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Rebecca Edelsohn, in contemporary sources often given asBecky Edelson, (1892–1973) was a Latvian Americananarchist andhunger striker who was jailed in 1914 fordisorderly conduct during anIndustrial Workers of the World speech.[1][2] According toThe New York Times, she was the first woman to attempt a hunger strike in theUnited States.[3]
Edelsohn was born in 1892 inRiga,Russian Empire.[4] Her family emigrated to the United States when she was one or two years old. Later, she spent some time living in theHebrew Orphan Asylum of New York. She was discharged from the orphanage on May 14, 1902. As a teenager, she lived inEmma Goldman's home.[5]
In 1906, afterAlexander Berkman's release from prison, Edelsohn became his close companion and, the following year, his lover.[5][6] She was arrested in 1906 at a meeting to discussLeon Czolgosz. She was arrested again at anInternational Brotherhood Welfare Association meeting atCooper Union onLabor Day, 1908.[5] She was arrested again on May 23, 1909, along with Leopold Bergman and charged withdisorderly conduct.[5][7]
In 1911,Ben Reitman performed an illegalabortion for her.[8]
Following theLudlow Massacre in 1914, Edelsohn helped to lead anti-Rockefeller demonstrations inTarrytown, New York.[9] On the first day of demonstrations, Edelsohn,Arthur Caron, Charles Plunkett, and other anarchists were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after giving speeches at the public square.[2][10] At her hearing, Edelsohn was specifically cited for callingJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. a "multi-murderer".[2] The demonstrators rejected legal counsel and furiously pleaded their own defense, with Edelsohn at the forefront of the group. She denounced the charges as politically motivated, and scornfully dismissed the court as illegitimate: "This town is owned by John D. Rockefeller. We don't expect justice here."[2] She was jailed atBlackwell's Island where she refused to accept any nourishment other than water. In a letter smuggled to Alexander Berkman, she wrote, "I am still sticking to my programme, having fasted over twenty-seven days. I am very weak." This letter prompted Edelsohn's friends to raise the $300 necessary to post a bond for her release.[11]
Edelsohn married fellow anarchist Charles Plunkett after World War I. Their marriage lasted nine years. The couple had a son.[12]
Edelsohn died ofemphysema in 1973.[13]
Maurice Hollod, an anarchist associated withMother Earth and the New YorkFerrer Center, remembered marching with Edelsohn in a 1972 interview with anarchist historianPaul Avrich:
A black flag was flying, and Becky Edelsohn was marching arm in arm with Charles Plunkett. She was a tremendously fiery person, always two steps ahead of Berkman or Goldman. She called for the immediate destruction of the capitalist system — a real propaganda-of-the-deedist! She was famous for her red stockings, which she was wearing that day. We marched up Fifth Avenue from Union Square to 107th Street. At Fifty-Ninth Street a black limousine was crossing and stopped momentarily for the crowd. Becky opened the door and spat in the face of the plutocrats.[14]
Becky Edelson, in the fifty-second hour of her hunger strike, underwent a slight change of disposition yesterday afternoon. Her rebellious mood softened. She greeted kindly Dr. Anna Hubert, whom she treated with scorn on her arrival onBlackwell's Island fromthe Tombs on Monday morning, and when Dr. Hubert renewed her proposal that Miss Edelson should submit to a physical examination, the hungry and thirsty prisoner submitted willingly.
Becky Edelson, the first woman to attempt a hunger strike in this country, was freed yesterday afternoon from the Queens County Jail in Long Island City, and last night was proclaimed the chief heroine of theI.W.W. and anarchistic agitators at a reception given in her honor at the offices ofMother Earth, an anarchistic publication controlled by Emma Goldman.
Rebecca Edelsohn (nickname Becky) (b. ca. 1891–1973) New York anarchist militant. Edelsohn lived at EG's home when she was a teenager. She was in her early teens when AB was released from prison and was one of the few people he felt comfortable with. She helped AB rehabilitate himself and became his companion in late 1907. Arrested in 1906 along with a number of other young anarchists at a meeting to discuss whetherLeon Czolgosz was an anarchist, their arrests helped bring AB back into political activity. She was arrested again at an International Brotherhood Welfare Association meeting atCooper Union on Labor Day 1908, with AB, for defending Ben Reitman, after Reitman was attacked for reading a speech criticizing Labor Day that was actually written by EG. Edelsohn was arrested again on May 23, 1909, with Leopold Bergman and charged with disorderly conduct at EG's Lexington Hall meeting that was broken up by the police.
Police interference yesterday with a meeting in Lexington Hall, which is composed of two converted brownstone dwellings, at 109 and 111 East 116th Street, stopped a lecture on the drama which Emma Goldman was delivering and resulted in two periods of disorder, in the second of which a policeman was assaulted and arrests were made.
Becky Edelsohn, a New York anarchist and sometime lover of Alexander Berkman, actually died of emphysema in 1973.
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