Mother Earth (magazine)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses of Mother Earth, see Mother Earth. For the 1970-present environmental/self-sufficiency magazine, see Mother Earth News.
Mother Earth was a radical political journal first published in March 1906 by anarchist Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's typesetter.
Mother Earth was a political journal that advocated radical political causes, labor agitation, and opposition to the U.S. government on a variety of issues. Its subscribers and supporters formed a virtual 'who's who' of the radical left in America in the years prior to 1920.
In 1914, four associates of Goldman and Berkman began building a dynamite bomb in their apartment to blow up John D. Rockefeller's mansion in Tarrytown, New York. One of the plotters had just left the apartment for Mother Earth offices (allegedly to inform Alexander Berkman that the bomb was nearly ready) when the bomb prematurely exploded, demolishing two floors of the apartment building and killing the bomb-builders inside. Berkman denied all knowledge of the bomb plot, though he spoke at the funerals for the deceased anarchists. Later, he left for San Francisco for a year to publish his own revolutionary journal, The Blast.
In 1917, Mother Earth began to openly call for opposition to American entry into World War I and specifically to disobey government laws on conscription and registration for the military draft. On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. The law set punishments for acts of interference in foreign policy and espionage. The Act authorized stiff fines and prison terms of up to 20 years for anyone who obstructed the military draft or encouraged "disloyalty" against the U.S. government. After Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman continued to advocate against conscription, Goldman's offices at Mother Earth were thoroughly searched, and volumes of files and detailed subscription lists from Mother Earth, along with Berkman's journal The Blast, were seized. As a Justice Department news release reported:
A wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material was seized, and included in the lot is what is believed to be a complete registry of anarchy's friends in the United States. A splendidly kept card index was found, which the Federal agents believe will greatly simplify their task of identifying persons mentioned in the various record books and papers. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast, which contain 10,000 names, were also seized.
Mother Earth remained in monthly circulation until August 1917. Berkman and Goldman were found guilty of violating the Espionage Act, and were later deported.
[edit] Contributors
The following is a partial list of contributors whose essays or poems were published in Mother Earth:
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The following is a partial list of contributors of cover art:
- Jules-Félix Grandjouan
- Manuel Komroff
- Robert Minor
- Man Ray
- Adolf Wolff
[edit] References
- Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth. Edited and with commentary by Peter Glassgold. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2001. ISBN 1-58243-040-3.
[edit] External links
- PBS American Experience, Mother Earth magazine, includes a complete scan of the February 1915 edition.
- Mother Earth issues in the Anarchy Archives at Pitzer College.
