Mother Earth

MOTHER EARTH. Although often edited by others, the anarchist journal Mother Earth reflected the personality and view of Emma Goldman. She was not only the “mother” of the magazine but of the collective that sustained it. This group included Max Baginski, Hippolyte Havel, Harry Kelley, Leonard Abbott, and Alexander Berkman. One of the purposes of their endeavor was to reanimate an anarchist movement that had been on the defensive since the 1901 assassination of President McKinley by anarchist Leon Czołgosz. The intent of the collective was to blend social concerns with the arts, but in practice the arts were of secondary interest. Among many well-known contributors were Voltairine de Cleyre, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Harris, Arturo Giovannitti, the Magón brothers, and Margaret Sanger. There were translations of all the leading European anarchist thinkers as well as passages from Nietzsche, Heine, Flaubert, and other European intellectuals. Cover artists included Man Ray and Robert Minor.

The magazine’s title was generated during a buggy ride in the country by Baginski and Goldman in February 1906. Thrilled to see the soil breaking free of the power of frost and green shoots poking for the sun, Goldman declared “Mother Earth” would be an ideal name for the magazine they were planning. The first issue of sixty-four pages appeared 10 March 1906. Circulating between 3,000 and 5,000 copies, Mother Earth continued publishing until 1917, when it was suppressed by the federal government for the magazine’s opposition to the US entry into World War I. Goldman and Berkman then published Mother Earth Bulletin—to keep in touch “with friends”—until their deportation to Russia in 1919 following their conviction for violating the Espionage Act.

Glassgold, Peter. Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth. Berkeley: CA: Counterpoint: 2002, 20012.

Wexler, Alice. Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

Woodworth, Fred. Cover note to a facsimile edition of Mother Earth 2, no. 9 (November 1907), published by the Match, 1 May 1986.