Goddess of Anarchy

by Jacqueline Jones

  Parsons was, by most accounts, “a woman of commanding appearance.” The New York Times reporter who covered her speech at Clarendon Hall provided a description:

  She has a handsome oval face with arched eyebrows, a large, full but well shaped mouth, showing a set of white, even teeth, while speaking, and a softly rounded chin. The mahogany hue of the face, with its covering of crinkly black hair, and the large nostrils, conveyed the impression that some of her ancestors were of African birth. This impression was strengthened by a side view which revealed a depression of the bridge of the nose. The forehead is prominent and the head large. She has a symmetrical figure and is of about the medium height. She was dressed in black. She spoke in a positive way, in a full, clear voice that was heard with distinctness throughout the hall.

  This observer added that her inflection and pronunciation of certain words “gave evidence that her youth had been spent in the South.”30

  Although reporters generally agreed on this quality of her voice, they struggled to convey to readers her skin color and hair texture, physical qualities that routinely went unnoticed in white speakers. Her skin was variously described as “exceedingly dark,” “brown-like” in tone, and “neither black nor yellow, but just between,” and most often as a shade of copper—dull copper, the color of a new penny, a copper tint, or “coppery.” Some reported that her hair was “fluffy, silken,” others that it was coarse, “kinky and unmanageable.” Despite her protests, she was labeled variously a Negro, a “quadroon,” or a “light-colored negress.”31

  Some reporters, however, thought that Parsons could not be black, noting, of her speech, “there is no trace of the florid style which almost always characterizes an African”; rather, she exhibited a self-restraint “for which the American Indian is noted,” confirming her claim that she was “of mixed Mexican and Indian origin.” Some observers cited evidence for whatever they wanted to see: “Her dark, swarthy complexion indicates her Spanish birth. A long face, aquiline nose, and a pair of sharp black eyes are set off with a head of jet black hair.”32

  Predictably, reporters tried to connect Parsons’s “racial” heritage, as “revealed” by her appearance, to her intelligence, or lack thereof. One who labeled her a Negro also said, “Her dense ignorance of the rules of grammar and her efforts to indulge in metaphors were laughable,” an assessment contradicted by virtually all other listeners, including the one who wrote that, although her “intelligence was unexpected… she spoke fluently, used very fair phraseology, and had a voice that was pleasantly musical, even when she was excited by the threatened police interference.” One noted that despite being a “Negro-Mexican,” “she has read a good deal, and is well enough informed to talk intelligently and with considerable originality on many subjects.”33

  Parsons’s manner of dress provided some measure of gravitas and ruled out any descriptions of her as lacking in good fashion sense. She always appeared in a form-fitting black gown, either plain or embossed in black velvet. The New York Times gave front-page coverage to her talk in Philadelphia on October 30—calling it “the biggest demonstration of Anarchists” held in that city—and the reporter admiringly described her becoming outfit, a richly trimmed black satin dress with a Berlin twill jacket, boots with French heels, and a “Gainsborough black hat with a half dozen handsome black ostrich feathers.” Her long hair was worn with bangs and a fashionable topknot on her head, and she eschewed makeup and used tasteful accessories—a corsage of red and white roses, a gold pin fastening a black lace scarf, or (her most distinctive piece) a necklace with a gold charm in the shape of a tiny gallows. Some remarked on her colorful jewelry: “Her nose is of the flat or negro type. Her whole face has a strong suggestion of Aztec blood. With her heavy ear rings, [and] topaz buttons[,] she has an air of old Egypt about her.” She was “a modern Cleopatra, a veritable African queen.”34

  Just as reporters attempted to reveal Parsons’s character through her physical appearance, they sought to comprehend the nature of her often raucous, foot-stomping, cheering audiences, usually a mix of working-class men and women and well-to-do intellectuals and reformers. The sympathetic Advance and Labor Leaf of Detroit claimed she attracted “an unusually intelligent looking crowd,” but the hostile Cincinnati Enquirer puzzled over the “strange-looking people” in the audience: interspersed with “the tangle-haired, wild-eyed variety of anarchist” were well-dressed women, some of them in attendance with their children.35

  According to the pseudoscientific ideologies of the day, the shape of a person’s head or brow revealed character traits, and some reporters judged her audiences accordingly. In the Omaha hall, where all of “Bohemia town” had turned out to hear her, few men were wearing linen, and the smell of stale beer, tobacco, and garlic hung in the air; there were found “roughly clad, sullen browed men, who sat heavily in their chairs,” in the words of a reporter. In Buffalo’s Harmonia Hall, of the “sharp-featured, thin-haired, uneasy, carelessly dressed workmen,” one reporter asserted that, “in many cases low brows and scraggly beards were observed, both indicative of limited intelligence and lack of force of character.”36

  No doubt the presence of African American men or women would have made audiences seem even stranger, but there is no indication many of them ever attended, and Parsons never noted their absence. Transcripts of her speeches during her tour of 1886–1887 indicate that she exhibited a seemingly perverse indifference to the escalating state-sanctioned assaults on the bodies and rights of black southerners. She was aware of the Carrollton, Mississippi, massacre of March 1886, and, as an avid newspaper reader, she certainly knew that southern whites were killing many dozens of blacks annually in bloodfests meant to torture the victims and serve as grisly warnings for all people of African descent. In her lectures, Parsons exposed the immense power of local law-enforcement and judicial authorities, and she derided the cowardly ineffectiveness of the two main political parties in protecting the most basic rights of the white laboring classes. These two themes were pertinent to blacks’ unique vulnerability; but in fact, with the exception of routine references to Haymarket, her speeches were the same as those that she or any other labor radical might have given five or ten years before. In most areas of the country, the class struggle had no room for black people, though it is worth noting that at that very moment black workers in Richmond, Virginia, were pressing the white Knights of Labor for full and equal participation in the labor movement.37

  Not surprisingly, many editors of the largest newspapers bristled at Parsons’s message and the excitement she caused when she came to town. In Omaha, one editor wrote, “She addresses men as slaves. The American citizen knows that he is not a slave. He knows that he is living under the most kindly and the most liberal government that the sun shines upon.” Parsons was dismissed as a brazen fraud who spouted “loud-mouthed treason” and endangered the sanctity of the family. She should be banned, or, failing that, her talks boycotted, for “she has a tongue like a lash. She has a temper like a scorpion, and a moral nature that has been turned awry.”38

  Observers on the extremes of the political spectrum could agree that she hindered the cause of labor reform. For example, some Henry George supporters in New York dreaded her appearance, fearing that she and other representatives of the “dangerous classes” would tar their own cause with the red brush of anarchism. One workers’ paper agreed that she had her facts right, but disputed her conclusions, since, it claimed, the people had “peaceful means at their disposal every time the polls open[ed],” and they must “attend to the duties of citizenship”: to destroy the system was “not the way to repair it.” The argument that Parsons was doing her husband’s cause no good found expression in the Omaha Republican, which suggested that lawyers for the Haymarket defendants should summon her home to Chicago, since her treasonous rantings would only tighten the noose around her husband’s neck: “She is doing the prisoners more harm than all other influences combined,” the paper said. “The incoher
ent lunacy to which she gives vent disgusts people. She should be muzzled.” Other editors urged their readers to “give her a fair hearing and judge of her accordingly.” The Kansas City Times disapproved of her message, but said “it greatly admire[d] her pluck and magnificent poise.”39

  BY MOST MEASURES, LUCY PARSONS’S SPEAKING TOUR OF 1886–1887 was a rousing success. Initial reports suggested that she had raised as much as $100 a day for the prisoners’ defense fund, sending as much as $750 a week back to Captain Black and his associates, though that sum apparently represented funds commingled with donations from socialists and anarchists all over the country. (An event in Philadelphia that attracted an audience of 1,000 people brought in $125; most audiences were smaller.) Parsons delivered dozens of speeches and made her case against a jury that rendered its verdict without knowing the identity of the person who wielded the murder weapon, the Haymarket bomb. In the process she upheld the principles of free speech and assembly and defied authorities who would silence radical labor agitators and their allies. Nevertheless, newspaper editors, politicians, and police chiefs remained convinced that her speeches were designed to incite violence. In Cincinnati, for example, one paper called her a “red-mouthed anarchist” and said her words were “well calculated to stir up the worst feelings of a mob, and if blindly obeyed to leave this city in ruins.”40

  Parsons garnered extensive coverage in newspapers all over the country. Henceforth, she was a celebrity speaker in her own right, no longer merely her husband’s surrogate relegated to second-tier status or a supporting role at workers’ gatherings. Much later, the radical agitator Elizabeth Gurley Flynn would pay homage to Parsons, writing about how her speeches were delivered “in a beautiful melodious voice, with eloquence and passion,” and about her pioneering efforts, which caused union men to become accustomed “to listen[ing] respectfully to a woman speaking for labor.”41

  An assessment of Parsons’s tours must rely almost exclusively on published newspaper accounts of her speeches, leaving out as a matter of course many facets of her trip. Reporters could not have known about the long, lonely nights Parsons spent in hotel rooms, or the missed train connections, or the slights and indignities she endured as a woman of color traveling by herself. Moreover, what might have been a triumphant return to Chicago in the spring of 1887 instead plunged her back into the harsh reality of family life—a husband in prison, the children to be gathered up, a landlord clamoring for rent money she did not have. And Lucy Parsons had to confront the reality that her own blossoming reputation was built upon her husband’s impending death.

  LUCY PARSONS’S SPEAKING TOUR, 1886–1887

  October 1886 11–13 Cincinnati

  14 Louisville

  15 Cleveland

  17 New York City

  20 Jersey City

  24 Orange, NJ

  30 Philadelphia

  November 1886 4–5 New York City

  7 Jersey City

  8 Paterson, NJ

  17 New Haven, CT

  20 Baltimore

  22 Pittsburgh

  24 Cleveland

  December 1886 12 St. Louis

  18 Omaha

  21 Kansas City

  22 Omaha

  31 Saint Joseph, MO

  January 1887 15–28 Detroit

  31 Buffalo

  February 1887 17 Milwaukee

  March 1887 10 Cincinnati

  11 Columbus

  Chapter 9

  The Blood of My Husband

  IN EARLY 1887, CHICAGO POLICE BEGAN TO MONITOR VIRTUALLY ALL of Lucy Parsons’s public appearances, whether she was addressing a crowd of picnickers in Ogden’s Grove or selling her husband’s likeness and writings on a city street corner. The authorities faced a dilemma in dealing with the notorious publicity-seeker: they could either place her under arrest whenever she exhorted the laboring classes to defend themselves with dynamite, and in the process risk adding her name to the list of eight presumptive martyrs now holding court in Cook County jail; or they could ignore her and endure the wrath of those Chicagoans who demanded the silencing of all critics of capitalism and other basic American institutions. For the time being, at least, the police left the fiery orator free to speechify, on the theory that either she would soon tire and burn herself out, or that the labor leaders, mortified to be associated with her, would extinguish her flame. Meanwhile, in the journalistic equivalent of police surveillance, the city’s dailies were sending out reporters to follow Parsons in hopes of recording her next outrageous statement or sensational outburst. Indeed, the ambitions of reporters and police converged when both groups disguised themselves to gain access to anarchist meetings; a Chicago Tribune reporter covering one of her speeches lost his fake beard when he was forced to flee from an officer who thought he looked like a rabble-rouser.1

  Parsons loved the heightened notoriety and, honing her flair for the dramatic, declared that her enemies portrayed all anarchists as bloodthirsty fiends, who hatched their terrible plots and drank sour beer from the skulls of capitalists’ children in dank subterranean chambers. It is true that her critics indulged in hyperbolic attacks: one anonymous letter-writer called her a “disgrace to your Sex and Humanity,” a woman “born of wolfish proclivities, a frequenter of dens of thieves and murderers,” and said she should “be throttled at once and left above ground as warning to others of the same ills.” However, though she might revel in such hyperbolic personal attacks, Parsons was becoming increasingly anxious over the impending execution of her husband. Her distress now merged with public spectacle as she frantically sought to call attention to his incarceration by attracting publicity to herself.2

  Lucy and Albert were not only famous anarchists but also husband and wife and the parents of Albert Junior and Lulu. Their family now came together on “murderers’ row,” where the condemned men were kept in adjacent cells. The jail remained a beehive of activity, with next-of-kin, reporters, celebrities, and curiosity-seekers crowding each other in the hallway outside the “cage,” an iron-mesh enclosure where the prisoners were held during visiting hours. From October 1886 through March 1887, Lucy spent most of her time on the road, returning to Chicago for two weeks at a time in early December and January and in late February and early March. She made a point of visiting Albert every day that she was in the city, though prison regulations at times interfered with her plans. Their reunions, recounted in detail by reporters, were invariably described as “most affectionate.” Hoping to meet with her husband upon her return from a particularly eventful trip to Columbus, Ohio, in late March, Lucy ran afoul of the rule that prohibited such visits on Sundays. Albert protested loudly, “They think they got us where they can jump on us, but they’ll be sorry for it one day. I’ll live to be Sheriff of Cook County, and mark me, I’ll make ’em dance to my music.”3

  Reporters were eager for quotable quips such as this one, and so they hovered outside the “cage” throughout the day and into the evening, hoping to overhear conversations between prisoners and visitors. Lucy and Albert declaimed loudly and gestured broadly when they wanted their words to appear in the paper. If the couple preferred privacy, they drew their chairs together, bent their heads in close to the cage, and whispered to each other. The fervid atmosphere of the jail, with seven men (all the defendants but Neebe, who was facing fifteen years in prison) condemned to die and their loved ones alternately stoic and hysterical, provided much human-interest fodder for the dailies. (Again, though, press manipulation ran two ways: a Chicago Herald reporter named Maxwell E. Dickson would bring Albert poetry to read, and then “furnish first-page stuff for the Herald,” reporting that the prisoner “had been consoling himself with poetry,” without any evidence that he had even looked at it.)4

  In the fall, a narrative emerged in the mainstream press that Lucy Parsons the defiant female dynamiter had been replaced by the sorrowful wife and mother, and that she had “completely broken down.” Yet this narrative might have been a product of either wishful thinking
on the part of the police or an editor’s desire to keep readers engaged in an ongoing melodrama. Lucy had likely decided on her own that she must keep her name in the headlines, even if it meant presenting herself as a distraught widow-in-waiting. Perhaps Albert’s only chance of swaying the Illinois Supreme Court justices or gaining a pardon from the governor, Richard Oglesby, would come through her ability to rouse sympathy for herself and her children. Yet she failed to pursue this goal with her customary political savvy and self-awareness, instead seemingly going out of her way to baffle and repel supporters and to confound the public in general. Indeed, some observers saw in her behavior a self-destructive streak that endangered any chance for clemency that her husband and the other prisoners might have had.5

  THE PARSONSES WERE NOT THE ONLY COUPLE ON WHOM THE PRESS fixated. The dashing August Spies, at times compared to Lord Byron, carried on a presumed romance, of necessity quite Victorian in its restraint, with a woman named Nina van Zandt, a twenty-five-year-old graduate of Vassar College possessed of intelligence and wealth. Van Zandt proved to be a favorite with the papers, which eagerly covered her proxy wedding to “the amorous editor” on January 20, 1887. Lucy found the titillating stories annoying and distracting; asked her opinion of the marriage during her speaking tour, she snapped, “I do not know or care. I am not travelling to discuss Miss Van Zandt.” Reporters compared the two women on their looks and fashion sense and discerned a distinct coolness in the women’s relations with each other. For his part, Chicago police captain Schaack said that van Zandt’s love for Spies “could only have been the product of a disordered mind.”6