Archives

– Fitzgerald, M. Eleanor (Mary Eleanor), 1877-1955. Papers, 1915-1974. UWM Manuscript Collection 13. University Manuscript Collection. Archives. UWM Libraries. University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.Series 1 Political files
– International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Diaries 1910-1911, 1916, [1918?]-1933, including his ’Russian’ diary; extensive correspondence with Emma Goldman 1917, 1924-1936; correspondence c. 1906-1913, 1919-1936, with Rafail Abramovič 1930-1934, Angelica Balabanoff 1925-1936, Stella Ballantine 1924, 1927-1936, Roger Baldwin 1925-1927, 1931, Voltairine de Cleyre 1906, 1908, 1910-1912, Michael A. Cohn 1922-1936, M. Eleanor Fitzgerald 1919-1936, Isadora [Duncan?] 1925 and n.d., Mollie Steimer 1925, 1931-1936, Frank and Nellie Harris 1925-1936, Thomas H. Keell 1922-1936, Harry Kelly 1924-1935, Nestor Machno 1924-1925, Tom and Anna Mooney 1927-1928, 1931, 1934-1936, Max Nettlau 1912, 1924-1936, Rudolf and Millie Rocker 1913, 1925-1936, Augustin and Therese Souchy 1925-1927, 1931-1935, Modest Stein 1930-1936, Pauline Helen Turkel 1924-1935, John Turner 1925, 1930-1932, Harry Weinberger 1924, 1928-1931 and many others;
Some identity papers and residence permits, documents on household and finances, health and celebrations 1922-1936; documents on his imprisonment in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, including some letters 1892, 1903-1904; diary on his last days in prison 1905; 25 handwritten copies of a small illegal magazine published by Berkman and two other anarchists; documents on political agitation 1906-1917, including correspondence on The Blast 1915-1916, on his imprisonment in Atlanta, Georgia and deportation to Soviet Russia 1917-1920; documents on releif work for Russian and Polish anarchist prisoners and exiles c. 1925-1933, on the Tom Mooney and Ben Billings case [c. 1917], 1927-1933, on the anarchist movement and theory 1928, 1931-1935 and his fight against expulsion from France 1930-1935;
Documents relating to ’Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist’ (1912) including a manuscript of Jack London’s (unpublished) preface to the memoirs 1912 and drawings of the prison published in the memoirs; documents on other books; notes for and manuscripts of articles mainly on Soviet Russia, American society and anarchism, and of scenario’s and stories; documents on translations of plays and nonfiction, consising of correspondence and manuscripts 1927-1936; some manuscripts by others; clippings 1911-1935;
Papers of others: correspondence by Emma Goldman with publishers on Berkman’s behalf 1925, 1929, 1932-1934 and with Emmy Eckstein 1929-1936; correspondence by Emmy Eckstein 1929-1936.

Biography

Alexander Berkman is known in American history as having perpetrated the first anarchist "attentat" in this country as an act of propaganda of the deed. In 1892, at the time of the Homestead Steel Strike, he attempted to kill Henry Clay Frick, the manager of the Carnegie Steel Company. He failed and was sentenced to 22 years of prison. After his release, he edited Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, contributed in organizing the Ferrer School in New York, then published his own magazine, The Blast, on the West Coast. His efforts certainly played a great role in preventing the execution of Thomas Mooney, falsely accused of throwing a bomb into the July 22, 1916 preparedness parade. When World War I broke out, he set up a number of antiwar demonstrations. His remarkable activism made the headlines of the San Francisco Chronicle. With Emma Goldman, his former lover, and a number of other radicals, he was deported to the Soviet Union in 1919.
In Russia, he confronted Lenin and Trotsky, unsuccessfully tried to mediate in the Kronstadt uprising, and finally left the country deeply disillusioned. Now an exile, he lived in France, contributing by his writings to what was his lifelong love —anarchism. Suffering from chronic pain, he committed suicide in 1936, three weeks before the Spanish Revolution [1].
Hardly known today out of the circles of American historians and anarchists, Berkman remains to be discovered. This man, who barely knew any English when he was sent to prison, wrote one of the most compelling autobiographies of his century.
Ronald Creagh [2]