The Emma Goldman Papers is part of a national initiative to retrieve the papers of individuals whose life work has had a lasting impact on the course of American history. Since 1980, the Emma Goldman Papers Project at UCB has collected, organized, and edited tens of thousands of documents from around the world by and about Emma Goldman (1869-1940), a leading figure in American anarchism, feminism, and radicalism. In the spirit of Emma Goldman, the EGPP has extended its scholarly research to serve the community-to educate the public about the complexity of engagement in social and political transformation. It has published a microfilm edition of the papers (1991-1993) and A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources (1995). The papers provide a window not only into Goldman but also into social and cultural movements in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Other publications include The Life and Times of Emma Goldman: A Curriculum for Middle and High School Students, highlighting primary source historical documents, and With Speech as My Weapon: Emma Goldman and the First Amendment, A Unit of Study for Grades 8–12. Since 1990, the Project has toured an exhibition of thirty-eight reproductions of historical photographs, personal letters, government documents and other memorabilia.
In 2004, The Emma Goldman Papers became a part of Peace and Conflict Studies within International and Area Studies. Edwin M. Epstein, chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies Group Major, is the current chair of the Emma Goldman Papers Faculty Advisory Board.
The Project is currently preparing a four-volume selective book edition, entitled
Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of The American Years (1890-1919).
The first and second volumes, Made For America
(1890-1901) and Making Speech
Free (1902-1909) have been published by the University
of California Press. The paperback editions have been published by the University of Illinois
Press: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2. The third volume, Light and Shadows
(1910-1916), and the fourth volume, The War Years (1917-1919), are
forthcoming.
The Project director is Goldman biographer Dr. Candace Falk, author of Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman (Holt, 1984; revised commemorative paperback edition, Rutgers University Press, 1990, 1999).
Dr. Barry Pateman is the Associate Editor.
Edwin M. Epstein, chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies Group Major, is the current chair of the Emma Goldman Papers Faculty Advisory Board. Leon F. Litwack, Morrison Professor of American History at UC Berkeley, chaired the Faculty Advisory Board for many years.
John Lie, former dean of IAS, is the current Principal Investigator for the Emma Goldman Papers.
The Emma Goldman Papers is part of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Emma Goldman Papers' primary federal sponsor is the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives in Washington.
Grants and priviate contributions provide additional support for our continued research.
Since the Project’s inception in 1980 it has benefitted from the support of dozens of foundations and individuals across the country. The Project’s principal fiscal sponsors include the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the University of California at Berkeley, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. “Emma’s List” - a list that is not yet completely on-line - represents the growing number of individual donors whose generous contributions of at least one hundred dollars are vital to the Project’s completion. Members of Emma’s List will be gratefully acknowledged in the forthcoming book edition. If you value the Project’s efforts to preserve and share with the public the primary resources of this intriguing American radical and feminist, we urge you to make a contribution to the Emma Goldman Papers. All donations are tax-deductible.
For more information about the Emma Goldman Papers Project, its publications, its traveling exhibition, or to request a catalogue of commemorative items, contact us at:
The Emma Goldman Papers