Freethought At 17, De Claire returned to St. Johns, where the she found that the convent's education had left her unprepared for work. In late 1885, she moved to
Greenville, Michigan, where she tutored in handwriting, music, and French. By this time a convinced freethinker, De Claire gave lectures and wrote for the movement's periodicals. She began referring to herself as an "
infidel" and a "
radical". Through
atheism, she first encountered anarchism, as both movements reject clerical and political authority. In 1886, she moved to
Grand Rapids and became
editor-in-chief of the weekly freethought magazine
The Progressive Age. She published under the
pen name "Fanny Fern" (adopted from the
popular writer) and changed her signature from Voltairine De Claire to Voltairine de Cleyre in 1887. Her speaking tours drew large audiences, who came to hear her recount her experiences in the convent. As a self-described "writer" rather than
orator, she carefully prepared and read her speeches from paper. She would publish hundreds of works throughout her life, including lectures and political essays, as well as poems and short stories. Her form of
progressive literature aimed to provoke a
psycho-social liberation in her readers, whom she hoped to free from oppressive ideologies. Her growing fame led to lecture tours for the
American Secular Union throughout the
Midwestern and
Northeastern United States. Her family disapproved of her radical politics and talked very little about it when she visited them in Michigan. She contributed to several freethought periodicals, including
The Truth Seeker, and enjoyed traveling despite the poverty and repression she witnessed. Eventually finding the freethought movement too narrow in focus, she began exploring other social reform movements, including
feminism,
socialism, and
anarchism.
Conversion to anarchism In December 1887, a lecture by
Clarence Darrow introduced de Cleyre to socialist programs for improving working-class conditions. She quickly became an
anti-capitalist and a socialist, denouncing monopolies, labor exploitation, and all forms of oppression. Debates with
Jewish anarchists in Pittsburgh influenced her to study anarchist theory, particularly the
individualist anarchism of
Benjamin Tucker's
Liberty. She soon abandoned
state socialism for anarchism. The
Haymarket affair accelerated her conversion to anarchism. Her initial reaction to the Chicago workers' rally bombing had been to call for the perpetrators to be hanged, which she immediately regretted. Following the trial of eight organizers, she concluded the men had been falsely accused in a
show trial and questioned whether "justice under the law" was possible. When four were executed, they became
martyrs in her eyes, and she embraced anarchism for the rest of her life. A series of romantic affairs in the following year left lasting impacts. She fell in love with Scottish labor organizer
Thomas Hamilton Garside, but he abandoned her after months, leaving her devastated.
Dyer Lum, 27 years her senior, became a stabilizing influence with whom she developed her understanding of anarchism, adopting his
mutualism and
evolutionary ethics. Though their affair was short-lived due to his marriage and her other relationships, they remained collaborators until his death in 1893.
Philadelphia In June 1888, de Cleyre visited
Philadelphia for the first time, having been invited to speak at a freethinkers' meeting. She was so impressed by the city that she decided to move there the following year, making the city her home for the next two decades. There she met the freethinker
James B. Elliott, with whom she had a brief romantic relationship. As de Cleyre refused Elliott's proposal of marriage, it quickly broke down and they separated, although they remained friends and lived together for several years afterwards. During this time, de Cleyre became pregnant; it was not a happy memory for her, as her pregnancy was characterized by long periods of pain and sickness. She considered having an
abortion, but her doctor advised against it, believing her health was not strong enough to sustain one. On June 12, 1890, de Cleyre gave birth to their son
Harry, but her
chronic condition and depressive mood made her feel physically and emotionally incapable of raising him. She soon went off to lecture at freethought events in
Kansas, where she remained for almost a year. There she joined
Matilda Joslyn Gage's Woman's National Liberal Union, a feminist-freethinkers' organization which opposed the centralization of power by both the church and the state. She returned to Philadelphia in 1891, but she largely stayed away from her son. Her sister Adelaide, herself childless, asked if she could take care of Harry, to which de Cleyre responded that it was up to Elliott to decide; he refused. The rest of de Cleyre's correspondence from this period never mentions her son. In Philadelphia, de Cleyre began tutoring
Jewish anarchist immigrants in the English language, which provided her with a small income. She still lived in poor conditions and her work exhausted her, but her lack of professional education meant that she had no options for alternative lines of work. Her income was only occasionally supplemented by translation and publishing work. She lived an
austere lifestyle, possessing few clothes and eating very little, which, combined with overwork, worsened her chronic illness. During this time, she took on hundreds of Jewish students and became friends with many more. In her later essay, "The Making of an Anarchist", she praised the Jewish community's dedication to their education and commitment to the radical movement, even in the face of extreme poverty and
antisemitism in the United States. But she was also worried by the tendency of some of her Jewish comrades to
assimilate into the dominant American capitalist culture, relinquishing social change for individual advancement. While she taught her students the English language, de Cleyre herself endeavored to learn
Yiddish, eventually becoming fluent in it. She regularly read and contributed articles to the Yiddish anarchist magazine, the
Fraye Arbeter Shtime, warning the editor
Saul Yanovsky against cutting up or changing her words when translating them from English. She also translated Yiddish essays and articles from
Mother Earth, and even tried her hand at writing original works in Yiddish, but only one has survived. Meanwhile, a number of her own pupils, including
Nathan Navro and
Joseph J. Cohen, gained enough fluency in English to publish articles in Anglophone anarchist publications. She was particularly attracted to her young student
Samuel H. Gordon, who later became her lover and political collaborator. She paid for his
medical education, after which he began to move away from anarchism as he saw personal professional success. As time went on, they argued more frequently and more angrily, with one particularly bad argument ending in them both taking poison, although they both survived. De Cleyre herself claimed that the argument was because she had rejected his marriage proposal, refusing to become a domestic
housewife.
Feud with Emma Goldman , with whom de Cleyre would have a personal feud for most of her life In August 1893, de Cleyre first met the anarchist activist
Emma Goldman. She attended a rally that Goldman was due to address, but when Goldman was arrested before she could speak, de Cleyre spoke in her place, protesting against the suppression of
freedom of speech. They met again in December, when de Cleyre travelled to New York to speak in her defense. She visited Goldman in her cell on
Blackwell's Island, where they discussed anarchism and the recent imprisonment of
Alexander Berkman. Back in Philadelphia, de Cleyre wrote that she would soon return to see Goldman, together with her partner Gordon. But Gordon was a follower of
Johann Most, who had publicly denounced Berkman and Goldman. Goldman informed de Cleyre that she preferred not to see Gordon, as it would have used up one of her two monthly
prison visitations. De Cleyre was hurt by the rebuff and did not write back; she did not even speak to Goldman after her release. They only briefly resumed contact when Goldman appealed for de Cleyre's help in campaigning for the reduction of Berkman's prison sentence. Although they shared an
anarchist feminist outlook, the two had divergent backgrounds and personalities. Historian Paul Avrich said that de Cleyre and Goldman differed "as poetry differs from prose", while their mutual friend
Carl Nold compared their oratory respectively to a violin and a bass drum. De Cleyre herself disliked Goldman's style of public speaking and writing, dismissing her work as "incoherent", while also privately admitting their "force". De Cleyre criticised Goldman's indulgences in material pleasures, which provoked a reaction from the latter. De Cleyre's "
puritan" resentment of what she perceived as
middle-class extravagance, from social drinking to birthday parties, drew criticism from other anarchists. She routinely denounced
respectability politics and
intellectualism, which she thought was moving the anarchist movement away from the working class and towards the
bourgeoisie. Goldman took this as a personal attack and denied the charges, while also defending her appeals to the middle classes.
Agitation, education and organization By the end of the 19th century, de Cleyre had become one of the leading public figures of the American anarchist movement. She acted as a link between the Jewish immigrants and American workers of Philadelphia, and contributed several articles, poems and stories to many anarchist publications. She delivered numerous lectures throughout the Northeastern United States. Her regular speaking engagements included commemorations of the
Paris Commune, which took place each March, and memorial meetings for the Haymarket martyrs, which took place each May. At one such meeting, she praised Illinois governor
John Peter Altgeld for pardoning the Haymarket defendants, declaring that he had "sacrificed his political career to an act of justice". She believed that the Haymarket martyrs had not died in vain, as their sacrifice had served to invigorate the anarchist movement. She was also active as a movement functionary, organizing meetings, establishing groups and distributing literature. In the early 1890s, she established an anarchist study group together with Dyer Lum, and in 1892, she co-founded the
Ladies' Liberal League (LLL), a
freethinking feminist group which organized forums on various political subjects. Through the LLL, she met
Margaret Perle McLeod and
Natasha Noshkin, with whom she helped establish a Radical Library that provided an education space for Jewish anarchists in Philadelphia. She also became friends with the Danish-American anarchist
Mary Hansen and her English partner
George Brown, with whom she regularly had dinner and discussed literature, eventually moving in with them in 1894. Over time, de Cleyre's tutoring work, anarchist activism and sustained poverty had exhausted her. Aside from visiting her friends, she lived a rather isolated and secluded life, kept company by her pet cats, birds and fish. Although often lonely and depressed, de Cleyre cherished the independence she had in Philadelphia and thought herself strong for living her life according to her own principles.
Travels in Britain In 1895, de Cleyre began contributing to
The Rebel, an
anarchist communist magazine founded by the English anarchist
Charles Mowbray, for whom de Cleyre had previously raised funds for his legal defense against sedition charges. Although she wrote under a
nom de plume and disagreed with communist economics, she was briefly considered for the role of editor-in-chief. In early 1897, she became pregnant again and sought an abortion; it was a painful procedure and caused her a lot of pain and a flare up of her illness. As her health declined and arguments with her partner Gordon increased, her fellow magazine contributors
Harry Kelly and
John Turner convinced her to visit the United Kingdom. She set sail on June 13, 1897, arriving in England within a week. She stayed in
London for two months, as a guest in John and
Mary Turner's house. She was introduced to the
Freedom Group, as well as the German historian
Max Nettlau, Jewish anarchist editor
Abraham Frumkin and the labor organizer
William Wess. Through Wess, she met the famous Russian anarchist
Peter Kropotkin, who told her over a cup of tea about his escape from the
Russian Empire. She also met Mary Turner's sister-in-law
Lizzie Bell, the wife of
Thomas Hastie Bell, with whom she became fast friends and stayed in each other's company throughout de Cleyre's time in Britain. She was a repeat visitor of the
British Museum, where she saw Lord Byron's own handwriting; she also paid her respects at Byron's grave. She even traveled to visit
Stonehenge, which she had wanted to see her whole life. In contrast, she strongly disliked London due to its heavy
air pollution. She was nevertheless very happy among her friends in the city, which provided a much-needed break from her work life, causing her health and mood to sharply improve. In August 1897, a group of
Spanish anarchists arrived in London, having escaped the severe
political repression of the
Montjuïc trials. De Cleyre, who herself had been active in spreading awareness of the repression in Spain, greeted 28 of the Spanish refugees upon their arrival. After their wounds were treated by a doctor, they held a mass meeting in
Trafalgar Square and a number of smaller meetings in private homes. They described to de Cleyre the repression they had faced and showed her the scars left by their torture in the
Montjuïc Castle. At one of these meetings, the Italian anarchist
Michele Angiolillo resolved to
assassinate the Spanish prime minister
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. De Cleyre sympathized with his attack against Castillo, writing three poems and a short story about him. His execution inspired her to write another poem, "Light Upon Waldheim", in which she lovingly described the
Haymarket Martyrs' Monument in
Waldheim Cemetery. Her meetings with the Spanish anarchists, who had strengthened her commitment to libertarian and anti-authoritarian thought, also inspired her to begin learning the
Spanish language. She was most impressed by
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, from whom she adopted and developed the philosophy of
anarchism without adjectives. During this time, she also met a number of
French anarchists, including former
Communards, such as
Jean Grave. In mid-August, she took a week-long trip to
Paris, where she met
Sébastien Faure, saw the city's sites and paid her respects to the revolutionaries buried in the
Père Lachaise Cemetery. After returning to Britain, she decided to visit
Scotland. While staying in
Glasgow's neighborhood of
Govanhill with
Maggie and
Will Duff, she quickly fell in love with the country, remarking that if she could make a living there, she would never return to America. She gave a series of lectures in all of Scotland's major cities, remarking with sadness that
Dundee had been "disfigured by vomiting chimneys" and reporting of its problems with
child labor. Before she left, the Duffs gave her a poetry collection by the English socialist
Francis Adams. In September 1897, she left Glasgow and returned to London, stopping off at
Bradford,
Leeds and
Manchester, where she gave a series of lectures on anarchism and feminism. Back in London, she gave one final address to the Jewish anarchists at the
South Place Ethical Society, before returning to America.
Return to activism in America De Cleyre was reinvigorated by her time in Britain and immediately returned to her writing and speaking engagements. She began writing regular reports on the United States for the
Freedom newspaper in London, and started a translation of Jean Grave's
Moribund Society and Anarchy. Her work on the latter was accelerated by the outbreak of the
Spanish–American War, as she thought the book had been made more relevant by the rise of
American imperialism. Although she criticized the United States' involvement in the war, she did not offer an unqualified condemnation of the war itself, due to her belief that the
Spanish Empire needed to be broken up, even if a government was required to do so. Once again, she began to overwork herself and her health began to sharply decline. She returned to her tutoring work, which marginally improved her financial situation. Despite making so little money that she was malnourished, she refused to take any money from the anarchist movement. In order to conserve her energy, she curbed her speaking and writing efforts, passing her "American Notes" column at
Freedom over to Harry Kelly. She was able to find a quiet farm in
Torresdale, owned by the spiritualist
Sada Bailey Fowler, where being closer to nature provided a peaceful and relaxing environment for her to recover in. She soon returned to Philadelphia and went back to tutoring, writing and public speaking tours. While in Chicago in November 1899, she met the Russian social revolutionary
Nahum Berman with whom she briefly had a relationship before returning to Philadelphia. He died only a few months after she left. Inspired by Berman, she established another anarchist reading group, the Social Science Club, which soon became the foremost anarchist group in Philadelphia. Together with other members of the group, she moved into a house in
Fairmount Avenue. By this time, her partner Samuel H. Gordon had graduated as a
Doctor of Medicine, left the anarchist movement and broken up with de Cleyre after she rejected his marriage proposal. De Cleyre and her anarchist group held a number of public meetings outside
Philadelphia City Hall, where she gave speeches and distributed leaflets, gaining hundreds of new converts to the anarchist movement. De Cleyre and George Brown also gave lectures to high school and university students, and distributed anarchist propaganda at labor union meetings.
Repression and direct action The group's propaganda activities began to face difficulties in the wake of the
assassination of William McKinley by
Leon Czolgosz, which unleashed a wave of political repression against the anarchist movement. De Cleyre hoped that the widespread anti-anarchist sentiment would subside, but it continued unabated over the subsequent weeks. Philadelphia police raided anarchist clubs, broke up their public meetings and surveilled their members. Although de Cleyre herself was never arrested, she publicly denounced the political repression. In March 1902, after Senator
Joseph R. Hawley offered $1,000 () to take a shot at an anarchist, de Cleyre publicly accepted his challenge in an open letter published in the
Free Society newspaper. Although she did not agree with his assassination, she remarked that assassination attempts were an
occupational hazard of being a
head of state. De Cleyre believed McKinley's support for capitalism and imperialism had been responsible for his own death. Although de Cleyre had previously rejected violence as a pacifist, her sympathy for Czolgosz's attack against McKinley marked a turning point, as she increasingly began to accept violent methods such as
propaganda of the deed. She continued to believe that violent action was almost always unreasonable, she came to consider that there were some cases in which violence became the only effective way of opposing tyranny. To de Cleyre, anarchists should not preach violence, but should not condemn violent acts against the system either. She believed that violent attacks by individuals were inevitable responses to the severity of state violence. She sympathized with the self-sacrifice displayed by anarchist assassins, and mourned them when they were executed. While never abandoning her preference for non-violence and education, she also began to vocally support acts of "
direct action". ==Later life==