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The American Century by Harold Evans [amazon] has a full page photo of Emma and covers the context of the anarchist movement in the United States |
The heavily promoted, The Century by Peter Jennings et al [amazon] does not even bother to mention Emma Goldman (yet manages to include Bernard Geotz). Only a passing mention is made of anarchists in reference to the Russian Revolution. This book definitely fails the Emma Goldman Test. |
Can a book which claims to be about US history in the 20th century
not mention Emma Goldman?
The American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History by John
MacK Faragher [amazon]
- has a listing for Emma Goldman and anarchism
100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century by Kevin Markey [amazon]
Emma is listed as one of the 100 (along with Ann Frank)
A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present by Howard
Zinn [amazon]
- some mention, but would think that he would have done more.
Other books which purport to cover US history, but have nothing about Emma Goldman.
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American
radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day,
Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality
and independence, union organization, and the eight-hour work day. Her criticism
of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I
led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919. For the
rest of her life until her death in 1940 - Emma
Goldman Papers ... Emma Goldman was born in 1869 in a Jewish ghetto in Russia
where her family ran a small inn. ... Emma
Goldman bio at Anarchism & Womens liberation page
Sources:
Emma Goldman Papers - an
academic research site with extensive source materials.
Goldman
Collected Works - at Anarchy Archives with complete Emma Goldman
Bibliography
Emma Goldman Exhibit
- Special Collections Library, Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan
Goldman's insistence on freedom of speech had a profound influence on Roger
Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Baldwin heard Goldman
speak in 1908 at a working class meeting hall in St. Louis, and what he heard
led him to dedicate his life to the cause of freedom. He later told Goldman
in a letter,
"You always remain one of the chief inspirations of my life, for you aroused in me a sense of what freedom really means." In his old age, Baldwin said, "Emma Goldman opened up not only an entirely new literature to me, but new people as well, some who called themselves anarchists, some libertarians, some freedom lovers . . . bound together by one principle--freedom from coercion."
Source: Emma Goldman and Free Speech [sunsite]
Emma Goldman was one of the most influential women in modern American history.
She is responsible for much of the sexual freedom, equality, and civil rights
that women possess today. Goldman, though revered by fellow anarchists, was
a very scandalous and politically feared figure. She frequently lectured about
the positive effects birth control had on society, and the illegal nature of
her lectures frequently led her to prison. Goldmanís experience in protesting
led her to found the American Civil Liberties Union, which is still a prominent
political institution. Goldman had such passion for all forms of protest that
she soon became an advocate of anarchism and atheism, although she never formally
claimed the anarchist party. Emma
Goldman : American Anarchist by Sunni Graves
Goldman spoke often and widely, not only on anarchism and social problems but
also on the current European drama of Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, G.B.
Shaw, and others. She was instrumental in introducing many European playwrights
to an American audience. Her lectures on that topic were published in 1914 as
The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. She also lectured on "free
love," by which she meant that uncoerced attachment between two persons
to whom conventions of law and church were irrelevant, and on birth control,
for which she was briefly jailed in 1916. - Goldman,
Emma at Encyclopædia Britannica Women in American History
Emma quotes ...
"If I can't dance, I don't want to join your revolution."
"It takes less mental effort to condemn than to think."
"Society gets all the ciminals it deserves."
The State, every government whatever its form, character or color -- be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik -- is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.
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