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Emma Goldman April Newsletter is Out!

Dearest Emmassaries,

April is the season of renewal, when buds burst and nature is reborn. Thanks to your generous support, UC Berkeley has allowed the Emma Goldman Papers to keep working on the production of Volume Four through April only. With your support, we will make it through the Spring semester, month-to-month at $27,000 month. We have extraordinary fundraising news—see below.  

Emma, however, who was in constant contact with her supporters, found various aspects of fundraising quite “vulgar” as you will see in the story below...

Emma—widely known today for her ability to inspire audiences to look beyond the injustices of the present to a future in which social and economic equality would take hold—and for her tolerance of what lies between the present and the future, also had very strong, lesser known, likes and dislikes as revealed by her friend Margaret Anderson. Margaret was the avant-garde literary editor and publisher of The Little Review, which Emma once described as “a magazine to sound a note of rebellion in creative endeavour! . . . alive to new art forms and was free from the mawkish sentimentality of most American publications. Its main appeal to me lay in its strong and fearless critique of conventional standards, something I had been looking for in the United States for twenty-five years.”

“Although she gives the impression of being able to stand anything, there are any number of things she can’t stand. She can’t stand wearing a fur coat— the thought of the murdered animal would suffocate her. She can’t stand food that has been cooked by inexpert hands— she will go hungry rather than eat it. She can’t stand small handkerchiefs, certain colors, many perfumes, flowers in a room at night. She can’t stand reporters’ questions. She can’t stand references to money. I once addressed affectionately as our “angel” a man who helped to bring out a number of the L.R. [Little Review]. She was deeply shocked, found it vulgar. Of course the things she can stand needn’t be entered into here…I made a joke for her: If the world only knew what a prima donna Emma Goldman is! She laughed— but she couldn’t quite stand that either.” (Margaret Anderson, My Thirty Years’ War)

    Margaret Anderson (L) and Jane Heap (R), 1920s

Of course, we were aware that Emma was particular about food — called by some friends “the cordon-bleu of gefilte fish” and often shared her famous blintz recipe in letters. But who knew she couldn’t stand small handkerchiefs and many perfumes? Ironically, Emma’s friend Sadakichi Hartmann had attempted to stage the first “scent concert” in 1902, A Trip to Japan in Sixteen Minutes. He also wrote a spring poem, “Tanka,” which begins:

Winter? Spring? Who knows?

White buds from the plumtrees wing

And mingle with the snows.

No blue skies these flowers bring,

Yet their fragrance augurs Spring.

This month, we are honored to have been invited to participate in the university’s rotating monthly crowdfunding effort — which we hope will bear fruit! Each donation tier comes with a whimsical thank-you “perk,” from steamy correspondence, to Emma’s blintz recipe, to classic cards from the EGP. . . .  Check out our crowdfunding website and please pass it on to others! Click here: crowdfund.berkeley.edu/emmagoldmanpapers (Please donate here to impress the university, but don’t worry, it goes straight to our general fund!)

As we wind down to the conclusion of our fourth volume, our students are also nearing the end of their semester in mid-May. Part of our team is heading off to fun-filled adventures. Esther will be returning home to the United Kingdom soon. Hannah is heading off to Chile for a few weeks, and Meghan might head off to Washington, D.C. for a summer internship. The rest are remaining in Berkeley, working at the archive, taking classes, and enjoying the summer. Gillian, who is applying for a semester in an art history program in London for the fall semester, will continue working this summer. Sarah received a stipend to focus on preparing her undergraduate thesis, and will also work with us for part of the summer. Happily, Alex is here to help re-organize our collection to prepare for its preservation. As always, Dan and I will be working on putting together the final pieces of the volume, collaborating with our URAP and work-study students, our visuals editor Susan Wengraf, our managing editor Ayelet Maida, and a terrific editorial team to complete this many years-long labor of love.

Pictured from left to right: Gillian, Meghan, Dan, Esther, and Sarah

Your contribution will support the students who can continue working with us beyond the spring and into the summer. A $5,000 donation will pay the student salaries of our office manager Meghan and our research assistants, Sarah, Hannah, and Gillian, to assist us in the submission of this all-important scholarly edition including the production of our visually inviting layout and illustrations to the typesetter.

Additional funds  from you will support the final editing and publication of this last volume and carry us through the end of 2018 toward the completion of Emma’s project.  A draft of the index should follow shortly, to be vetted then coordinated with the pagination of the typeset volume���and the incredible last step of proofreading the whole.

Democracy Disarmed 1917-1919—the last of the 4-volume series Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years 1890-1919—will offer readers a first-hand view of the history of dissent during the years during and in the aftermath of the First World War. Goldman’s trials and tribulations in a period of extreme political repression and her bold resistance is both an inspiration and a warning.

http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/browse/?u=39

A reminder that our 22,000 document treasure trove is free and accessible to all:

https://archive.org/details/emmagoldmanguide00falk

and

https://archive.org/details/emmagoldmanpapers

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Please help the Emma Goldman Papers in their crowdfunding campaign to continue their special work! 

From the Emma Goldman Papers:

“I want freedom, the right to self-expression, every body’s right to beautiful, radiant things” - Emma Goldman, Living My Life (1931)

Who are we?

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a tireless advocate of free expression and social justice. Her papers are a treasure trove of women’s, immigration, ethnic, transnational, political, cultural, sexual, and civil liberties histories. The Emma Goldman Papers has been collecting, organizing, publishing, and transcribing documents by and related to Emma Goldman since 1980. What began as a standard reference work has expanded into a multi-source scholarly project of American radicalism, women’s contribution to the shaping of American history — and beyond.

Please help us preserve the Emma Goldman Papers by making a gift.

We find ourselves in a vast and often violent world in which the smallest forms of dissent are condemned as treason, human dignity itself is threatened. We believe that the messages championed by Emma and her contemporaries are even more important now, as is the critical issue of free speech.

With your support, we will be able to secure the preservation of the collection of tens of thousands of historical documents and organizational records amassed and produced by the project over more than 37 years.  A contribution of $50 will cover the preservation of 50 pages of EGP institutional records, while a donation of $100 would sponsor the archiving of 100 pages and $500, 500 pages! In this way, the Emma Goldman Papers’ will not be put to rest, but will remain accessible far into the future, one page at a time. 

Your contribution will be put to use immediately. Anything you contribute will ensure that the Emma Goldman Papers Project will remain a valuable teaching resource, both for those interested in pursuing similar work as well as those who wish to learn research, writing, documentary editing and archival skills necessary for other fields. The funds will cover many tasks required for preserving an archival collection –including supplies, staff time spent conducting inventories, organizing and processing copies of documents. $5500 would provide the monetary compensation for the 3 students on our research and administrative staff.  

Indeed, it will also support the completion of the four-volume edition of Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years 1890-1919-- proofreading and indexing--the last steps toward the publication of Emma Goldman: Democracy Disarmed: 1917-1919.

The link to our crowdfund is https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/ emmagoldmanpapers

Our website is http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/. Access to 22,000 Emma Goldman documents archive.org/details/emmagoldmanpapers                        

Feel free to email us if you have any questions at emma@berkeley.edu.