ABSTRACT

This introductory chapter isolates a moment, just before a revolution in freedom-of-expression jurisprudence, when Emma Goldman captured the attention of the nation with her arguments for human liberties. It sets the stage for Goldman’s free speech fights by describing the cultural and political environment in the United States during her time there. Goldman’s arrival coincided with a wave of “new immigration” that brought droves of southern and eastern Europeans, whom Americans saw as a threat to their way of life. Immigrant poverty and poor working conditions led to labor radicalism as well as progressive advocacy for reform. Some progressives pushed for immigrants to Americanize, but conservatives sought restriction. Congress passed several laws to curb the entry of new immigrants, particularly anarchists and other radicals. The othering language of World War I propaganda increased American xenophobia, and it did not dissipate after the war’s end. A wave of labor strikes, which many associated with the Bolshevik Revolution, combined with a series of anarchist bombings to create the first Red Scare. As a result, hundreds of Russian immigrants, including Goldman, were deported.