Background Mother Earth was an
anarchist magazine established in
New York City in March 1906 by Russian-Jewish émigré
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) and
Max Baginski (1864-1943). Beginning in March 1907, the editorial staff was joined by
Alexander Berkman (1870-1936), a consort of Goldman's since 1886. Berkman had gained fame (or infamy) for his part in the July 1892 attempted assassination of
Henry Clay Frick, the manager of the
Carnegie Steel Company who in the previous month had emerged victorious in the bitter and violent
Homestead Strike of the company's steel works at
Homestead, Pennsylvania. Jailed for his failed attempt at political murder, Berkman was only released in May 1906, having served 14 years in prison for his crime. Berkman's joining of the editorial staff of
Mother Earth was thus in the nature of a reunion. In September 1914 Berkman and Goldman split, with Berkman hitting the road in an attempt to organize "Anti-Militarist Leagues" in opposition to
World War I and to federate the dispersed array of local anarchist groups into a unified organization. He arrived in California in the spring of 1915 where he became involved in the defense of Mathew Schmidt and David Caplan, anarchists recently arrested following years living underground in connection with the October 1910
fatal bombing of the newspaper plant of the conservative
Los Angeles Times. Berkman became a primary organizer of the Caplan-Schmidt Defense League in the summer of 1915 and henceforth devoted the bulk of his time to this legal fight, ending his formal editorial connection with
Mother Earth. Establishment The first issue of
The Blast appeared dated January 15, 1916, with cover art by anarchist cartoonist
Robert Minor. Joining Editor and Publisher Berkman at the time of the 8-page magazine's launch was E.B. Morton as Associate Editor and
M. Eleanor Fitzgerald as Business Manager. In an introductory editorial statement, Berkman noted that the provocatively named publication would be both destructive and constructive in intent: Before a garden can bloom, the weeds must be uprooted. Nothing is therefore more important than to destroy. Nothing more necessary and difficult... To destroy the Old and the False is the most vital work. We emphasize it: to blast the bulwarks of slavery and oppression is of primal necessity. It is the beginning of really lasting construction. The journal was originally conceived by Berkman as a "revolutionary labor paper" rather than a strictly anarchist newspaper.
The Blast focused on the California labor situation and provided news about national labor events and leaders of radical political movements. Berkman ultimately published 29 issues of
The Blast. Preparedness Day Bombing The sensational July 1916
Preparedness Day Bombing of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade — a terrorist attack which killed 8 and wounded more than 40 others — took place while Berkman was already publishing
The Blast in that same city. The editorial location of the semi-monthly anarchist magazine combined with its inflammatory name proved irresistible to local authorities, who raided the paper's offices on July 29, 1916 without a
search warrant. No evidence was located on the premises and there were no arrests made. Many pages of
The Blast, unsurprisingly, were committed to the Mooney-Billings defense effort. This activity led to another police raid on ''The Blast's'' offices on December 31, 1916. For their opposition to the American war effort, Berkman and Goldman were convicted of conspiracy to induce people not to register for the draft, as called for by the
Selective Service Act of 1917. Both were sentenced to two years in federal prison and began serving their sentences on February 2, 1918. The complete run of 29 issues of
The Blast were re-published in book form by anarchist publisher
AK Press in 2005. ==Contributors==