TIMELINE OF EMMA GOLDMAN’S LIFE Goldman’s storied life is well-documented. This timeline is adapted and drawn from the work of the Emma Goldman Papers Project archivists, who created a highly detailed, comprehensive timeline: https://libcom.org/history/emma-goldman-extended-timeline This brief version is intended to give a taste of her interactions with historical events, lecture tours, travels, and intellectual production.
1869 June 27 Emma Goldman was born in Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania, which was then a province of the Russian Empire. Her youth was spent in Kovno, Popelan, Königsberg, and St. Petersburg. “The dates on her tombstone in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago are wrong.” 1870 November 21 Alexander (Sasha) Berkman born in Vilne, Russia (now Vilnius, Lithuania). 1881 March 1 Czar Alexander II assassinated in St. Petersburg, Russia. 1885 December Goldman immigrates to Rochester, N.Y. 1886 The Haymarket Affair unfolds: on May 1, three hundred thousand workers across the US strike for an 8-hour workday. On May 4, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, a bomb is thrown after a protest against police violence. Seven officers were killed. Masses of German immigrants in Chicago are rounded up. Several anarchists were held responsible for the bomb, though the actual bomb-thrower was never identified. Four anarchists (three of whom were immigrants) were executed in November 1887, their deaths galvanizing the labor movement. Goldman was radicalized by the Haymarket trial and execution. 1887 February Goldman marries fellow factory worker Jacob A. Kersner and gains U.S. citizenship. 1888 Goldman divorces Kersner and leaves Rochester. 1889 Goldman arrives in New York City and meets the German orator Johann Most, editor of Die Freiheit. Goldman works at Die Freiheit’s office. Goldman and Alexander (Sasha) Berkman become lovers. 1890 January Goldman goes on her first lecture tour, organized by Johann Most, speaking in Yiddish and German. She finds her voice as an orator and thinker. Topics of her lectures include “Paris Commune, 1871” and “The Right To Be Lazy.” 1892 Goldman moves to Massachusetts and opens small businesses, including an ice-cream parlor. Later that year, she returns to New York City. July-August At the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, PA, nine striking steel workers are killed by Pinkertons, hired by Henry Clay Frick. Goldman and Berkman decide to avenge their deaths. July 23 Berkman tries and fails to assassinate Frick. Police raid Goldman’s apartment and seize her papers. Debates rage within the labor movement about violence and strategy. September 19 Berkman found guilty and sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman falls in love with Austrian anarchist Edward Brady. 1893 August The day after a riot of the unemployed on Aug. 17, Goldman addresses a public meeting, urging those in need to take bread if they are hungry. The next evening, she helps lead a procession of several 3
