Voltairine de Cleyre (November 17, 1866–June 6, 1912) was, according to [[Emma Goldman]], “the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced.” Born on [[November 17]], [[1866]], in the small town of [[Leslie, Michigan]], as a teenager she was forced into a [[Catholic]] convent, an experience that had the effect of pushing her towards [[atheism]] rather than [[Christianity]]. Family ties to the [[Abolitionism|Abolitionist]] movement and the [[Underground Railroad]], along with the harsh and unrelenting poverty that she grew up in, and being named after a philosopher ([[Voltaire]]), most definitely contributed to the radical rhetoric that she developed shortly after adolescence. After schooling in the convent, Voltairine began her intellectual involvement in the Free Thought Movement (it being primarily anti-Catholic and anti-clerical) by contributing articles to free thought periodicals and lecturing.
Within her time in the free thought movement in the early 1880s, de Cleyre was influenced by [[Thomas Paine]] and [[Mary Wollstonecraft]] especially, and also [[Henry David Thoreau]], [[Bill Haywood|Big Bill Haywood]], [[Clarence Darrow]], and later [[Eugene Debs]]. After the hanging of the [[Haymarket Riot|Haymarket]] martyrs in [[1887]], however, she became an anarchist. “Till then I believed in the essential justice of the American law of trial by jury,” she wrote in a 1914 autobiographical essay, “After that I never could.
De Cleyre was known as an excellent speaker and writer — in the opinion of [[Paul Avrich]], her biographer, she was “a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist” — and as a tireless advocate for the anarchist cause, whose “religious zeal,” according to Goldman, “stamped everything she did…. Her whole nature was that of an ascetic.”
Voltairine de Cleyre was esteemed by [[Emma Goldman]] and wrote an essay in her defense. However, the two women disagreed on some key points. De Cleyre, for several years began associating herself with the [[American individualist anarchism|American individualist anarchist]]s and adopted the philosophy. In her [[1894]] essay ”In Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation,” de Cleyre wrote in support of the right of expropriation, while remaining neutral on its advocacy, “I do not think one little bit of sensitive human flesh is worth all the property rights in N. Y. city… I say it is your business to decide whether you will starve and freeze in sight of food and clothing, outside of jail, or commit some overt act against the institution of property and take your place beside TIMMERMANN and GOLDMANN.” Eventually, however, de Cleyre was moved to reject individualism as well, “Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom.” Instead, she became one of the most prominent advocates of “[[anarchism without adjectives]]”, a movement in anarchism which focused on harmony between the various factions and did not advocate anything beyond the basic conception of anarchism as anti-state and anti-capitalist. In ”The Making of an Anarchist,” she wrote, “I no longer label myself otherwise than as ‘Anarchist’ simply.”
Voltairine de Cleyre’s [[1912]] essay in defense of [[direct action]] is widely cited today. In this essay, de Cleyre points to examples such as the [[Boston Tea Party]], noting that “direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it.”
In her [[1914]] essay entitled ”Sex Slavery,” Voltairine de Cleyre condemns ideals of beauty that encourage women to distort their bodies and child socialization practices that create unnatural gender roles. The title of the essay refers not to traffic in women for purposes of prostitution, although that is also mentioned, but rather to marriage laws that allow men to rape their wives without consequences. Such laws make “every married woman what she is, a bonded slave, who takes her master’s name, her master’s bread, her master’s commands, and serves her master’s passions.”
Voltairine de Cleyre also adamantly opposed the standing army, arguing that its existence made wars more likely. In her [[1909]] essay, ”Anarchism and American Traditions,” she argued that, in order to achieve peace, “all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who wish to make war do so at their own cost and risk; that neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade.”
Voltairine de Cleyre was close to and inspired by [[Dyer D. Lum]], “her teacher, her confidant, her comrade”. On [[June 12]], [[1890]] she gave birth to a son, Harry, fathered by freethinker [[James B. Elliot]]. Throughout her life she was plagued by illness and depression, attempting suicide on at least one occasion and suriviving an assassination attempt on [[December 9]], [[1902]]. Her assailant, Herman Helcher, was a former pupil who she later forgave, writing “It would be an outrage against civilisation if he were sent to jail for an act which was the product of a diseased brain”.
Voltairine de Cleyre died on [[June 6]], [[1912]], in [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]], [[Illinois]]. She is buried in Waldheim Cemetary, next to the Haymarket Martyrs monument. A collection of her speeches, ”The First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches, 1895-1910”, was published by the [[Libertarian Book Club]] in [[1980]] and in [[2004]], [[AK Press]] released ”The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader”, edited by AJ Brigati.
==External links==
*[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/cleyre/Cleyrearchive.html Collected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre] at the [[Anarchy Archives]]
*[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/voltairine.html “Voltairine de Cleyre” by Emma Goldman]
*[http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/Decleyre/poetrydecleyre.htm Poems of Voltairine de Cleyre] Stan Iverson Archives
