1940: Feminist, Anarchist, Gay Rights Icon Dies in Toronto.

Excerpt from The Toronto Star, May 14 1940. 

Gadfly or Pesky Mosquito: It is impossible to ignore the impact of the controversial public intellectual Emma Goldman.

[...]


After finding herself exiled from the United States, Russian-born anarchist Emma Goldman died today of a stroke right here in Toronto, Canada. While most known for the publication of her Anarchism and Other Essays in which she tackles every topic from capitalism to prostitution, Goldman was also one of the first to publicly speak out in favour of the rights of homosexuals. In the midst of the Oscar Wilde trials she was quoted as saying: 

It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.  (Katz, 378-379)

 While many today may disagree with her controversial viewpoints, it is impossible to disregard the impact she has had on our city. The weekly lecture series she began in Toronto just over ten years ago in 1928 enlivened debate about the role of the anarchist movement in Canada.

References

Photo courtesy of the International Institute of Social History.

Emma Goldman in New York, c. 1890

From the Emma Goldman archive.

Komow and Landa photographers
http://www.iisg.nl/collections/goldman/a5-483.php

Katz, Jonathan Ned. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York City: Penguin Books, 2002.