“I welcomed the Welsh crowds and their enthusiasm. The difficulty was not the indifference of the workers, but their dreadful poverty. . . If I could at least enter their lives, share in their struggles, show them that anarchism alone has the key that can transform society and secure their well-being. . .” - Emma Goldman, Living My LifeEmma Goldman is still one of the world's most celebrated radicals, despite the fact she has been dead for over 70 years, a recent survey of anarchists saw her come top of the 'who do you most identify with' question. Her refusal to be associated with the first wave of feminism gave birth to what we now know as anarcha-feminism and beyond her ideological contribution to libertarian socialism her work on contraception, abortion and the rejection of marriage laid the foundations for greater freedoms for countless women and men.
Born in Lithuania in 1869, her family moved to Saint Petersburg when she was 13. An avid reader of radical literature, she fled to the United States in 1885 with her sister to avoid marriage. Attracted to anarchism by the Haymarket affair, Emma was embroiled in some of the most tumultuous events in the protracted period of industrial unrest that characterised the USA at the time. Among other things she was involved in the attempted assassination of "America's most hated man" Henry Clay Frick, imprisoned for incitement to riot and accused of inciting the assassination of US President William McKinley.
