De Cleyre, Voltairine

DE CLEYRE, VOLTAIRINE (1866–1912). One of the most prolific anarchist writers of her time, Voltairine de Cleyre was educated in a Catholic convent. When her father converted from Free Thought to Catholicism while she was still in her early teens, he sent her to a Catholic convent in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Despite her protests and those of her mother, Voltairine’s father insisted his daughter must become a nun. She remained in the convent for more than three years, sometimes running away, always disobedient, and forever despairing that she had no means of permanent escape. When she emerged at age nineteen, she was a crusading atheist who believed religion was a repulsive and oppressive institution. Upon hearing a speech by Clarence Darrow, she decided that capitalism should be added to the litany of world evils. She was soon reading Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty. Her commitment to anarchism was sealed by the Haymarket affair.

Through the years she moved from individualistic anarchism tinged with pacifism to the direct-action approach of the International Workers of the World. In addition to European influences, she posited American roots for her ideas in the work of Thoreau, Jefferson, Paine, and Emerson. Whatever the momentary emphasis, she always directed her efforts to working-class audiences. She was enthusiastic about the educational ideas proposed by Francisco Ferrer and was among the first writers to argue that detective stories, sports writing, pornography, and even advertising could be regarded as literature in that they reflected the lives of common people. She frequently criticized anarchists such as Emma Goldman for being too elitist and directing their work to intellectuals and the middle class.

De Cleyre’s personal life was tragic. Most men were put off by her learning and her lack of physical beauty; and the one man she felt she loved died when she was only twenty-seven. She later had an affair that resulted in the birth of a son. When she refused to live with the child’s father, the baby was taken from her and she did not see her son again for seventeen years. This harsh collision with sexist laws and culture reinforced a feminism that found expression in poetry, oratory, fiction, and essays. A second tragedy took place in 1902, when she was shot by an opposing anarchist. Although she recovered, her always fragile health was shattered. Characteristically, she refused to press charges, stating her assailant should be sent to a mental facility, not a prison.

Her base of operations from 1889 to 1910 was Philadelphia, where she lived among poor Jewish immigrants. She taught English and music, and she learned Yiddish well enough to add the Freie Arbeter Shtimme to the many journals to which she contributed. As she grew closer to anarcho-syndicalism, she began to study Spanish in order to participate directly in the Mexican Revolution. Before she could relocate to Mexico she became ill from “brain fever” and died in Chicago on 12 June 1912.

De Cleyre’s work soon went out of print and she was rarely cited. More than fifty years passed before her writing enjoyed a revival in conjunction with the reemerging women’s movement. In many ways her chief work seemed to be the uncompromising manner in which she had led her life. A statement she had made shortly before her death spoke directly to the new feminists: “I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.”

Avrich, Paul. An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.

De Cleyre, Voltairine. Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre: Feminist, Anarchist, Genius. Edited by Sharon Presley and Crispin Sartwell. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Rosemont, Franklin, ed. Written in Red: Selected Poems of Voltairine de Cleyre. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1990.

Shulman, Alix. “Viewing Voltairine de Cleyre.” Women: A Journal of Liberation 2 (fall 1970).