Character Catalog

Monthly anarchist journal founded and edited by Goldman, the primary outlet for radical ideas in the United States. She used it to publish articles on feminism, individual freedom, and resistance to capitalism.

A collection of foundational essays laying out her vision of anarchism as a philosophy of total liberation. A landmark text in English-language anarchist thought.

An essay in which Goldman analyzes the theater of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Shaw as a vehicle for social critique and emancipation, reflecting her broad artistic and intellectual sensibility.

A critical account of her time in Soviet Russia, in which she condemns the Bolshevik betrayal of revolutionary ideals. A major document in the anarchist critique of Leninism.

A monumental two-volume autobiography tracing her journey from Jewish immigrant to a defining figure of international anarchism. An essential historical source on American radicalism in the early twentieth century.

A collection of her writings and correspondence on the Spanish Civil War, documenting her commitment to the CNT-FAI anarchists through the defeat of the Republic.

Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.

I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things. Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world.

The most vital right is the right to love and be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.

The Jewish immigrant neighborhood where Goldman settled upon arriving in the United States. It was here that she witnessed workers' poverty firsthand and embraced anarchism.

The New York prison where Goldman was incarcerated in 1893. There she learned nursing and lived alongside the most marginalized women in American society.

The site of the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument, a pilgrimage destination for anarchists worldwide. Goldman was buried there in 1940, having asked to rest near these founding figures of the movement.

Goldman traveled to Russia in 1919, hoping to see anarchism flourish in the wake of the revolution. Bolshevik repression quickly disillusioned her.

The heart of Spanish anarchism, where Goldman stayed during the Civil War (1936–1938). She witnessed and supported the revolutionary experiment led by the CNT-FAI.