ABSTRACT
The courts were consistently hostile to freedom-of-expression concerns, as well as most social causes, during Emma Goldman’s thirty years in the United States. It was during this period that the Supreme Court infamously struck down laws that limited the number of hours bakers could work in a day and prohibitions on child labor. This chapter examines the legal environment that Goldman and others faced during what one scholar labeled the “forgotten years” of freedom of speech. The chapter considers the Supreme Court’s development during this period, as well as crucial cases, such as Lochner v. New York (1905), Patterson v. Colorado (1907), and Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). The chapter also places Goldman v. United States within the timeline of ground-breaking First Amendment cases that emerged as a result of World War I-era prohibitions on expression. The landmark Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States cases—as well as Debs v. United States, Frohwerk v. United States, and Baltzer v. United States—were all intertwined with Goldman’s experiences in the court system. Crucially, however, Goldman’s case was the forerunner.
