“THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUR COUNTRY”: IMMIGRATION AND ANARCHISM IN THE UNITED ...

540 Pages·2010·3.04 MB·English

by  Kenyon Zimmer

“THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUR COUNTRY”: IMMIGRATION AND ANARCHISM IN
THE UNITED STATES, 1885-1940

by
Kenyon Zimmer
BA, Bennington College, 2002
MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2005

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
the Department of History in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh
2010
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Kenyon Zimmer

It was defended on
April 29, 2010
and approved by
Donna Gabaccia, Professor, Department of History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Patrick Manning, Professor, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh
Marcus Rediker, Professor, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Advisor: Richard Oestreicher, Associate Professor, Department of History,
University of Pittsburgh

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Copyright © by Kenyon Zimmer
2010
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“THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUR COUNTRY”: IMMIGRATION AND ANARCHISM
IN THE UNITED STATES, 1885-1940

Kenyon Zimmer, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2010

From the 1880s through the 1940s tens of thousands of anarchists were active in the United
States, the overwhelming majority of them first- and second-generation immigrants. But most
were not yet devotees of the anarchist cause when they arrived on American shores. Instead, a
clear link existed between migration and the embrace of anarchist ideology. This study asks how
and whythousands of migrants became anarchists, and how their embrace of an anti-nationalist
and cosmopolitan ideology shaped their identities, experiences and actions.
Utilizing anarchist publications, government surveillance files, and archival materials, it
focuses on Eastern European Jews and Italians—the two largest segments of the anarchist
movement by the turn of the century—and the development of anarchism among these groups in
three important centers of American anarchism: New York‘s Lower East Side, Paterson, New
Jersey, and San Francisco. It then follows the changing fortunes of the movement in the face of
war, the Russian Revolution, the First Red Scare, and the birth of communism and fascism, and
ends with an examination of immigrant American anarchist participation in the Spanish Civil
War of 1936-39, and that conflict‘s dramatic impact on the movement in the United States.
This study argues that it was American conditions that usually made immigrants into
anarchists, rather than European ones, inextricably linking the histories of migration and
American anarchism. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of post-migration radicalization defies
categorization within most historiographical paradigms of European immigration that focus on
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the construction of ―hyphenated‖ American identities or ―hybrid‖ transnational ones. Anarchists
chose an alternative: they embraced an ideology that opposed both Americanization and Old
World nationalisms, severing their attachments to their states of origin while willfully resisting
assimilation into their host society. They formulated a radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity
that embraced diversity, rejected hierarchies, and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and
racial divides. This cosmopolitanism was ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of
competing nationalisms ranging from Americanism to fascism to Zionism, but it stands as an
important example of a transnational collective identity delinked from nationalism, the nation-
state and racial hierarchies.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................................................. I
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... VI
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... X
1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1
1.1 OUTLINE AND SCOPE OF PROJECT ........................................................... 3
1.2 “NEW IMMIGRANTS” AND NEW ANARCHISTS .................................... 15
1.3 RADICAL COSMOPOLITANISM ................................................................. 25
2.0 “YIDDISH IS MY HOMELAND”: JEWISH ANARCHISTS IN NEW YORK
CITY, 1886-1914 ......................................................................................................................... 31
2.1 FROM SHTETL TO GHETTO ........................................................................ 33
2.2 PIONEERS OF FREEDOM ............................................................................. 38
2.3 ANARCHISM AND THE JEWISH WORKING CLASS ............................. 51
2.4 FREE VOICE OF LABOR ............................................................................... 61
2.5 NO GODS, NO MASTERS ............................................................................... 71
2.6 ANARCHISM, NATIONALISM, AND YIDISHKAYT ................................. 76
2.7 REVISIONISM AND REVOLUTION ............................................................ 90
2.8 THE LINGUISTIC CONUNDRUM .............................................................. 100
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2.9 DI FROY IN DER GEZELSHAFT ................................................................. 108
2.10 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 120
3.0 I SENZA PATRIA: ITALIANS AND ANARCHISM IN PATERSON, NEW
JERSEY, 1892-1915 .................................................................................................................. 122
3.1 ITALIANS IN THE SILK CITY.................................................................... 123
3.2 ANARCHISTS AND NEIGHBORS .............................................................. 130
3.3 LA QUESTIONE SOCIALE ............................................................................ 139
3.4 AMERICAN REGICIDE ................................................................................ 147
3.5 ANARCHIST COMMUNITY AND CULTURE .......................................... 152
3.6 L’EMANCIPAZIONE DELLA DONNA ......................................................... 164
3.7 “FREE COUNTRY,” THE PATRIA, AND THE POPE .............................. 173
3.8 “A MOB RULED IT” ...................................................................................... 187
3.9 ONE BIG UNION ............................................................................................ 193
3.10 THE 1913 SILK STRIKE ............................................................................... 201
3.11 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 208
4.0 “ALL FLAGS LOOK ALIKE TO US”: IMMIGRANT ANARCHISM IN SAN
FRANCISCO, 1894-1916 ......................................................................................................... 210
4.1 ITALIAN ANARCHISM IN SAN FRANCISCO ......................................... 215
4.2 LATIN ANARCHISM AND THE IWW ....................................................... 226
4.3 FREE SPEECH AND THE MEXICAN CONNECTION ........................... 236
4.4 THE YELLOW PERIL AND THE ANARCHIST MENACE .................... 250
4.5 “A TRULY INTERNATIONAL GATHERING” ........................................ 265
4.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 275
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5.0 ANARCHISM IN CRISIS: WAR, REVOLUTION, AND REACTION, 1914-1924
.................................................................................................................................... 278
5.1 INTERVENTION AND ANTI-MILITARISM ............................................ 280
5.2 “PREPAREDNESS” AND “SLACKERS” ................................................... 290
5.3 RUSSIAN DAWN ............................................................................................ 300
5.4 DYNAMITE AND DEPORTATION ............................................................. 309
5.5 BREAKING CAMINITA ............................................................................... 320
5.6 THE FRONTIERS OF STATE POWER ...................................................... 329
5.7 COMMUNISTS AND ANTICOMMUNISTS ............................................... 338
5.8 FROM BIENNIO ROSSO TO FASCISM ..................................................... 351
5.9 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 355
6.0 “THE UNDESIRABLES OF THIS COUNTRY”: ANARCHISTS ON THE
DEFENSIVE, 1925-1936 .......................................................................................................... 357
6.1 NEITHER “WORKERS’ FATHERLAND” NOR “JEWISH HOMELAND”
........................................................................................................................... 360
6.2 CONFRONTING FASCISM .......................................................................... 368
6.3 L’EMANCIPAZIONE ...................................................................................... 385
6.4 “THE LANGUAGE OF THE FUTURE” ..................................................... 395
6.5 COSMOPOLITANS ON TRIAL ................................................................... 404
6.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 415
7.0 “FOR A PATRIA WITHOUT BORDERS”: AMERICAN ANARCHISTS AND
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, 1936-1939 ............................................................................... 418
7.1 “ARMS FOR SPAIN!” .................................................................................... 420
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7.2 VOLUNTEERS FOR REVOLUTION .......................................................... 429
7.3 WOMEN AND NONCOMBATANTS ........................................................... 444
7.4 THE MAY DAYS ............................................................................................ 450
7.5 FASCISMO ROJO ........................................................................................... 459
7.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 465
8.0 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 470
APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................ 480
APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 485
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 490
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Total Known Circulation of the American Anarchist Press, 1880-1940 ........................ 13
Table 2. Total Known Circulations of the American Yiddish and Italian Anarchist Press, 1880-
1940............................................................................................................................................... 15
Table 3. Italian-Born Population of Paterson, 1890-1930 .......................................................... 124
Table 4. Number of Silk Firms in Paterson, 1890-1909 ............................................................. 127
Table 5. Nativity of San Francisco‘s Population, 1900 .............................................................. 211
Table 6. Italian-Born Population of San Francisco, 1890-1920 ................................................. 216
Table 7. Composition of Selected Occupational Categories in San Francisco by Parents‘ Place of
Birth, 1900 .................................................................................................................................. 217
Table 8. Deportations under the Anarchist Exclusion Act, 1918-1925 ...................................... 330
Table 9. American Anarchist Publications with Known Circulations, 1880-1940 ..................... 480
Table 10. Known American Anarchist Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 ......... 485
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