Baginski was born in 1864 in
Bartenstein, a small
Prussian town. His father was a shoemaker who had been active in the
1848 revolution and was thus shunned by the conservative inhabitants of the village. Under his father's influence, Baginski read
freethinker August Specht's writings and
Freiheit,
Johann Most's newspaper, in his youth. After school Baginski became his father's apprentice. Already a staunch socialist, Baginski moved to
Berlin in 1882. He emigrated to the
U.S. in 1893. ==Professional career==