Margaret Caroline Anderson Quotes (1886-1973)

“The quality in the anarchists that Anderson found most appealing was their explosive individualism, a trait she shared. Deliberately, provokingly, and often charmingly outrageous, Anderson never concerned herself with public opinion. Her unconventionality in this regard endeared her to Emma Goldman, who had begun to enjoy the attention and homage of the young middle-class rebels who formed the core of the new bohemia. Anderson's anarchism in fact stemmed directly from her friendship with Goldman. Anderson remained an anarchist for three years. Her drift away from the movement was actuated by her realization that Goldman and Alexander Berkman were human beings with frailties as well as strengths, not superbeings whom she could worship uncritically … Anderson never entered the mainstream of the movement. Despite her later assertion that during her years as an anarchist she found "people in clean collars uninteresting" and that she "even accepted smells, personal as well as official," since "everyone who came to the studio smelled of machine oil or herring." Anderson actually spent most of her time with the movement's leaders." An elitist, she was simply drawn to people who emanated powerful individual strength or who seemed to her unique. Further, anarchism for her had all the romanticism of a lost cause. Involved with the movement between 1914 and 1917, during its decline, Anderson believed herself a member of an elite community, not a participant in a rebellion of the masses. In one sense, Margaret Anderson can be viewed as the personification of the alienated artist or intellectual attracted to radical causes as a by-product of her aesthetic rebellion. While others who had a greater sense of social purpose turned to socialism, her wildly emotional individualism led her directly to the anarchists. As long as the anarchists as individuals retained their fascination for her, she immersed herself in their cause; when they exhibited human weakness, she became disillusioned. Needing to worship, she was not content merely to participate.”