Essays

Voltairine de Cleyre was born into poverty on the 17th November 1866 in Leslie, Michigan.

Her forceful and committed radicalism was forged by several factors among them; poverty, a difficult relationship with her parents and several years of restrictive education at a Catholic convent in Ontario, which also turned her into a lifelong atheist and anti-authoritarian.

Initially active in the freethought movement, de Cleyre fully committed to anarchism following the 1887 Haymarket affair executions which followed the deaths of several from a bombing at that rally.

For over 20 years in Philadelphia, she lived in near-poverty among Jewish immigrants, teaching English and music while writing prolifically across hundreds of essays, sketches, stories and poems. As a bridge between diverse radical factions, she championed ‘anarchism without adjectives,’ arguing for unity across economic ideologies.

She was a feminist pioneer who critiqued marriage as sex slavery and advocated for women’s economic and bodily autonomy. Despite lifelong illness and surviving a 1902 assassination attempt by a former student—whom she famously refused to prosecute—she remained a tireless organizer. Emma Goldman, a fellow activist, although they disagreed on much, cited her as the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America had ever produced

Voltairine de Cleyre died on the 20th June 1912 in Chicago. She was 45.

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