workingclasshistory:

On this day, 14 May 1940, Emma Goldman, legendary anarchist and advocate of women’s rights and sexual freedom, died in Toronto, Canada aged 70.
Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, she emigrated to the US, where she became known as “Red Emma.” She was an electrifying public speaker and an extremely competent propagandist, who was arrested countless times for her activism and was described by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as the “most dangerous woman in America.”
In the 1890s she helped run an ice cream shop with her companion Alexander Berkman, who then tried to assassinate an industrialist who had had striking workers killed. When Berkman was imprisoned, Goldman helped organise an audacious jailbreak attempt, digging a tunnel into the prison from a nearby house, although it was unsuccessful.
She was eventually deported from the US because of her activities to Russia, where she joined the revolution, although she became critical of the Bolshevik state when they began repressing workers’ strikes and protests. Later she travelled to Spain to aid in the fight against fascism during the Spanish civil war, and remained active until the end.
We have some of her work, as well as posters and more, available in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/feminism/emma-goldman
Pictured: a young Emma Goldman https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1425633067621839/?type=3