At stake is the paper trail substantiating the life, thought and work of Goldman, a pivotal figure in the anarchist movement and one of America’s ur-feminists. Started back in 1980, it was initially funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archive.
“I was chosen as director because I wrote Love, Anarchy & Emma Goldman,” says Candace Falk, who has supervised the project from the beginning. “It got a very high-profile reception, and because it addressed a lot of difficult issues such as free love, it generated quite a bit of controversy—like Goldman herself.”
When she signed on, Falk thought the program might take two years. But the reality of the archival process soon intruded. Today, 35 years later, the project is almost completed. Three volumes of research have been published, and the fourth and final volume is tentatively scheduled for publication this year.
