Government, media, and medical accounts of Emma Goldman converged to create her public presence in the U.S. as a “dangerous individual.” The prevailing discourses constituted Goldman as violent, utilizing her alleged menace to distract attention from far more egregious violence against labor by state and corporate forces. Goldman responded by denying, confronting, and redirecting the alarmed gaze toward greater risks left underarticulated in hegemonic accounts. Goldman's bold confrontations with authorities constituted a kind of anarchist parrhesia, fearless speech, a relentless truth-telling practice that risked her own security in pursuit of her “beautiful ideal.” The labor of remembering America's history of class violence hones our attention to the complex discursive processes by which some historical facts come to count in prevailing narratives, while others fade into obscurity.
J. Edgar Hoover, "Memorandum for Mr. Creighton," U.S. Department of Justice (August 23, 1919), 2. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/deportation.html (accessed July 19, 2007).
2.
David Wellbery, Introduction, in Friedrich A. Kittler, Discourse Networks 1800/1900, trans. Michael Metteer with Chris Cullens (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press , 1990), xiii.
3.
Michel Foucault, "About the Concept of the `Dangerous Individual' in Nineteenth Century Legal Psychiatry," in Power, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley and others, in Essential Works of Foucault, vol. 3, series ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: New Press , 2000), 192.
4.
Alex Kates Shulman, "Introduction," in Red Emma Speaks: Selected Writings and Speeches by Emma Goldman (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 11-12.
5.
Ibid, 11.
6.
See Wendy McElroy, Individualist Feminism of the Nineteenth Century (McFarland , 2001). For Goldman's relation to the rest of anarchism and the Left in the U.S., see Marian J. Morton, Emma Goldman and the American Left: Nowhere at Home (New York: Twayne, 1992).
7.
See Candace Falk, "Let Icons Be Bygones!" in Feminist Interpretations of Emma Goldman , ed. Penny A. Weiss and Loretta Kensinger (University Park, PA , 2007), 48.
8.
I am focusing primarily on Goldman's time in the U.S. (1885-1919). For discussion of her work in Spain, see David Porter, Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution (New Paltz, NY: Commonground Press, 1983); for discussion of her work in Canada, see Theresa Moritz and Albert Moritz, The World's Most Dangerous Woman (Vancouver: Subway Books, 2001).
9.
Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001), p. 19.
10.
While other discursive sites could be examined for traces of Emma Goldman, including the emergence of modernism in the arts, the evolution of Jewish immigrant communities, the sermons of religious leaders, and the activities of the anarchist movement, the discursive practices of police, reporters, and doctors stand out because they produced so many words about Goldman. Consideration of these other sites for the production of discourse is given in the longer work in progress, Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming).
11.
Wellbery, in Kittler, xii.
12.
Hoover, 2.
13.
Richard Drinnon , Rebel in Paradise: A Biography of Emma Goldman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 214. Estimates vary substantially as to the number of arrests.
14.
Candice Falk, ed., Emma Goldman: A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1995), 246. The draconian federal laws were accompanied by a series of criminal anarchy laws at the state level, with New York leading the way in 1902 and 34 other states following suit by 1921.
15.
This is a paraphrase of Foucault, "Dangerous Individual," 182.
16.
Falk, Emma Goldman, 15.
17.
"The Law's Limit," The New York World (October 17, 1893) in Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 1, Made for America, 1890-1901, ed. Candice Falk, Barry Pateman, and Jessica Moran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 179.
18.
Mathieu Deflem , "`Wild Beasts Without Nationality': The Uncertain Origins of Interpol, 1989-1910," in The Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice, ed. Philip Reichel ( Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), 275-85. http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zwildbeasts.htm (accessed March 1, 2008). As part of an international clampdown on an anticipated worldwide anarchist conspiracy, 21 European governments met in Rome in 1898 for an International Conference for the Defense of Society against the Anarchists. A second conference in March 1904 brought 10 European governments to St. Petersburg where they produced "A Secret Protocol for the International War on Anarchism." See Deflem, "Wild Beasts Without Nationality," and Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 346, fn. 2.
19.
The Austrian foreign minister, in 1898, after the assassination of Empress Elisabeth, quoted in Deflem, "Wild Beasts Without Nationality."
20.
"Extradition Order from the French Government," Paris (March 26, 1901) in Falk, Pateman, and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 439. Goldman evidently was never served this order, having left France before it was issued.
21.
"Official Circular of the German Government," Dusseldorf (September 25, 1895) in Falk, Pateman, and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 220.
22.
Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 76-77.
23.
"Anarchy's Den," New York World (July 28, 1892) in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 111.
24.
"Goldman Traces Anarchy to 1776," Spokesman-Review (May 31, 1908) in Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 2, Making Speech Free, 1902-1909, ed. Candice Falk, Barry Pateman, and Jessica Moran (Berkeley: University of California Press , 2005), 327.
25.
Falk, " Introduction," in Ibid, vol. 2, 71.
26.
Charles Willis Thompson, "An Interview with Emma Goldman," The New York Times (May 30, 1909), quoted in Ibid, vol. 2, 431.
"Assassin's Trail of Crime from Chicago to the Pacific Coast ," The San Francisco Chronicle (September 8, 1901) in Ibid, vol. 1, 461.
29.
"Anarchy's Den," in Ibid, vol. 1, 112.
30.
Falk, " Introduction," in Ibid, vol. 1, 34.
31.
Falk, " Introduction," in Ibid, vol. 2, 2.
32.
"Constructing the Anarchist Beast in American Periodical Literature, 1880-1903," Critical Studies in Mass Communication, no. 9 (1992): 110-13, quoted in Alan Antliff, Anarchist Modernism: Art, Politics, and the First American Avant-Garde (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001 ), 48.
33.
For insightful discussion of later debates over Goldman's alleged dangerousness, especially during her 1934 return to the U.S., see Oz Frankel, "Whatever Happened to `Red Emma'? Emma Goldman, from Alien Rebel to American Icon,"The Journal of American History83, no. 3 (December 1996): 903-42.
34.
Brothers Lorenzo and Orson Fowler popularized phrenology in the U.S., becoming prominent as the "heads of a phrenological empire based at the Phrenological Institute in New York City" (Madeline B. Stern, "Mark Twain Had His Head Examined," American Literature41, no. 2 (May 1969): 207-18; quote from p. 207). They published a substantial array of books and self-help manuals linking phrenology with health, fitness, and other progressive movements of the time. The Phrenology Institute boasted its own museum, nicknamed "the Golgotha of Gotham-a veritable House of Skulls" ( Stern, "Mark Twain," 207) which served as a site of research and a popular tourist attraction.
35.
Stern, "Mark Twain," 208.
36.
Madeleine B. Stern, Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers (Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 26, 68, 138.
37.
Ibid, 211.
38.
Ibid, 258.
39.
Ibid, 154-55.
40.
"Character in Unconventional People," Phrenological Journal and Science of Health (February 1895), in Falk, Pateman, and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 214.
41.
Ibid, 214.
42.
Ibid, 215.
43.
Foucault, "Dangerous Individual ," 189.
44.
"Character in Unconventional People," 215.
45.
Ibid, 215-16. Stern reports that the editors of the Journal saw their treatment of Goldman as "charitable," since it was a "violation of professional ethics" to emphasize perceived faults of the subjects in published readings (Heads and Headlines, 233).
46.
Foucault, "Dangerous Individual ," 199.
47.
Ibid, 192.
48.
Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 2.
49.
Ibid, 6.
50.
This essay considers only her relation to acts of individual political rebellion rather than to the larger question of collective violence or social revolution. While of course the two are related, it is beyond the scope of this essay to consider the latter except as background for Goldman's political goals and for the fears of social change expressed by her enemies.
51.
One might speculate that Goldman and other anarchists benefited from their ominous image, since being thought dangerous might be an advantage to those battling the status quo. However, the concrete consequences for Goldman-lectures prohibited, publications seized, meetings broken up, numerous arrests and imprisonments-interfered with her work considerably, perhaps outweighing possible benefits such as attracting more media attention, inspiring workers to revolt, or intimidating authorities.
52.
Mike Davis , interviewed by Jon Wiener, "Mike Davis Talks about the `Heroes of Hell,'" Radical History Review85 (2003): 227-37; quoted on p. 227 .
53.
Ibid, 227.
54.
Ibid, 231, 233.
55.
Ibid, 236.
56.
Goldman's correspondence in the 1920s reveals that anarchist editor Claus Timmerman knew about the plot against Frick, and Modest Stein, Berkman's cousin, had planned to finish Frick after Berkman failed to kill him (Falk, "Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 2, 6, fn. 7).
57.
"Hailed Emma Goldman," The New York World (August 1894) in Falk, Pateman, and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 207.
58.
"Talk with Emma Goldman" (January 1901) in Ibid, vol. 1, 431.
59.
"Tyranny of Policy Publicly Denounced," Philadelphia North American (April 1901) in Ibid, vol. 1, 447.
60.
"My Year in Stripes" (August 1894), in Ibid, vol. 1, 195.
61.
"Address to the Jury," in Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader, 3d ed., ed. Alex Kates Shulman (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1998), 359.
62.
Davis, "Mike Davis Talks ," 228.
63.
The day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001, this essay was posted on the web.
64.
Anarchism and Other Essays (New York: Dover, 1969), 80.
65.
Ibid, 83.
66.
Ibid, 92, 93.
67.
In Falk, Pateman , and Moran, EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 434.
68.
"Address to the Jury," 364.
69.
"The Psychology of Political Violence," in Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader, 3d ed., ed. Alix Kates Shulman (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996), 279.
70.
Ibid, 270.
71.
Ibid, 274.
72.
While Goldman did not always travel to prominent sites of labor struggles, she addressed the silk workers in Patterson, New Jersey; United Mine Workers in Springfield, Illinois; American Labor Union in Newark, New Jersey; Glass Blowers' Union in Monaca, Pennsylvania; Brewers' and Malters' Union, Painters and Decorators Union, and Scandinavian Painters Union in Chicago; United Labor League in Philadelphia; Working Women's Society of the United Hebrew Trade Organization in New York; the anarchist branches of the Central Labor Unions, especially those in Boston and Detroit; International Working Men's Association (IWMA) and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) around the country. See " Chronology" in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 489-515, and vol. 2, 469-506.
73.
Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 2, 56-57.
74.
Falk, EmmaGoldman, 10. Falk points out that Frederick C. Griffin, Six Who Protested: Radical Opposition to the First World War (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1977) interpreted Goldman as a pacifist.
75.
To the Barricades: The Anarchist Life of Emma Goldman (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971), vii.
76.
Candace Falk , Lyn Reese, and Mary Agnes Dougherty, The Life and Times of Emma Goldman: A Curriculum for Middle and High School Students (Berkeley: University of California, 1992).
77.
Leslie A. Howe , On Goldman (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000), 48.
78.
See Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 2, 59, 28-29. A fourth individual who was not one of the anarchist plotters was also killed in the blast.
79.
This anecdote was shared with me by Barry Pateman.
80.
Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 2, 31.
81.
Foucault, Fearless Speech , 19-20.
82.
Don Herzog , "Romantic Anarchism and Pedestrian Liberalism ," Political Theory35, no. 3 (June 2007): 313-33, quoted on p. 319.
83.
Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 2, 1-2.
84.
Ibid, 79, 4.
85.
Foucault, Fearless Speech , 33.
86.
Bonnie Honig , "Bound by Law? Alien Rights, Administrative Discretion, and the Politics of Technicality: Lessons from Louis Post and the First Red Scare," in The Limits of Law, ed. Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Merrill Umphrey ( Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 209-45, quote from p. 244, fn. 62.
87.
Deflem, "Wild Beasts Without Nationality," 278.
88.
Davis, " Mike Davis Talks," 228, passim. The interview with Mike Davis quoted here is part of his work in progress, "a world history of revolutionary terrorism from 1878 to 1932," 227.
89.
Ibid, 228, 235.
90.
Ibid, 227.
91.
Ibid, 235.
92.
Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 73.
93.
Foucault, "Dangerous Individual ," 192.
94.
David Grimsted, "Violence" http://www.bookrags.com/history/americanhistory/violence-aaw-02.html (accessed July 19, 2007).
95.
It is arguable that, by limiting access to birth control information and technologies to several generations of women, authorities contributed to many thousands of women's deaths in childbirth, botched illegal abortions, and the slow legal murder brought on by starvation and malnutrition. See Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 150, passim.
96.
Falk, " Introduction," in Falk, Pateman, and Moran , EmmaGoldman, vol. 1, 4.
97.
Ibid, 19.
98.
Ibid, 20, citing Thomas Sewell Adams and Helen L. Sumner, eds., Labor Problems (New York: MacMillan, 1907), xx.
99.
Ibid, 19-20.
100.
Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, Labor's Untold Story ( New York: Cameron Associates, 1955 ), 142.
101.
Ibid, 68.
102.
Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives ( New York: G. W. Carleton, 1878). Reprinted in Robert Fogelson and Richard Rubenstein, eds., Mass Violence in America (New York: Arno Press, 1969).
103.
To my knowledge, there is no central, authoritative source for information on murdered or injured workers. Available sources include: Boyer and Morais, Labor's Untold Story; History Matters, American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) http://www.historymatters.gmu.edu/ (accessed March 1, 2008); Michael Novak, The Guns of Latimer (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin Kelley, Three Strikes (Boston: Beacon, 2001). Several further qualifications about the context of violence against labor are relevant. First, highlighting this violence throws into shadow the parallel terror against blacks (most of whom were, of course, also laborers, but were specifically targeted because of their color) in Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and lynching. Second, there was episodic violence by strikers against strike breakers, often blacks, Asians, and the most recent immigrants, who of course were also workers. Third, the larger structural violence against labor included the semi-starvation of workers during strikes and lock outs, their removal from their homes, their deportation, their deaths and injuries from unsafe industrial and mining conditions, and their overall poverty and suffering. Without denying these other violences, my point here is to call attention to the enormous number of instances of direct violence against workers to highlight critical events in the submerged history of labor.
104.
Boyer and Morais, Labor's Untold Story, 278-79.
105.
Stephen Norwood , Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth Century America (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 4.
106.
Herzog, " Romantic Anarchism and Pedestrian Liberalism," 314.
107.
Ibid, 326.
108.
Goldman, " Address to the Jury," 369, passim.
109.
Foucault, " Dangerous Individual," 199.
110.
See Monisha Das Gupta , Unruly Immigrants: Rights, Activism, and South Asian Transnational Politics in the United States (Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press, 2006) for discussion of contemporary violence against immigrant domestic workers.
111.
Guy Ryder, General Secretary, "Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights," International Trade Union Confederation (2007) http://survey07.ituc-csi.org/getcontinent.php?IDContinent=0&IDLang=EN (accessed March 1, 2008).
112.
James Parks, "Violence against Workers Still Rampant in Columbia," AFL-CIO Web-blog (January 17, 2008) http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/17/violence-against-workers-still-rampant-in-colombia/ (accessed March 1, 2008).
