Free Society

FREE SOCIETY. was among the most influential anarchist journals published in English in the United States. Founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1895 as The Firebrand, the publication was edited by Abraham Isaak, Henry Addis, and Abner J. Pope. The journal boldly announced its intentions under the masthead: “For the Burning Away of the Cobwebs of Ignorance and Superstition.” Primarily serving as an exponent of communist anarchism, this popular weekly had a circulation of more than a thousand readers and addressed such varied topics as free love, birth control, the single tax, and other economic theories. It also carried local reports of lectures and speaking tours as well as international anarchist movement news. The editors suspended publication in 1897 when they were charged with sending obscene materials through the mails for publishing Walt Whitman’s poem, “A Woman Waits for Me.” Found guilty and imprisoned, Addis and Pope subsequently left Portland for Home Colony on Puget Sound.

Isaak and his family moved to San Francisco, where they resumed publication of the paper in late 1897 under the title Free Society. The production of the paper became a family affair, and the Isaaks’ household gained a reputation not only as the center of anarchist activities, but for exemplifying the anarchist ideal. Emma Goldman praised the family for “the harmony between the ideas they professed and their application,” and noted that this ethos – and particularly “their insistence on sex equality” -- permeated Free Society. Contributors included Jay Fox, Kate Austin, Lizzie Holmes, William Holmes, Stephen T. Byington, Harry Kelly, and Voltairine de Cleyre, and the publication also carried the writings of such luminaries as Peter Kropotkin and Leo Tolstoy.

In 1901, the Isaaks moved the paper to Chicago, where it again became embroiled in legal trouble when Isaak, who had been approached by Leon Czołgosz, published a warning in the journal about Czołgosz. After Czołgosz’s assassination of President William McKinley in September 1901, the Isaaks and other anarchists were arrested. The Isaaks later moved to New York, where they continued publication of Free Society until 1904. In 1908 the Isaaks settled in Lincoln, California, where they founded the Aurora Colony. Many of the contributors to Free Society would continue their championing of anarchist socioeconomic and cultural politics in Mother Earth.

Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Reichert, William O. Partisans of Freedom: A Study in American Anarchism. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976.

Schwantes. Carlos A. “Free Love and Free Speech on the Pacific Northwest Frontier: Proper Victorians vs. Portland’s ‘Filthy Firebrand.’” Oregon Historical Quarterly 82.3 (1981).

Smith, Steven Kent. “Abraham Isaak: The History of a Mennonite Radical.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 65.4 (1991).

Smith, Steven Kent. “Research Note: Further Notes on Abraham Isaak, Mennonite Anarchist.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 80.1 (2006).