Emma Goldman, "Mother Earth," and the Anarchist Awakening

Rachel Hsu

Description

This book unveils the history and impact of an unprecedented anarchist awakening in early twentieth-century America. Mother Earth, an anarchist monthly published by Emma Goldman, played a key role in sparking and spreading the movement around the world.

One of the most important figures in revolutionary politics in the early twentieth century, Emma Goldman (1869–1940) was essential to the rise of political anarchism in the United States and Europe. But as Rachel Hui-Chi Hsu makes clear in this book, the work of Goldman and her colleagues at the flagship magazine Mother Earth (1906–1917) resonated globally, even into the present day. As a Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States in the late nineteenth century, Goldman developed a keen voice and ideology based on labor strife and turbulent politics of the era. She ultimately was deported to Russia due to agitating against World War I. Hsu takes a comprehensive look at Goldman’s impact and legacy, tracing her work against capitalism, advocacy for feminism, and support of homosexuality and atheism.

Hsu argues that Mother Earth stirred an unprecedented anarchist awakening, inspiring an antiauthoritarian spirit across social, ethnic, and cultural divides and transforming U.S. radicalism. The magazine’s broad readership—immigrant workers, native-born cultural elite, and professionals in various lines of work—was forced to reflect on society and their lives. Mother Earth spread the gospel of anarchism while opening it to diversified interpretations and practices. This anarchist awakening was more effective on personal and intellectual levels than on the collective, socioeconomic level.

Hsu explores the fascinating history of Mother Earth, headquartered in New York City, and captures a clearer picture of the magazine’s influence by examining the dynamic teamwork that occurred beyond Goldman. The active support of foreign revolutionaries fostered a borderless radical network that resisted all state and corporate powers. Emma Goldman, “Mother Earth,” and the Anarchist Awakening will attract readers interested in early twentieth-century history, transnational radicalism, and cosmopolitan print culture, as well as those interested in anarchism, anti-militarism, labor activism, feminism, and Emma Goldman.

“There is no boundary of land or time to the resistance of the human mind to coercion; it is world-wide.” —Emma Goldman, The Social Significance of Modern Drama.

This book is a study of why, where, and how anarchism as a radical mode of living developed in Progressive America and beyond. The anarchist English-language monthly Mother Earth (1906-1917), the focus of this book, epitomized the innovation, strengths, and limits of anarchist propaganda in inspiring self-expression and social change. Propaganda, for these anarchists, meant spreading their beliefs by manifesting their cause in a way to which people could respond.Emma Goldman, the publisher, highlighted anarchism as an inclusive ideology while also promoting a coalition between intellectuals and labor in revolutionizing the society. Alexander Berkman, the magazine’s primary editor, advocated labor solidarity across ethnic and national boundaries. Ben Reitman, the business manager of Mother Earth, pushed its production in a commercial style to maximize its radical effect. Other core members, consisting of multi-national immigrants and native-born radicals, helped promote a spectrum of antiauthoritarian agendas. Together, they made Mother Earth the nexus of a hybrid counterculture, surpassing the immediate anarchist movement and making anarchism as widely accessible as possible.

Headquartered in New York City and circulated across the globe, Mother Earth created a comprehensive repertoire of anarchism through its multifarious forms of propaganda. Its core members embraced classical anarchist communism, which advocated a non-coercive, stateless, and classless society based on the voluntary cooperation of free individuals,while promoting and practicing it as a philosophy of life in every phase. Unlike its precursors, which focused on agitating labor strikes, Mother Earth cultivated the native-born intelligent middle class—a new constituency for anarchist communism—for an extensive social reorganization.

Blending politics and art to challenge authorities, Mother Earth promoted itself as “a revolutionary literary magazine devoted to Anarchist thought in sociology, economics, education, and life.” Goldman toured from coast to coast annually to support the magazine while promoting anarchism. In 1907, she and Berkman founded the Mother Earth Publishing Association (MEPA) to bring out a selection of publications on or compatible with anarchism. Core members built up worldwide networks that involved Mother Earth in various libertarian campaigns and social movements. They propagated a wide range of themes, including free speech, syndicalism, modern school education, anti-militarism, prison reform, antiwar, modern drama, free love, sexual liberation, birth control, and women’s emancipation. These agendas partially overlapped with those of other leftist and liberal groups. As a result, the anarchists collaborated but also competed with socialists, labor unionists, feminists, single taxers, bohemian rebels, muckrakers, freethinkers, anti-militarists, and birth control advocates. Mother Earth’s propaganda in speeches, texts, and activities embodied a combination of print activism, sex radicalism, and labor militancy that characterized the Progressive era’s (1890s-1920s) radical politics.

Studying Mother Earth with the proper assessment of its significance would shed light on the history of transnational anarchism and radical culture in the Progressive era. Though recognized by its U.S. or foreign contemporaries and current scholars as the leading anarchist organ in Progressive America, the importance of Mother Earth has not been fully understood. The nature and extent of the magazine’s influence require in-depth elucidation in order to illuminate the place of anarchism in early twentieth-century radicalism. Andrew Cornell’s 2016 book, Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century, remarks that: “the Mother Earth Group’s multipronged strategy of building mass radical unions while boldly leading liberals on the issues of immigration, sexuality, and war remains, to my mind, a high-water mark of sophistication deserving greater study and replication.” Radicalism without Borders seeks not only to illustrate the “multipronged strategy” and “sophistication” of the Mother Earth group, but also to reveal its effects (intended and otherwise) on the anarchist movement. I do this by moving beyond earlier studies of Mother Earth to explicate how it propagated anarchism in a style distinct from its predecessors. A number of factors distinguish this work from earlier scholarship on the subject.

List of Maps

List of Images

Introduction: An Anarchist Awakening Revealed

Part 1 Practices

1. Headquarters Stance

2. Propaganda Space

3. National Movement

4. Transnational Networks

Part 2 Themes

5. Sex Radicalism

6. Modern Drama

7. Labor Activism

8. Free Speech and Anti-Militarism

Epilogue

Sujets

• Political Ideologies
• 20th Century
• Social Activists
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• Women
• Nueva York
• Military
• Woman
• Anarchism
• The Women
• United States
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780268200282
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

EMMA GOLDMAN,
MOTHER EARTH ,
and the
ANARCHIST AWAKENING

Copyright © 2021 by the University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950367
ISBN: 978-0-268-20029-9 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20031-2 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20028-2 (Epub)
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
CONTENTS List of Maps List of Figures List of Appendixes Acknowledgments Introduction. An Anarchist Awakening Revealed Part 1 PRACTICES ONE Headquarters Stance TWO Propaganda Space THREE National Movement FOUR Transnational Networks Part 2 THEMES FIVE Sex Radicalism SIX Modern Drama SEVEN Labor Activism EIGHT Free Speech and Antimilitarism Epilogue Appendixes Notes Bibliography Index
MAPS Map 1. Racial/ethnic enclaves and addresses where Mother Earth ’s headquarters (and its successor, Mother Earth Bulletin , Oct. 1917–Apr. 1918), were located, New York City, 1906–1918 Map 2. Locations of Mother Earth ’s “family events” in New York City, 1906–1917 Map 3. The new subway of greater New York, 1918 Map 4. Locations of Mother Earth ’s headquarters (A–F), “family events,” “congenial spaces,” and “competitive spaces,” New York City, 1906–1917 Map 5. Locations and routes of Mother Earth anarchists in Tarrytown Map 6. Locations of Goldman’s U.S. lecture tours before the publication of Mother Earth (1890s–1905) Map 7. Locations of Goldman’s U.S. lecture tours after the publication of Mother Earth (1906–1917) Map 8. Countries or regions covered by Free Society , 1897–1904 Map 9. Countries or regions covered by Mother Earth , 1906–1917
FIGURES Figure 1. Front cover of Mother Earth 1, no. 1 (January 1906)–1, no. 6 (August 1906) Figure 2. Front cover of Mother Earth 1, no. 7 (September 1906)–2, no. 5 (July 1907) Figure 3. Front cover of Mother Earth 10, no. 1 (March 1915) Figure 4. “210,” 210 East 13th Street (now 208) Figure 5. Webster Hall and Annex, 119–125 East 11th Street, Manhattan Figure 6. Mabel Dodge’s Washington Square apartment Figure 7. Front cover of Mother Earth 9, no. 5 (July 1914) Figure 8. Alexander (Sasha) Berkman addressing the crowd in Union Square, July 11, 1914 Figure 9. Advertisement for the debate between Goldman and Maynard Shipley in the Commonwealth Figure 10. jh, “Light Occupations of the Editor While There Is Nothing to Edit,” from the Little Review Figure 11. Front cover of Mother Earth 11, no. 1 (March 1916) Figure 12. Ricardo Flores Magón and Enrique Flores Magón Figure 13. Front cover of Mother Earth 5, no. 12 (February 1911) Figure 14. The Japanese Martyrs Figure 15. “Free Speech Manifesto” Figure 16. Front cover of Mother Earth , San Diego Edition, 7, no. 4 (June 1912) Figure 17. Front cover of Mother Earth 12, no. 4 (June 1917) Figure 18. Illustration of the manifesto and open letter of the No-Conscription League Figure 19. Illustration of Talia Lavin’s article, indicating the Red influence of Goldman (on the right) on the radical women of New York who sought sociopolitical change Figure 20. A massive Emma Goldman puppet appeared in Washington, DC, as a counterprotest to the white nationalist rally on August 14, 2018
APPENDIXES
1. Agents for Mother Earth
2. Thematic Categories and Titles of Goldman’s Propaganda Lectures, 1906–1917
3. Thematic Categories and Titles of Goldman’s Drama Lectures, 1906–1917
4. Books for Sale by Free Society , 1897–1904
5. Mother Earth Series, Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1907–1918
6. Books Available from Mother Earth and Mother Earth Bulletin , 1907–1918
7. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (I)
8. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (II)
9. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (III)
10. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (IV)
11. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (V)
12. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (VI)
13. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (VII)
14. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (VIII)
15. Series for Sale by Mother Earth (IX)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to write and publish this work, my first in the English language. My life took an important turn in 2010 as I paused my teaching career in Taiwan to study again at Johns Hopkins University. What I learned there resulted in the completion of my dissertation, from which this book is revised and expanded. Over the years, I have accumulated many debts of gratitude to numerous people without whom this book would have been impossible. My advisers, Judith Walkowitz and Ron Walters, to whom I owe the deepest appreciation, were the dream team that one could only hope for. I learned tremendously from their thoughts, their words, and their deeds as people, scholars, and mentors. Mary Ryan, Mary Fissell, and Toby Ditz contributed greatly to the conception, presentation, and revision of my dissertation chapters. My sincere thanks also go to Tobie Meyer-Fong, who enlightened me with her expertise in modern Chinese history, offered me efficient editorial guidance, and showered me with moral support.
During my six years at Johns Hopkins, many colleagues helped me in various ways. I particularly thank Jessica Clark, Ren Pepitone, David Schley, Jessica Valdez, Elizabeth Imber, Emily Mokros, Tara Tran, and Lauren MacDonald for their generous assistance in editing and commenting on my chapters while they were busy with their own work. Members of the Gender History Workshop, such as Katie Hindmarch-Watson, Adam Bisno, Katherine Boyce-Jacino, Jessica Walker, Jessica Keene, Mo Speller, Morgan Shahan, Catherine Hinchliff, Emily Margolis, Meredith Gaffield, and Amira Rose Davis, among others, gave me constructive comments and useful suggestions on several chapters of my dissertation at different stages. Paige Glotzer and Joseph Clark provided me with timely information and assistance both in life and in research. Lunches with my good friend Katherine Bonil Gómez were joyful moments. Megan Zeller, graduate admissions coordinator, and Rachel La Bozetta, administrative assistant, were wonderfully helpful and responsive to my questions. A travel research grant from the Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and the dissertation write-up fellowship from the Department of History at Johns Hopkins both importantly facilitated my research.
Beyond Johns Hopkins, Barry Pateman stands out as the intellectual source from whom I have benefited immensely. Since our first meeting in the summer of 2012 when I conducted my research at the Emma Goldman Archive, Barry has fully demonstrated his anarchistic comradeship in opening his Kate Sharpley Library to me and answering a stream of research questions. His encyclopedic knowledge about anarchist and labor movements, his insights on and corrections of my revised manuscript at different stages, his generous help with translated materials, and his encouragement have been invaluable. I also thank Barry’s wife, Jessica Moran, and Candace Falk at the Emma Goldman Archive, who kindly assisted with my research, and Douglas Haynes and Paola Zamperini, who always readily lent their help. At the last stage of writing the manuscript, I was fortunate to have important, constructive comments from such anarchism experts as Kathy Ferguson, Tom Goyens, and Cynthia Wright. I also appreciate the assistance from Anna Elena Torres and Julie Herrada, whom I met at “A Celebration of Emma Goldman at 150” held by the University of Michigan Library’s Labadie Collection. Among the great team at the University of Notre Dame Press, I particularly want to thank Eli Bortz, editor in chief, for his belief in my work, and Sheila Berg, for her excellent copyediting help.
Friends across national borders have lifted me up with their unfailing support as I pursued my second history PhD in the United States. Margaret Tillman has offered me not only her professional advice on my chapters and my English writing but also her warm advice and generous help, for which I am deeply grateful. During the past few years, the monthly FaceTiming with my close friend Huang Xuelei has importantly boosted my morale and inspired the framework of my book. Back in Taiwan, I owe my profound gratitude to Lu Fang-Shang and Yu Chien-ming, who displayed their unwavering confidence in and genuine care for me. My senior colleagues at National Chengchi University, Liu Long-hsin, Chen Chin-ching, Chen Hong-tu, and Wang Liang-qing, have been my role models as brilliant scholars and teachers. Good friends Wu Pei-ling, Juan Mei-hui, Chen Jen-heng, Wang Cheng-wen, Wang Wen-siou, Zhang Wei-yu, Yi Jolan, Zheng Yi-ting, and Lien Ling-ling have energized me at our annual reunions over the past decade. In particular, I want to thank my close friend, also a brilliant art educator, Wang Li-yan, who responded to my reflections in life and thoughts on research with wisdom.
My most heartfelt gratitude goes to my dearest family, my father, Hsu Jin-shui; my mother, Gao Yu-ching; and my older sister, Hsu Hue-hua. Their unreserved support for my further studies in the United States has been vital. I am deeply indebted to them for their unconditional love. Very regrettably, my father passed away on May 19, 2020, before this book is published. I dedicate this book to him, as a token of my endless gratitude.
Life with my husband, Alistair John Price, has gro