Love, Anarchy, & Emma Goldman: A Biography

551 Pages·2019·20.889 MB·English

by  Candace Falk

Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman
Emma at her writing desk, with lilies, ca. 1910. (Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and Peace)
Love, Anarchy, and
Emma Goldman
Candace Falk
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark,
New Jersey, and London
Rutgers University Press Classics edition, 2019
ISBN 978-1-9788-0428-9 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-9788-0646-7 (cloth)
Revised edition published by Rutgers University Press, 1990
Second paperback printing, 1999
First published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Falk, Candace
Love, anarchy, and Emma Goldman / Candace Falk.— Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8135-1512-2
ISBN 0-8135-1513-0 (pbk.)
1. Goldman, Emma, 1869–1940. 2. Anarchists— United States—
Biography. 3. Feminists— United States— Biography.
4. Women and socialism. 5. Free love.
1. Title.
HX843.7.G65F35 1990
335'.83'092— dc20
[B] 89-10967 CIP
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 89010967
A British Cataloging- in- Publication rec ord for this book is
available from the British Library.
Copyright © 1984, 1990 by Candace Falk
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers
University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only
exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
Amer i can National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
www . rutgersuniversitypress . org
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
To Sarah T. Crome, whose energy, intelligence,
and hard work facilitated the completion of Love,
Anarchy, and Emma Goldman, and in whose
lifelong commitment to making the world more
just and sane Emma Goldman’s spirit lives on.
And to Mecca Reitman Carpenter, whose
compassion for her father, Ben Reitman, and his
passions, has generously extended to me, to the
Emma Goldman Papers, to this book, and to her
own book No Regrets: Dr. Ben Reitman and the
Women Who Loved Him. Adding poignant
continuity between the past and the pre sent— a
grand tribute to Emma and Ben e tched in history
with more permanence than they themselves
experienced in their own lives together.

Grateful acknowl edgment is made to the following: the
University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Manuscript
Collection, for permission to quote extensively from the Ben
Lewis Reitman Papers; the Department of Rare Books and
Special Collections, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
for permission to quote from Emma Goldman letters in the
Labadie Collection; Boston University Libraries, Special
Collections, for permission to quote from correspondence
with Almeda Sperry and Ben Lewis Reitman; the
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, for permission to
quote from letters in the Emma Goldman collection; the
Tamiment Library at New York University for permission to
quote from their Emma Goldman Papers; the New York
Public Library for permission to quote from the Emma
Goldman Papers, the Rose Pesotta Papers, and the Emma
Goldman Scrapbook in the Rare Books and Manuscripts
Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Tilden and Lenox
Foundations; Yale University Library for permission to
quote from the Harry Weinberger Papers; the Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, for
permission to quote from the Hutchins Hapgood Papers; the
University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, for
permission to quote from a letter from Emma Goldman to
Fremont Older; the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith
College, for permission to quote from the Henriette Pasner
Collection and from the Margaret Sanger Collection; the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin for permission to
quote from the Theodore Herfurth Collection and the
Gwyneth K. Roe Collection; and the International Institute
for Social History in Amsterdam for permission to quote
from their extensive collection of Emma Goldman material.
The real revolutionist— the dreamer, the creative artist, the
iconoclast in what ever line—is fated to be misunderstood,
not only by his own kin, but often by his own comrades.
That is the doom of all great spirits: they are detached from
their environment. Theirs is a lonely life— the life of the
transition stage, the hardest and most difficult period for
the individual as well as for a people.
EMMA GOLDMAN,
“Lonely Lives— Hauptmann,”
The Social Significance of the Modern Drama
Contents
Preface to the Revised Edition xi
Postscript to the Preface xxiii
Author’s Note xxix
1 Something to Hide 1
2 The Daughter of a Dream 11
3 Love, Like a Mighty Spectre 56
4 Promiscuity and Free Love 89
5 Addiction to Love 105
6 Tar and Sagebrush 131
7 Sons and Mothers 155
8 Denying Finalities 162
9 Birth Control and “Blood and Iron Militarism” 172
10 “1917— Excruciating Even Now to Write About It” 203
11 “The Last of a Stormy Chapter”—1918–1919 221
12 Mother Rus sia 239
13 Blown to the Winds 257
14 Border Crossings 277
ix