Free Society

The Firebrand
Founder(s)Abraham Isaak, Mary Isaak
RelaunchedFree Society
City
CountryUS

Free Society (1895–1897 as The Firebrand; 1897–1904 as Free Society) was a major anarchist newspaper in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.[1] Most anarchist publications in the US were in Yiddish, German, or Russian, but Free Society was published in English, permitting the dissemination of anarchist thought to English-speaking populations in the US.[1]

The newspaper was established as The Firebrand in 1895 in Portland, Oregon, by the Isaak family, Abraham Isaak, Mary Isaak, and their children, along with some associates; the organization served as "the headquarters of anarchist activity on the [West] Coast".[2]

Notable contributors include[3] Kate Austin, Voltairine de Cleyre, Michael Cohn, Jay Fox, Emma Goldman,[4] Lizzie Holmes, William Holmes, C. L. James,[5] Harry Kelly, James Ferdinand Morton Jr., and Ross Winn.

  1. ^ a b "Free Society was the principal English-language forum for anarchist ideas in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century." Emma Goldman: Making Speech Free, 1902–1909, p.551.
  2. ^ Emma Goldman, Living My Life (Volume 1), pp. 224–225.
  3. ^ Emma Goldman: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909, p. 551
  4. ^ See particularly Goldman's "The Condition of the Workers in America" (published in 1895 Torch and then The Firebrand) and "Marriage" (July 18, 1897, Firebrand, Goldman's first publication about women and free love.
  5. ^ C. L. James Archived 2011-03-03 at the Wayback Machine at fair-use.org