Crystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life

by Amy Aronson Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley

Overview

In 1910, Crystal Eastman was one of the most conspicuous progressive reformers in America. By the 1920s, her ardent suffragism, insistent anti-militarism, gregarious internationalism, and uncompromising feminism branded her "the most dangerous woman in America" and led to her exile in England. Yet a century later, her legacy in shaping several defining movements of the modern era-labor, feminism, free speech, peace-is unquestioned.



A founder of the ACLU and Woman's Peace Party, Eastman was a key player in a constellation of high-stakes public battles from the very beginning of her career. She first found employment investigating labor conditions-an endeavor that would produce her iconic publication, Work Accidents and the Law, a catalyst for the first workers' compensation law. She would go on to fight for the rights of women, penning the Equal Rights Amendment with Alice Paul. As a pacifist in the First World War era, she helped to found the Civil Liberties Bureau, which evolved into the ACLU.



As the first biography of Eastman, this book gives renewed voice to a woman who spoke passionately in debates still raging today-gender equality and human rights, nationalism and globalization, political censorship and media control, worker benefits and family balance, and the monumental questions of war, sovereignty, and freedom.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"An overdue biography of an influential suffragist, pacifist, and civil libertarian... Aronson leaves no doubt that Eastman was an inspiring figure who deserves the renewed attention that the book should bring." - Kirkus

"In Crystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life, Amy Aronson has given us the great gift of a best friend we didn't know. Feminist, journalist, lawyer, friend of workers and enemy of militarists, Crystal Eastman may have been born a century too soon, but she is re-born now just when we need her most." - Gloria Steinem

"Eastman's work and its challenges feel sharply relevant to today's changing world, and this engaging and careful biography will appeal to activists and students of history alike." - Booklist

"Crystal Eastman, founding mother of the ACLU, also played a starring role in early twentieth century battles for women's suffrage and equality, pacifism, internationalism, laborers' rights and safety, socialism, and economic equality. She founded and ran multiple influential organizations, often simultaneously, and was viewed by her contemporaries as personally and professionally stunning. But until Amy Aronson's meticulously researched and masterful biography, only glimpses of Eastman's life and work were publicly available. Aronson's perceptive and sympathetic portrait finally enables us to see the magnitude of this enchanting revolutionary who - due to her gender - was practically erased by history for many decades. At a time when we are being pressured to reduce ourselves to stereotypes and sound bites, Aronson offers us a role model of a woman who refused to be pigeonholed and who insisted on living as well as fighting for her principles." - Susan Herman, president, ACLU

"Amy Aronson's thoroughly researched biography of pioneering visionary and activist Crystal Eastman is a splendid guide across the most urgent and ongoing issues of the 20th century. Feminist socialist pacifist, attorney journalist publisher, bridge builder and movement creator, Crystal Eastman's commitment to global understanding engendered the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Everyone concerned about peace, freedom, women's rights and human rights will be fortified by this important work." - Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt (3 vols.) and editor, Crystal Eastman on Women & Revolution

"This is the beautifully written and brilliantly incisive life story of one of the most influential and inspiring women in US history—whose name few people know. Thanks to Amy Aronson, Crystal Eastman now has the biography that she—and we—deserve." - Michael Kazin, author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 and Professor of History, Georgetown University

"Crystal Eastman once described herself as a 'militant idealist' who aspired to nothing less than 'global social justice.' Aronson's well researched, lucidly narrated, and highly engaging biography examines the life of this consummate activist who struggled to unite the personal and public aspects of her politics." - Mari Jo Buhle, William R. Kenan Jr. University Professor, Brown University

"Aronson... focuses on Eastman's activism as a lens through which to illuminate cultural issues that resonate today... This meticulously researched book shines." - Library Journal

"Crystal Eastman's life was, as Ms. Aronson claims, revolutionary... Her passion sometimes worked against her, but a reader finishes this book feeling less sad for her than grateful to her biographer for capturing the whole of this noble, crazy, glorious life." - Wall Street Journal

Library Journal

11/01/2019

In a biography of the pioneering and overlooked American feminist Crystal Eastman (1881–1928), Aronson (journalism, media studies, Fordham Univ.) focuses on Eastman's activism as a lens through which to illuminate cultural issues that resonate today, especially social justice and the work-life balance. Involved in major currents of Progressive Era reform, Eastman began her career as a labor reporter investigating industrial accidents, and penned an influential report that triggered the nation's first workers' compensation laws. She founded the monthly magazine The Liberator with her brother, Max Eastman. Aronson offers useful historical context when descrbring the causes Eastman championed: suffrage, anti-militarism, reproductive rights, socialism, pacifism, and world federation. This meticulously researched book shines when it shows how Eastman's profound longing for motherhood inspired the most important theme of her writings: gender inequality in domestic relations. Unlike many of her feminist colleagues, Eastman had no desire to see women fully liberated from motherhood and child rearing. An intimate look at her relationships with well-known reformers, including her brother Max, propels the narrative forward. VERDICT For academics and general readers interested in women's rights and biographies of achieving women.—Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

Kirkus Reviews

2019-09-15
An overdue biography of an influential suffragist, pacifist, and civil libertarian.

"God meant the whole rich world of work and play and adventure for women as well as men," Crystal Eastman (1881-1928) said in a 1914 speech. "It is high time for us to enter into our heritage—that is my feminist faith." The daughter of two ministers, Eastman was especially close to her mother, who served with Thomas Beecher, the half brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, at a church in upstate New York. After earning a law degree from New York University, she pursued progressive causes, including workers' rights, suffrage, socialism, reproductive rights, and civil liberties. In the first biography of Eastman, Aronson (Journalism and Media Studies/Fordham Univ.; Taking Liberties: Early American Women's Magazines and Their Readers, 2002, etc.) casts her subject as a journalist and intersectional activist who advocated for social justice while embarking on love affairs, two unconventional marriages, and motherhood. Despite lifelong health problems, Eastman investigated hazardous labor conditions for the Russell Sage Foundation and wrote a landmark 1910 report on that effort, Work Accidents and the Law, which led to the country's first workers' compensation law. She later became a prominent suffragist and co-founder of forerunners of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, often working beside trailblazers such as Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman or with her brother, Max, with whom she co-edited the leftist monthly the Liberator. This dense and deeply researched biography features some distracting modern clichés (Eastman "noted that her biological clock had been actively ticking" and found herself "juggling work and family"), but Aronson leaves no doubt that Eastman was an inspiring figure who deserves the renewed attention that the book should bring.

A welcome reconsideration of an underappreciated early-20th-century journalist and activist.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177210612
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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