AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: EMMA GOLDMAN (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series. This production examines the life of radical and revolutionary Emma Goldman. The production uses archival photos and re-enactments to supplement the narration of historical details. The program opens by telling of Goldman's arrival in America at age sixteen, having escaped an arranged marriage in her native Lithuania in 1885. Playwright Tony Kushner comments that Goldman wanted to reinvent herself in "a whole new world," having been raised in St. Petersburg in an autocratic family that she found stifling. At age twenty, she walked out on a loveless marriage to a fellow immigrant in upstate New York, where she had worked in factories for four years.
Upon arriving in New York City, she quickly met Alexander "Sasha" Berkman at Sach's Cafe, the unofficial meeting place for Yiddish-speaking anarchists on the Lower East Side. The two developed a lifelong friendship and were occasional lovers. Goldman also came in contact with German anarchist Johann Most, who became her mentor and idol. Novelist E.L. Doctorow states that revolutionary ideals took the place of God for Goldman, who espoused -- along with Berkman -- that acts of political violence could be justified. According to historian Oz Frankel, Goldman had been "baptized by violence" at an early age.
In 1892, Goldman and Berkman conceived a plot to kill Henry Clay Frick, the anti-unionist factory manager of a mill in Homestead, Penn., where a fight between striking workers and Pinkerton guards had resulted in many deaths. Berkman's assassination attempt only wounded Frick, after which Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman's part in the plot was never discovered. Goldman couldn't understand why workers subsequently ended the strike and supported the capitalist movement, which she found deplorable.
Historian David Thelen recounts how, the following year, Goldman led a march to New York City's Union Square to showcase those suffering when an economic crisis, the Panic of 1893, struck the country. After telling listeners to take bread by force, she was arrested for "inciting to riot." Upon her release from a year in prison, Goldman addressed women's rights and burgeoning sexuality, making yet more enemies among authority figures as well as "the progressives."
After giving a talk promoting political assassination in 1901, Goldman was widely condemned when one of her listeners -- Leon Czolgosz -- subsequently shot President William McKinley, leading to his death. Goldman was soon arrested as an accessory and held for two weeks. Biographer Alice Wexler notes that Goldman romanticized Czolgosz, leading to her defense of his actions and further alienating herself from the public. When anarchists accused Goldman of doing irreparable harm to the movement in 1902, she turned to nursing in Lower East Side tenements.
By 1906, Goldman was back to lecturing and began a magazine to espouse her beliefs, "Mother Earth." When Berkman was released from prison, he took over the magazine while she returned to the lecture circuit. Though the pair attempted to resume their romance, both acknowledged that too much time had elapsed. Wexler states that Goldman soon fell in love with social reformer Ben Reitman, known as "the hobo doctor." For the next decade, Goldman and Reitman traveled the country promoting "radical agitation." According to historian Stephen Cole, Goldman's comments about "free speech" led to a growing number of converts to her belief system.
Historian Barry Pateman tells how an increase in anti-labor violence strengthened Goldman's resolve against industrialists and government forces. Goldman subsequently toured the country to great success while advocating for birth control. However, Goldman's actions resulted in her arrest in New York City, after which she was sentenced to fifteen days in a workhouse. Reitman received a six-month sentence. Upon release, he told Goldman that he'd fallen in love with another woman, permanently ending their union.
When America entered World War I in 1917, Goldman spoke against it, stating that such actions were "morally wrong." Subsequent lectures by Goldman and Berkman motivated rising Library of Congress worker J. Edgar Hoover to collect information on them. After police raided Goldman's apartment and confiscated many of her papers, Goldman and Berkman were charged with conspiracy to violate the draft act. Each received a twenty-two month prison term.
According to Cole, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 left authorities worried about a reinvigorated labor movement, and encouraged the deportation of figures like Goldman and Berkman. The two were soon served with warrants and imprisoned at Ellis Island. Wexler states that, after living in America for thirty-four years, Goldman was devastated by her exile.
Reaching Russia in 1920, Goldman was shocked by its economic conditions and troubled by those she saw starving to death. Pateman tells how Goldman and Berkman later met with Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to complain about the lack of free speech, which he dismissed as "a bourgeois notion." After Bolsheviks openly attacked a community of anarchists, Goldman and Berkman left Russia. Pateman says that Goldman realized that she'd been "a fool" and committed "an error of great magnitude." Goldman then crusaded against the Bolsheviks while taking up residence in England, Canada, and France.
In 1927, American arts patron Peggy Guggenheim cabled Goldman that she had bought her a cottage in St. Tropez. From her new home, Goldman continued to correspond with her "lifelong comrade" Berkman about her perpetually unhappy state. She learned that he had killed himself in 1936. Pateman says that Berkman's death was the biggest loss in Goldman's life. Following the publication of her autobiography, Goldman briefly visited America before moving to Canada. After suffering a stroke there in 1940, she was paralyzed and unable to speak. Three months later, she had another stroke which killed her. The U.S. government allowed Goldman's body to be buried in a Chicago cemetery near the graves of fellow anarchists. Includes two show-sponsored commercials.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: April 12, 2004 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:26:47
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 100375
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Biography; Radicalism
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1988-
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Liberty Mutual insurance
- TV - Commercials - Scotts gardening/lawn products
CREDITS
- Mark Samels … Executive Producer
- Susan Mottau … Coordinating Producer
- Mel Bucklin … Producer, Director, Writer
- Liz Renner … Associate Producer
- Brian Keane … Music by
- Mark Adler … Theme Music by
- Blair Brown … Narrator
- Jill Anderson … Cast
- Nathan Carlson … Cast
- Kevin Lawler … Cast
- Linda Emond … Voice
- Denis O'Hare … Voice
- Alexander "Sasha" Berkman
- Stephen Cole
- Leon Czolgosz
- E.L. Doctorow
- Oz Frankel
- Emma Goldman
- Peggy Guggenheim
- J. Edgar Hoover
- Vladimir Lenin
- William McKinley
- Johann Most
- Barry Pateman
- Ben Reitman
- Alice Wexler