Emma (Goldman) Colton (1869 - 1940)

Emma Goldman was born June 27, 1869 in Kovno, Kovno Governate, Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania).^[1] She was a daughter of Abraham Goldman and Taube Bienowitch. She was born to a Jewish family, they emigrated to the United States and arrived June 18, 1887 in New York, New York, United States.^[2][3]

She married Jacob Kershner in February 1887 and in less than a year they divorced.

Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Frick survived the attempt on his life in 1892 and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. On October 16, 1893 Goldman was sentenced to the New York Penitentiary for unlawful assembly .^[4] She was discharged on August 17, 1894. ^[4]

In 1915 Goldman conducted a nationwide speaking tour in part to raise awareness about contraception options. She was arrested on February 11, 1916, as she was about to give another public lecture. Goldman was charged with violating the Comstock Law. Refusing to pay a $100 fine, Goldman spent two weeks in a prison workhouse.

Goldman was released from prison during America's Red Scare of 1919–20. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover, head of the US Department of Justice's General Intelligence Division, were intent on using the Anarchist Exclusion Act and its 1918 expansion to deport any non-citizens they could identify as advocates of anarchy or revolution. Hoover wrote, "Emma Goldman, is, beyond doubt, one of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and return to the community will result in undue harm."

At her deportation hearing on October 27, she refused to answer questions about her beliefs on the grounds that her American citizenship invalidated any attempt to deport her under the Anarchist Exclusion Act. Louis Post at the Department of Labor, which had ultimate authority over deportation decisions, determined that the revocation of her husband's American citizenship in 1908 had revoked hers as well.

The Labor Department included Goldman among 249 aliens it deported en masse.^[5] Buford, a ship the press nicknamed the "Soviet Ark," sailed from the Army's New York Port of Embarkation on December 21. Upon arrival in Finland, authorities there conducted the deportees to the Russian frontier under a flag of truce.

In 1925, the threat of deportation loomed again, but a Scottish anarchist, James Colton offered to marry her and provide British citizenship. She married James Colton on June 27. 1925 in Marylebone, London, England.^[6] Her new status allowed her to travel to France and Canada

In 1928 and began writing her autobiography while living in a cottage in the French coastal city of Saint-Tropez and spent two years recounting her life. In 1933, Goldman received permission to lecture in the United States under the condition that she speak only about drama and her autobiography. She returned to New York on February 2, 1934.^[1] Her visa expired in May, and she went to Toronto in order to file another request to visit the US. However, this second attempt was denied. She stayed in Canada, writing articles for US publications.

As the events preceding World War II began to unfold in Europe, Goldman reiterated her opposition to wars waged by governments. "[M]uch as I loathe Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Franco", she wrote to a friend, "I would not support a war against them and for the democracies which, in the last analysis, are only Fascist in disguise." She felt that Britain and France had missed their opportunity to oppose fascism, and that the coming war would only result in "a new form of madness in the world".

On Saturday, February 17, 1940, Goldman suffered a debilitating stroke. She became paralyzed on her right side, and although her hearing was unaffected, she could not speak. She suffered another stroke on May 8, and died on May 14, 1940 in Toronto, Canada at the age of 70. The US Immigration and Naturalization Service allowed her body to be brought back to the United States. She was buried in German Waldheim Cemetery (aka Forest Home Cemetery) in Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois.^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} United States Border Crossings from Canada to United States, 1895-1956, Emma Goldman Colton, b. 27 Jul 1869, Kovno. Immigration 1 Feb 1934.
2. ↑ United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897 Emma Goldman, 18 Jun 1887; citing Germans to America Passenger Data file, 1850-1897, Ship W A Scholten, departed from Rotterdam, arrived in New York, New York, New York, United States, NAID identifier 1746067, National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
3. ↑ United States Census, 1910, Emma Goldman, Manhattan Ward 17, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 931, sheet 7A, family 139.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} New York, U.S., Discharges of Convicts, 1882-1915. [database on-line] Ancestry.com. Operations, Inc., 2014.
5. ↑ U.S., Subject Index to Correspondence and Case Files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1903-1959. Emma Goldman. Dec 1919 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
6. ↑ England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005 Emma Kershner and null, 1925; quarter 2, vol. 1A, p. 1391, Marylebone, London, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
7. ↑ Find A Grave, memorial page for Emma Goldman (27 Jun 1869–14 May 1940), Find a Grave Memorial ID 401, citing Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois, USA.

See also:

• The Boston Jewish Advocate Index to Obituary Notices, 1905-2007

• Wikipedia[1]