Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman, 1912, by Jonathan Ned Katz

These letters suggest that some kind of active sexual relationship did occur between the two women. There is also no doubt about the character and intensity of Sperry’s feelings, so strongly and unambiguously expressed. The letters indicate that Goldman returned Sperry’s affection, though with less passion and desperate need than Sperry felt.

In one undated, and atypically puritanical statement, Sperry tells Goldman:

Never mind about not feeling as I do. I find restraint to be purifying. Realization is hell for it is satisfying and degenerating.

In another undated letter Sperry writes to Goldman:

God how I dream of you! You say that you would like to have me near you always if you were a man, or if you felt as I do. Dearest, I would not if I could. I would soon die…. the thought of distance adds to my terrible pain–so pleasurable. I want no calm friendships. The thoughts of annihilation used to appeal to me. Today they do not. …

The letters do suggest that Goldman in her personal relations with Sperry had come close to that tabooed homosexual activity which she early and publicly defended in lectures, to the chagrin of even her unconventional anarchist comrades. The writings of Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Almeda Sperry suggest that at least some American anarchists were, at an early date, more than usually tolerant and open-minded about homosexuality.

Related:

The Letters

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