Radicalization of a Nurse: The Story of Emma Goldman
Image via the Library of Congress
Exploring the political philosopher’s background as a nurse, and the powerful foundation it laid for her social activism
This article is part of our “The Power of Nursing” series, celebrating the Year of the Nurse by sharing the stories of influential nurses throughout modern history.
Emma Goldman is widely recognized as an influential political philosopher and writer from the early 20th century. It’s less well known that Goldman was also a nurse and midwife, but the nearly 13 years she spent in the nursing field were incredibly formative to her worldview and political activism.
Caring for patients of lower social classes gave her perspective on the systemic injustices that contributed to her patients’ suffering—insight that her male counterparts did not have. Nurse and scholar Cynthia Connolly, PhD RN FAAN, said, “Nursing was a vehicle [for Goldman] to understand people’s struggles and [to translate] political philosophy into meaningful, practical solutions.”
As we continue to observe the Year of the Nurse, the story of Emma Goldman’s nursing career provides another powerful example of the often under-recognized contributions of the nursing profession to medicine and history.
Advocating for the Working Class
Emma Goldman was born in 1869 in Lithuania and spent much of her childhood and teenage years in St. Petersburg, Russia. Growing anti-Semitism in the Russian Empire led Goldman to migrate to Rochester, New York in 1886 at the age of 17.
Like many immigrants, Goldman hoped for a better future in America. Instead, she found herself working in a sweatshop with poor working conditions and low pay. She quickly became interested in the growing labor movement and was drawn to New York City, then a hub for related activism. She gained prominence in the activist community and was arrested at an 1893 rally where she addressed thousands of protesters. She was sent to New York’s infamous Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary, where her nursing career began.
From Prison Nurse to Political Philosopher
Blackwell’s Island housed over 8,000 prisoners. Medical care was limited and there was a severe shortage of nurses. Emma Goldman was recruited by one of the prison physicians who treated her for an illness. She was put in charge of a 16-bed women’s ward after only informal training in nursing. The work was challenging. She observed that her patients were like “victims, links in an endless chain of injustice and inequality,” often imprisoned for sex work when they had no other options.
Goldman was released from prison after a year. Her experience at Blackwell’s Island set her on a life-long course as a nurse and political activist.
Serving Communities on the Front Line
When she was released from prison, Goldman began work as a “practical nurse,” or a nurse without formal training, to support her political activity. Because she didn’t have formal nurse training, she was limited to providing private care to in-home patients.
Goldman soon encountered the Henry Street Settlement, an innovative public health initiative that aimed to support working class patients. She said that the Henry Street nurses were the “first American women [she] met who felt an interest in the economic conditions of the masses,” and joined the effort herself. She ultimately left in 1895 when she determined that the program did not do enough to change the underlying issues of poverty and inequality.
At that time, she sought formal nursing training abroad, training which included midwifery and massage. When she returned to the U.S. in 1896, she worked primarily as a midwife. Goldman was struck by the high maternal mortality rate among the working class and the unsanitary conditions in which many women gave birth. Due to these life-threatening conditions, she was unwilling to perform abortions as doing so would endanger the life of her patient.
As her writing became more well known, it became difficult for her to find work as a nurse. For the remainder of her career, she focused on her political writing while supporting herself as a massage therapist. While her focus may have shifted to her political work, she never stopped identifying herself as a nurse.
Goldman’s Lasting Legacy
Goldman was not afraid to speak out against injustice and shed light on the plight of the working class. She challenged the community-based care model to do more, so that patients could not only get by but thrive.
Her insights as a midwife led her to support Margaret Sanger’s campaign to make birth control widely available, and Goldman published literature about contraception to empower women to make informed choices about their reproductive health.
Most importantly, Goldman fearlessly drew attention to how inequality impacts medical care and patient outcomes, a dialogue that continues to this day.
This story was made possible by the archives at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. The piece also draws from resources available to the public courtesy of The University of Pennsylvania.