Traps for the Young by Anthony Comstock, 1883
Your Honor, This Woman Gave Birth to a Naked Child, 1915
Mother Earth, vol. X, no. 3
New York: Emma Goldman, Proprietor, May 1915
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Jerome Robbins Dance Division
Mother Earth
Founded by the activist Emma Goldman in March 1906, Mother Earth was a popular anarchist journal that published politically progressive articles on current events. Featuring contributions on the labor movement, education, politics, and literature, the magazine also had a strong (albeit not uncomplicated) feminist streak, regularly challenging patriarchy and arguing for sexual equality. Goldman was particularly focused on the issue of birth control beginning in 1915, publishing in Mother Earth the following year her landmark “The Social Aspects of Birth Control,” which concludes: “I may be arrested, I may be tried and thrown into jail, but I never will be silent; I never will acquiesce or submit to authority, nor will I make peace with a system which degrades woman to a mere incubator and which fattens on her innocent victims. I now and here declare war upon this system and shall not rest until the path has been cleared for a free motherhood and a healthy, joyous and happy childhood.”
Mother Earth ceased publication in 1917, following Goldman’s arrest under the Espionage Act.
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