Crystal Eastman A
But...Who was Crystal Eastman? Looking at the picture on the cover of this book, Crystal appears as a shy, remissive person; just her vivid, burning eyes tell us that we have in front of us a completely different person.
She lived a quiet short existence: born on 1881 she died at just 47 years; Crystal dedicated to the rights of women, workers, minorities, her entire existence but disappearing totally once gone. It is still uncertain where, after that she was cremated, she is resting in peace, considering that she travelled a lot, she lived in different beloved parts of the USA.
Amy Aronson wrote a biography extremely important, because this lady has been completely forgotten with the time, although one of the most important characters of the early XX century.
Her mother Bertha Annis Ford met Samuel Eastman, her future husband, in a boarding house. Married in 1875, this couple changed various locations and houses; Sam later became the pastor of Candaigua. A big tragedy in Bertha's family meant that numerous other members joined the young family; some, young, the children of Bertha's sister, plus elderly people. Other loss and tragedies, including for Crystal a terrible illness sorted out well; her father lost his job because sick. They sold everything and her mother became the real engine of this numerous family. Crystal was surely influenced by a singular family where there was the germ of innovative ideas, an open-minded reality, respect to the current culture of that times.
Influenced by these values, for all her life she tried to balance her desire of making a good career, and at the same time becoming a mother, an important step for her personal growth.
After that she completed the high school, she studied law at the Columbia and New York University living in the Greenwich Village. It was 1905 and during this year Crystal enters in contact with Lillian Wald founder of an association close to the American Union Against Militarism and Mary White Ovington co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Crystal during this phase, find a job, participating actively at political meetings and continuing to study. Crystal became a lawyer and one of her first jobws was in Pittsburgh and it was in the field of industrial accidents.
This work helped Crystal to understand the situation of workers and what it needed still to be done for bettering their existence. If her private life was a bit messy at first, Crystal found a work at the American Association for Labor Legislation; everyone thought that she would have been a great lawyer, but then she fell in love with her first husband Wallace Benedict, leaving her reality for Milwaukee. She tried while in that city to fight for a state suffrage referendum, without success. She divorced after few years marrying Walter Fuller, a publicity and pacifist although she lost him too soon.
Crystal had three siblings, with which she was united, and in particular she was fond with her brother Max Eastman, founder of several radical magazines and writer; the one who would have been closed to her in the moment of her death. Her two children, remained alone, were later adopted by a beloved friends-couple of Crystal.
Activist, her writings opened the eyes on human conditions of workers and other minorities; her fire brought her in many directions, living with intensity every second of her existence. She tried to better a society, adding many more rights where still there was a lot that needed to be done. And still need to be done.
Beautiful book, I know that you'll love it!
I thank Oxford University Press for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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