Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

CHAPTER 10
Emma Goldman
EMMA GOLDMAN
DANIEL RHODES
Emma Goldman is probably one of the most controversial figures in United States history
and an obscure but important contributor to the field of education and educational psychology.
She was instrumental in developing and promoting what was called the Modern School in
the United States, a somewhat obscure but very progressive and groundbreaking philosophical
educational system. The Modern School had its roots and development in Spain and was founded
by the educator Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, but it was Emma Goldman and her connection to
Anarchism and political activism, not to mention her own personal background, that lead her to
support and promote the ideas of the Modern School in this country.
Emma Goldman herself was a product of a very suppressive and oppressive background. Born
in Russia in 1869 where she and her family struggled with poverty for most of her tenure in that
country her parents shipped her off to the United States to live with her half-sister when Goldman
was twenty. This move to the Untied States foisted on Goldman by her parents was mainly a
result of the ongoing conflicts between Emma and her father, but it was also these conflicts that
eventually led to her philosophical beliefs and eventual support of the ideas put forth with the
Modern School movement, which were very libratory. Her home life in Russia was emotionally
cold and aloof at best, with at times her father being extremely abusive, both physically and
mentally. Goldman was very rebellious and defiant which lead her father to often beat her and
rage at her with the intent of getting her to obey his authority. Her family attempted to marry her
off at the age of 15, which she refused, and the conflicts between her and her father grew until
the family finally decided to send her to the United States in 1889 at the age of 20.
Being a Jewish immigrant in the United States in the late nineteenth century Goldman had few
employment opportunities afforded to her so she mainly toiled in sweatshops and as a seamstress.
While she was working in these factories she started recognizing the abuses inflicted onto the
working class and those in poverty around her by the owners of the factories and others in power,
which she considered to be the capitalist class. Goldman herself struggled with the jobs where
she worked, having to labor long hours in hot tortuous conditions. These were formative years
for Emma Goldman, being in her twenties during the late nineteenth century, where she started