort of the avant-guard is onward, ever onward.”In their words"Light and Shadows in the Life of an Avant-Guard" (1910)Read the whole statement

1906“Is the child to be considered as an individuality, or as an object to be moulded according to the whims and fancies of those about it?”In their wordsThe Child and its enemies (1906)Read the whole statement

1898“Ladies and gentlemen, I came here to avoid as much as possible treading on your corns.”In their wordsResponding to audience questions during a speech in Detroit (1898); as recounted in Living My Life (1931), p. 207; quoted by Annie LaurieRead the whole statement

1869Born27 June 1869

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Emma Goldman seated

13 Wieniawska Street in Lublin, Emma Goldman's graffiti

2021 New York City Anarchist Bookfair - The Anarchist Library table

206-208 East 13th Street

Arbeter Fraynd

Arton3801

Buffalo Evening News, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, 1901. (5458ac3b389e46fa8dcbcaabda6e90cb)

Emma Goldman gravestone plaque

In their own words 10

Emma Goldman

10 statements, newest first

The statements published in American newspapers which have been attributed to me are absolute falsifications full of lying insinuations. I love America of the common people.
1920, printed in The Liberator (1920), note in magazine: "The following radiogram about Emma Goldman received by the Federated Press, October 27,, Own words
I hope I shall never live to see Anarchism become thoroughly respectable, for then I shall have to look for a new ideal.
1916, Letter to Helen Keller (1916), published by "The American Foundation for the Blind", Own words
When we can't dream any longer we die.
Dec 1914, Quoted by Margaret C. Anderson in "Emma Goldman in Chicago", Mother Earth magazine (December 1914), Own words

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In their orbit

Spouse: Jacob Kershner

About this person

Born in 1869 in Kaunas to a Lithuanian Jewish family, Emma Goldman came to the United States in 1885 and found her cause after the Haymarket affair turned her toward anarchism. With Alexander Berkman - lover, collaborator, lifelong friend - she plotted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1892; the attempt failed, Berkman went to prison for 22 years, and Goldman spent the next decades lecturing to thousands, founding the journal Mother Earth in 1906, and cycling through arrests for incitement and distributing birth control literature. Sentenced in 1917 for anti-draft conspiracy, she was swept up in the Palmer Raids and deported to Russia in 1919. She'd welcomed the October Revolution, but the Kronstadt rebellion and the Bolsheviks' repression broke her; she left and published My Disillusionment in Russia in 1923. Her two-volume autobiography Living My Life came out in 1931 and 1935 while she moved between England, Canada, and France, and she returned to the fight one last time in Spain's civil war before dying in Toronto in 1940. Admirers called her a rebel, enemies called her a murderer - she called herself free.

Country

United States

Journalists from the United States 6

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