Voltairine de Cleyre

About the Voltairine de Cleyre

Voltairine de Cleyrewas an American anarchist writer and public speaker. She was known for her opposition to capitalism, marriage, and the state, as well as the domination of religion over sexuality and over women’s lives, all of which she saw as interconnected. She is often characterized as a major early feminist because of her views.

Born into extreme poverty in Michigan, at an early age, de Cleyre taught herself how to read and write, and became a lover of poetry. She was educated at a Catholic convent in Sarnia, Ontario, which improved her literary and linguistic capabilities, but also influenced her turn towards anti-theism and anti-authoritarianism. After graduating, de Cleyre began her activist career in the freethought movement, lecturing around the country and writing for a number of rationalist publications. Drawn towards socialism and individualist anarchism, she converted fully to anarchism in the wake of the Haymarket affair, which radicalized her against the state and capitalism.

She moved to Philadelphia, where she lived for most of her adult life. There she gave birth to her son Harry, although she did not raise him. She taught many of the city’s Jewish anarchists, with whom she became closely involved, and had a series of affairs with a number of different men, including Dyer Lum, James B. Elliott and Samuel H. Gordon (the latter of whom instigated a years-long feud between de Cleyre and Emma Goldman). By the late 1890s, de Cleyre was a leading figure in the American anarchist movement, regular speaking at events, writing for publications and organizing anarchist groups. She also went on a lecture tour of the United Kingdom, during which she was introduced to Spanish anarchists, who influenced her adoption of the philosophy of anarchism without adjectives and her later defense of propaganda of the deed.

Following an assassination attempt by Herman Helcher, her physical health rapidly deteriorated and she was never able to fully recover. Nevertheless, after a few years, she returned to writing and public speaking. During the free speech fights of the early 20th century, she was arrested for inciting a riot in Philadelphia, but was ultimately acquitted due to a lack of evidence. Towards the end of the 1900s, she grew increasingly depressed and for a while lost her faith in anarchism. But by 1910, she had returned to the movement and moved to Chicago, where she began lecturing on progressive education. During the final years of her life, she was a keen supporter of the Mexican Revolution and continued her speaking and writing engagements. But her health sharply declined and she died in 1912; she was buried near the grave of the Haymarket anarchists.

Although eulogized by many anarchists of her time, including Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons and Alexander Berkman, she was largely forgotten or ignored in many histories of the anarchist movement, due in part to her short life. Her biographers, Paul Avrich and Margaret Marsh, and collectors of her writings, such as A. J. Brigati, Sharon Presley and Crispin Sartwell, brought her life and work back to public attention by the turn of the 21st century.