EMMA GOLDMAN, 1869-1940

Emma Goldman, anarchist, writer, lecturer and agitator for free speech and radical causes, was born in Kovno, Russia (1869) and emigrated to the United States in 1885. She lived first in Rochester, New York, where she married, divorced and remarried Jacob Kershner . In 1889 she settled alone in New York City, where she met Johann Most, editor of Freiheit, and Alexander Berkman. She joined the anarchist movement and soon became a public speaker for the cause. While editor of Mother Earth, 1906-17, she published anarchist pamphlets and books, including her own Anarchism and Other Essays (1911). EG also lectured on the radical drama of Ibsen, Shaw and Strindberg and wrote The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914). In 1917 EG and Alexander Berkman were arrested for conspiracy to obstruct draft registration . They were found guilty and sentenced to prison (1918-19). Three months after their release in 1919 they were deported to Russia. EG's sojourn in Russia (1920-21), which led to the publication of My Disillusionment in Russia, (1923), was followed by short stays in Sweden, Germany, and England, where in 1925 she married James Colton to obtain British citizenship.

In 1926 EG traveled to Canada to lecture in English and Yiddish on drama and politics. In October her meeting with Leon Malmed, a long-time anarchist associate from Albany, N.Y., led to a passionate affair. After speaking at meetings across Canada she returned to France in 1928 to write her autobiography, Living My Life,(1931). EG returned to Canada in 1933 and in 1934 was given permission to enter the United States for a 90-day visit and lecture tour. Upon her return Europe EG became an active supporter of the Spanish Republican cause, visited Spain in 1936, 1937 and 1938, and attempted to raise money and arouse support in England. On a fund-raising visit to Canada in 1939, she suffered a stroke. She died in May 1940 and was buried in Chicago 's Waldheim Cemetery near the graves of the "Haymarket martyrs."

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