What emotions is this person feeling?
Emma Goldman
-
Bright emotions
-
Not at all Extremely
-
-
Quiet emotions
-
Not at all Extremely
-
-
Heavy emotions
-
Not at all Extremely
-
-
Sombre emotions
-
Not at all Extremely
-
Emma Goldman
Date
1901
Description
Creator of the image: Unknown police photographer
Date of the image creation: 1901
Medium of the image: Photograph
Person depicted: Emma Goldman
This portrait of Emma Goldman (1869–1940) is a mug shot taken by police following her arrest in 1901 for allegedly planning President McKinley's assassination. Her expression is guarded, both defiant and unsettled. She had been arrested before, charged with ‘inciting to riot’, and knew that she was innocent of involvement in the assassination. Nevertheless, she was also keenly aware of the gravity of assassinating a US President, and also the contempt with which the police held anarchists.
In 1901 the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley, had been assassinated. Six months into his second term, the President — who conquered the Spanish, taking their colonies Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines, and Cuba, as well as annexing Hawaii — was shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The gunman, Leon Czolgosz, was a mentally ill, unemployed factory-worker who decided that McKinley was a symbol of oppression and needed to die. Under interrogation, Czolgosz claimed to be an anarchist and to be inspired by Emma Goldman, although he explicitly denied her involvement. Goldman and her comrades had met Czolgosz before, but were deeply suspicious of him, assuming him to be an infiltrator and thus refused to engage with him.
Goldman was arrested, along with ten other anarchists. After two weeks of detention, Goldman was released without charge. Before McKinley died from the gangrenous gunshot wound, Goldman offered to provide nursing care to him, referring to him as ‘merely a human being’. Despite Czolgosz’s obvious mental illness, he was convicted of murder and executed in the electric chair. During her detention and after her release, Goldman refused to condemn Czolgosz's actions, causing considerable controversy. This saw her withdraw from public life, until the US passed the Anarchist Exclusion Act in 1903, which saw her step back into the fray.
Emma Goldman was an important anarchist thinker and activist. She wrote and lectured on a number of topics, including patriarchy, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, hierarchy, free love, and capitalist exploitation. She was also one of the first people to publicly challenge the prevailing prejudices against homosexuals, a radical move even among anarchists.
Compare yourself to others
Choose different variables below, and see the patterns of response reflected in the circle of emotion above. Your responses are the coloured wedges. Others' responses are averaged in the spider graph of lines and dots.
