Editor’s Pick
98 THE CARAVAN
wikimedia commonson 11 february 1916 , while on her way to deliver
a lecture on atheism in New York City, a 46-year-
old woman named Emma Goldman was arrested
on charges of obscenity for lecturing on and
dispensing information related to birth control.
She was accused of violating the Comstock Act of
1873, which made it a federal offence for anyone,
including doctors, to distribute information about
contraception.
Born to a Jewish family in Russia in 1869, Gold-
man emigrated to the United States in 1885 and
worked in New York as a nurse and midwife for 25
years. She soon realised that birth control would
be crucial in the struggle for women to achieve
economic and social equality, and she became an
advocate for women’s reproductive rights.
Goldman—who was also known as “Red
Emma”—was arrested multiple times for her
political activism and anarchism; she was evendeported to Russia in December 1919 for allegedly
urging people against drafting in the World War.
Her trial in 1916 sparked national discussions on
birth control and attracted the support of many
writers, artists and public intellectuals. After
serving a two-week-sentence at a prison work-
house, she wrote a letter to the press in which she
said, “While I am not particularly anxious to go
to jail, I should yet to be glad to do so, if thereby
I can add my might to the importance of birth
control and the wiping of our antiquated law upon
the statue.”
Over 3,000 people gathered for a meeting at
the Carnegie Hall in May 1916 to celebrate Emma
Goldman’s release and glean more information
about birth control. Later that year, Margaret
Sanger, an activist and women’s-rights campaigner,
opened the first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn,
New York, although it was shut down shortly after.