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Emma Goldman was a social and political writer, revolutionary activist, and one of the most accomplished speakers in American history. Goldman was a proponent of individualistic anarchism, which she described as the philosophy and theory that government and man-made laws are intrinsically coercive and harmful to individual liberty ( Goldman 1969 ). Her commitment to anarchism and to the ideal of freedom led her to champion the causes of labor, anti-militarism, freedom of religion, prison reform, and sexual and reproductive freedom. Her most important contributions to political and social thought include the incorporation of sexual politics into anarchism and her many essays on contemporary issues such as education, birth control, women's emancipation, modern drama, national chauvinism, and crime. A passionate feminist, Goldman believed that a purely political solution was not the answer to inequality between the sexes, but that equality would come only from a massive transformation of values and from women themselves. Emma Goldman was born on June 27, 1869 in the Jewish quarter of Kovno, Russia (now Lithuania) to innkeeper-parents Taube Bienowitch Goldman and Abraham Goldman. Goldman spent a harsh and sometimes violent childhood (at the hand of her father) in Kovno, Popelan, and Königsberg. In 1881 when Emma was 13, the Goldman family moved to St. Petersburg, just after Tsar Alexander ... log in or subscribe to read full text