http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Goldman/images/holiday_card2013.pdf
We are proud to announce the publication of the third volume of our series offering a rare glimpse into the history of Emma Goldman’s role in affirming the right of “freedom of speech, freedom of action, and freedom in love.” Emma Goldman could not have known that the years from 1910 to 1916 would be her most prolific, perhaps the most celebrated in her entire life. Reveling in love and in anarchy, immersed in visions of social harmony, dissent against injustice, and interest in the new, Goldman blossomed as a political theorist, writer, and orator. Volume 3: The American Years, Light and Shadows, 1910-1916 reveals a portrait of a woman, not without her shadows, but essentially in the light of her life. Work has already begun on the forthcoming Volume 4: The War Years 1917-1919 also published by Stanford University Press. Your contribution will help complete the series “Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years 1890-1919” Our only consistent source of support now comes from private donors. Funds from our National Endowment for the Humanities grant will run out in June. The University of California cut-backs have left us completely reliant on outside sources and due to fiscal difficulties at Stanford University Press we have to raise all pre-production editing and layout costs ourselves. Contributors will be highlighted in the acknowledgements in our next volume. and will receive a copy of a Goldman letter written on an important date of your choice. Donors who contribute $250 or more will receive a copy of Volume 3. Volumes 1 and 2 are available, and will be offered as gifts to longtime donors. Book cover photo: Emma Goldman ca. 1910s, The Gerhard Sisters. International Institute for Social History Inside photo: EG at her desk with lilies, ca. 1910s, The Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace Emma Goldman letter to Theodore Dreiser, 27 December 1913. University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library. This holiday card was designed by Andrea Sohn (grand-niece of the late and grand Sarah Crome who, in 1980, helped launch the Emma Goldman Papers) in collaboration with Candace Falk, and underwritten by a generous contributor.
We are proud to announce the publication of the third volume of our series offering a rare glimpse into the history of Emma Goldman’s role in affirming the right of “freedom of speech, freedom of action, and freedom in love.” Emma Goldman could not have known that the years from 1910 to 1916 would be her most prolific, perhaps the most celebrated in her entire life. Reveling in love and in anarchy, immersed in visions of social harmony, dissent against injustice, and interest in the new, Goldman blossomed as a political theorist, writer, and orator. Volume 3: The American Years, Light and Shadows, 1910-1916 reveals a portrait of a woman, not without her shadows, but essentially in the light of her life. Work has already begun on the forthcoming Volume 4: The War Years 1917-1919 also published by Stanford University Press. Your contribution will help complete the series “Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years 1890-1919” Our only consistent source of support now comes from private donors. Funds from our National Endowment for the Humanities grant will run out in June. The University of California cut-backs have left us completely reliant on outside sources and due to fiscal difficulties at Stanford University Press we have to raise all pre-production editing and layout costs ourselves. Contributors will be highlighted in the acknowledgements in our next volume. and will receive a copy of a Goldman letter written on an important date of your choice. Donors who contribute $250 or more will receive a copy of Volume 3. Volumes 1 and 2 are available, and will be offered as gifts to longtime donors. Book cover photo: Emma Goldman ca. 1910s, The Gerhard Sisters. International Institute for Social History Inside photo: EG at her desk with lilies, ca. 1910s, The Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace Emma Goldman letter to Theodore Dreiser, 27 December 1913. University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library. This holiday card was designed by Andrea Sohn (grand-niece of the late and grand Sarah Crome who, in 1980, helped launch the Emma Goldman Papers) in collaboration with Candace Falk, and underwritten by a generous contributor.
Please address your checks to “The UC Berkeley Foundation, ” earmarked to ‘The Emma Goldman Papers.’
Mail your tax-deductible contribution to:
The Emma Goldman Papers
University of California
2241 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA 94720-6030
Or contribute on-line through our website linked to
the campus secure donation site: http://library3.
berkeley.edu/Goldman
Ways to Stay in Touch
Telephone: 510.642.4708
e-mail: emma@berkeley.edu
You can also follow Emma’s lecture
tours, and Project news, on
Facebook: Friends of the
Emma Goldman Papers and
on Twitter: EmmaGPapers.
Everybody’s Right to Beautiful Radiant Things”
Emma Goldman, undoubtedly one of the most notable and influential women in modern American history, consistently promoted a wide range of controversial movements and principles, including anarchism, equality and independence for women, freedom of thought and expression, radical education, sexual freedom and birth control, and union organization and the eight-hour day. Goldman’s advocacy of these causes, which many deemed subversive at the time, helped set the historical context for some of today’s most important political and social debates.
Goldman’s role in securing the right to freedom of speech in America is especially significant. She herself was frequently harassed or arrested when lecturing–if her talks were not banned outright. She worked with the first Free Speech League, which insisted that all Americans have a basic right to express their ideas, no matter how radical or controversial those ideas might seem. Directly out of this work came the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union, setting in motion the beginnings of the modern free speech movement in the United States.
Goldman’s impassioned advocacy of politically unpopular ideas and causes like free love, anarchism, and atheism earned her the title “Red Emma” and led many of the powerful to fear and hate her. Attorney General Caffey wrote in 1917, “Emma Goldman is a woman of great ability and of personal magnetism, and her persuasive powers make her an exceedingly dangerous woman.” But others stressed Goldman’s role as an educator, one who in nationwide lecture tours spread modern ideas and practices to a young and provincial country. One newspaper editor described her as “8,000 years ahead of her time.”
Now, over fifty years after her death, Emma Goldman’s commitment to freedom and equality, her political courage and personal resilience, continue to inspire the public–and stir up controversy.
http://jwa.org/womenofvalor/goldman
Emma Goldman, 1869 – 1940
This exhibit was produced in collaboration with the Emma Goldman Papers.
“I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”
Emma Goldman dedicated her life to the creation of a radically new social order. Convinced that the political and economic organization of modern society was fundamentally unjust, she embraced anarchism for the vision it offered of liberty, harmony and true social justice. For decades, she struggled tirelessly against widespread inequality, repression and exploitation.
Goldman’s deep commitment to the ideal of absolute freedom led her to espouse a wide range of controversial causes. A fiery orator and a gifted writer, she became a passionate advocate of freedom of expression, sexual freedom and birth control, equality and independence for women, radical education, union organization and workers’ rights.
Support for these ideas—many of which were unpopular with mainstream America—earned Goldman the enmity of powerful political and economic authorities. Known as “exceedingly dangerous” and one of the two most dangerous anarchists in America, she was often harrassed or arrested while lecturing, and sometimes banned outright from speaking. Insisting on the right to express herself in the face of overwhelming odds, Goldman became a prominent figure in the establishment of the right to freedom of speech in America.
Although Goldman was hostile to religion in general, her core beliefs emerged in part from a Jewish tradition that championed the pursuit of universal justice. Her early experiences in Russia and as an immigrant to the United States laid the groundwork for her later analyses of political and economic problems, and she understood that her own ideals had their roots in a Jewish historical experience shaped by longstanding oppression. Goldman’s career stands as an important chapter in the history of Jewish activism in America.