Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman vs. The U.S. Records of the U.S. Supreme Court Appellate Case No. 2619 Transcript on Microfilm

Emma Goldman (1869-1940)

Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches.

She was born in the Russian Empire, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1885, she lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement in 1889. She became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues.

Goldman and her lover Alexander Berkman (also an anarchist writer), planned to assissinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the following years for 'inciting to riot'.

In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release they were arrested with hundreds of others and deported back to Russia.

She supported the Bolshevik revolution at first, but soon after the Kronstadt rebellion, reversed her opinion and denounced the Soviet Union.

She published a book about her experiences, "My Disillusionment in Russia", in 1923. She wrote an autobiography called "Living My Life" while she was living in England, Canada, and France. After the start of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there.

Emma Goldman died in Toronto on May 14, 1940 at age 70.