Editing Crystal Eastman

{{Short description|American lawyer, activist, feminist, and journalist (1881–1928)}}
{{more citations needed|date = June 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| image       = Mrs. Crystal Eastman by Edmonston, Washington, D.C..jpg
| alt         =
| caption     = Eastman, c. 1914
| birth_name  = Crystal Catherine Eastman
| birth_date  = June 25, 1881
| birth_place = [[Marlborough, Massachusetts]], United States
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1928|7|8|1881|6|25}}
| death_place = [[Erie, Pennsylvania]], United States
| other_names =
| parents     = Samuel Elijah Eastman<br/> [[Annis Bertha Ford Eastman|Annis Bertha Ford]]
| relatives   = [[Max Eastman]] (brother)
| spouse      = {{plainlist|
* Wallace Benedict
* [[Walter Fuller (editor)|Walter Fuller]]
}}
| children    = [[Jeffrey Fuller]]<br/> Annis Fuller
| known_for   = Feminism, socialism, [[National Woman's Party|Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage]], ''[[The Liberator (magazine)|The Liberator]],'' and as a co-founder of both the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]] and [[American Union Against Militarism]]
| occupation  = Lawyer
}}

'''Crystal Catherine Eastman''' (June 25, 1881 – July 28, 1928)<ref>title = Crystal Eastman's Funeral Slip | https://imgur.com/a/OTC3Mu5</ref><ref name="brittanica2">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Crystal Eastman |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/177433/Crystal-Eastman |access-date=October 18, 2011}}</ref> was an American lawyer, [[Antimilitarism|antimilitarist]], [[Feminism|feminist]], [[Socialism|socialist]], and journalist. She was a leader in the fight for [[Women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage]], a co-founder and co-editor with her brother [[Max Eastman]] of the radical arts and politics magazine ''[[The Liberator (magazine)|The Liberator]],'' co-founder of the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]], and co-founder in 1920 of the [[American Civil Liberties Union]]. In 2000, she was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in [[Seneca Falls, New York]].

==Early life and education==
[[File:Crystal Catherine Eastman in 1915.jpg|left|thumb|Crystal Catherine Eastman in 1915.]]
Crystal Eastman was born in [[Marlborough, Massachusetts]], on June 25, 1881, the third of four children. Her oldest brother, Morgan, was born in 1878 and died in 1884. The second brother, Anstice Ford Eastman, who became a general surgeon, was born in 1878 and died in 1937. [[Max Eastman|Max]] was the youngest, born in 1883.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Max Eastman |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/Jeastman.htm |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=Spartacus Educational |language=en}}</ref>

In 1883, their parents, Samuel Elijah Eastman and [[Annis Bertha Ford Eastman|Annis Bertha Ford]], moved the family to [[Canandaigua, New York]]. In 1889, their mother became one of the first women ordained as a [[Protestant]] minister in America when she became a minister of the [[Congregational church]].<ref>Ida Harper Husted, "A Woman Minister Who Presides Over a Large Eastern Church." ''The San Francisco Chronicle,'' January 27, 1901.</ref> Her father was also a Congregational minister, and the two served as pastors at the church of [[Thomas K. Beecher]] near [[Elmira, New York|Elmira]]. [[Mark Twain|Mark Twain's]] family also attended the church<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Origins |url=https://crystaleastman.org/family/origins/ |access-date=2023-07-04 |website=Crystal Eastman |language=en-US}}</ref> and it was this shared association that young Crystal also became acquainted with him.<ref name=":0" />

This part of New York was in the so-called "[[Burned-over district|Burnt Over District]]." During the [[Second Great Awakening]] earlier in the 19th century, its frontier had been a center of evangelizing and much religious excitement, which resulted in the founding of such beliefs as [[Millerism]] and [[Mormonism]]. During the antebellum period, some were inspired by religious ideals to support such progressive social causes as [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionism]] and the [[Underground Railroad]].{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}

This humanitarian tradition influenced Crystal and her brother [[Max Eastman]]. He became a [[Socialism|socialist]] activist early on, and Crystal had several common causes with him. They were close throughout her life, even after he had become more conservative.<ref name="nwhm2">{{cite web |title=Crystal Eastman |url=http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/crystal-eastman/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123051653/http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/crystal-eastman/ |archive-date=January 23, 2012 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |publisher=National Women's History Museum}}</ref>

The siblings lived together on 11th Street in New York City's [[Greenwich Village]] among other radical activists for several years.<ref>Robert E. Humphrey, ''Children of Fantasy: The First Rebels of Greenwich Village'' (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978)</ref> The group, including [[Ida Rauh]], [[Inez Milholland]], [[Floyd Dell]], and [[Doris Stevens]], also spent summers and weekends in [[Croton-on-Hudson, New York|Croton-on-Hudson]], where Max bought a house in 1916.<ref name="journey2">{{cite book |last=Eastman |first=Max |title=Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch |date=1964 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |page=79-81,5 |author-link=Max Eastman}}</ref>

Eastman graduated from [[Vassar College]] in 1903 and received a [[Master of Arts]] degree in sociology (then a relatively new field) from [[Columbia University]] in 1904.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Newman |first=Roger K. |title=The Yale biographical dictionary of American law |date=2009 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-11300-6 |series=Yale Law library series in legal history and reference |location=New Haven |pages=180}}</ref> She then attended [[New York University Law School]], graduating in 1907 as the second in her class.<ref name=":1" /> While pursuing her graduate degree, Eastman worked nights as a recreation leader at the Greenwich House Settlement, where she encountered [[Paul Underwood Kellogg]].<ref name=":1" />

==Social efforts==
Social work pioneer and journal editor [[Paul U. Kellogg|Paul Kellogg]] offered Eastman her first job: investigating labor conditions for ''[[The Pittsburgh Survey]]''.<ref name=":1" /> Her report, ''Work Accidents and the Law'' (1910), became a crucial tool in the fight for occupation health and safety and an early weapon in the ongoing battle.<ref name=":1" /> In 1909, Justice [[Charles Evans Hughes|Hughes]], who at the time was governor of New York, appointed Eastman to the New York State Commission of Employee's Liability and Causes of Industrial Accidents, Unemployment and Lack of Farm Labor.<ref name="brittanica2" /><ref name=":1" /> The first woman to be appointed a commission member, she drafted the inaugural [[workers' compensation]] law. This model became the standard for the U.S.<ref name=":1" /> During [[Woodrow Wilson|Woodrow Wilson's]] presidency, she continued to campaign for occupational safety and health while working as an investigating attorney for the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations from 1913 to 1914.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Lewis |first=Jone Johnson |title=Biography of Crystal Eastman, Feminist, Civil Libertarian, Pacifist |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/crystal-eastman-biography-3530413 |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=ThoughtCo |language=en}}</ref> She advocated for "motherhood endowments" whereby mothers of young children would receive monetary benefits. She argued it would reduce forced dependence of mothers on men, as well as economically empower women.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Levine |first=Lucie |date=May 12, 2021 |title=The Feminist History of "Child Allowances" |url=https://daily.jstor.org/the-feminist-history-of-child-allowances/ |access-date=May 18, 2021 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Emancipation==
Wallace J. Benedict was an insurance agent in [[Milwaukee]], Wisconsin, and so when Eastman married him in 1911, she moved there after the wedding. <ref name=":02" /> There she managed the unsuccessful 1912 [[Wisconsin]] [[suffrage]] campaign.<ref name="nwhm2" />

Divorcing in 1913, she returned east where she joined [[Alice Paul]], [[Lucy Burns]], and others in founding the militant [[Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage]], which became the [[National Woman's Party]].<ref name=":02" /><ref name="brittanica2" /> After the passage of the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|19th Amendment]] gave women the right to vote in 1920, Eastman and Paul wrote the [[Equal Rights Amendment]] (ERA), first introduced in 1923.<ref name="brittanica2" /> One of the few socialists to endorse the ERA, Eastman warned that protective legislation for women would mean only discrimination against women.<ref name="brittanica2" /> Eastman claimed that one could assess the importance of the ERA by the intensity of the opposition to it. However, she felt that it was still a struggle worth fighting. She also delivered the speech "Now We Can Begin" after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment;it outlined the work that needed to be done in the political and economic spheres to achieve gender equality.

==Peace efforts==
[[File:Eastman-Crystal.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Crystal Eastman was a noted anti-militarist, who helped found the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]].]]
During [[World War I]], Eastman was one of the founders of the [[Woman's Peace Party]], soon joined by [[Jane Addams]], [[Lillian D. Wald]], and others.<ref name="msmagazine2">{{cite web |title=Women and Peace: The Legacy |url=http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2006/legacy.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161016232557/http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2006/legacy.asp |archive-date=October 16, 2016 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |publisher=Ms. Magazine}}</ref> She served as president of the New York City branch.<ref name=":1" /> Renamed the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]] in 1921, it remains the oldest extant women's peace organization. Eastman also became executive director of the [[American Union Against Militarism]], which lobbied against America's entrance into the European war and more successfully against war with Mexico in 1916.<ref name=":05">{{cite web |date=April 6, 2017 |title=Examining the American peace movement prior to World War I |url=https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/04/06/examining-american-peace-movement-prior-world-war-i |access-date=October 20, 2019 |website=America Magazine}}</ref> This group sought to remove profiteering from arms manufacturing and campaigned against [[conscription]], imperial adventures, and [[military intervention]].<ref name=":05" />

When the United States entered World War I, Eastman, together with [[Roger Nash Baldwin|Roger Baldwin]] and [[Norman Thomas]] organized  the [[National Civil Liberties Bureau]] (NCLB) to protect [[conscientious objectors]] or, in her words: "To maintain something over here that will be worth coming back to when the weary war is over."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Crystal Eastman |url=http://www.aclu.org/documents/crystal-eastman |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=American Civil Liberties Union |language=en-US}}</ref> The NCLB grew into the [[American Civil Liberties Union]](ACLU), with Baldwin at the head and Eastman functioning as attorney-in-charge. Eastman is credited as a founding member of the ACLU, but her role as founder of the NCLB may have been largely ignored by posterity because of her personal differences with Baldwin.<ref name="vassar2">{{cite web |title=Crystal Eastman |url=http://innovators.vassar.edu/innovator.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110508215249/http://innovators.vassar.edu/innovator.html?id=23 |archive-date=May 8, 2011 |access-date=October 18, 2011 |publisher=Vassar College: Innovators}}</ref>

==Marriage and family==
In 1916, Eastman married the British editor and antiwar activist [[Walter Fuller (editor)|Walter Fuller]], who had come to the United States to direct his sisters' singing of folksongs.<ref>G. Peter Winnington, ''Walter Fuller: The Man Who Had Ideas''. Letterworth Press, 2014. pp.188–90</ref> They had two children, [[Jeffrey Fuller]] born in 1917 and Annis Fuller born in 1921.<ref name=":0" /> Choosing to keep her last name, Eastman explored family practices aimed at fostering gender equality within the realms of marriage and family life.<ref name=":0" /> The publication of her 1923 confessional article titled ''Marriage Under Two Roofs'' caused an uproar as Eastman revealed the specifics of their unconventional living arrangement.<ref name=":0" /> She argues that residing in two separate residences is better than in one because by ultimately leading to an authentic expression of sexual desire and marital love, which in turn contributes to the overall happiness of the family unit.<ref name=":0" /> Eastman and Walter worked together as activists until the end of the war, when he worked as the managing editor of ''[[The Freeman]]'' until 1922, when he returned to [[London, England]]. For eight years, Eastman traveled by ship between London and New York to be with her husband.<ref name=":1" /> Walter died in 1927 from a stroke,<ref name=":1" /> which ended his career of editing ''[[Radio Times]]'' for the [[BBC]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Winnington |first=G. Peter |title=Walter Fuller: the Man Who Had Ideas |publisher=Mauborget: The Letterworth Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-2-9700654-2-5 |pages=chapter 10}}</ref>

After Max Eastman's periodical ''[[The Masses]]'' was forced to close by government censorship in 1917, he and Crystal co-founded a radical journal of politics, art, and literature: the ''[[The Liberator (United States magazine)|Liberator]]'', in early 1918.<ref name="nwhm2" /> She and Max co-edited it until they put it in the hands of faithful friends in 1922.<ref>G. Peter Winnington, ''Walter Fuller: The Man Who Had Ideas,'' p.307</ref>

===Post-War===
After the war, Eastman organized the [[First Feminist Congress]] in 1919.<ref name=":1" /> In New York, her activities led to her being blacklisted during the [[First Red Scare|Red Scare]] of 1919–1920. During the 1920s, Eastman was a columnist for [[Alice Paul]]'s feminist journal, ''[[Equal Rights (journal)|Equal Rights]],'' and the British feminist weekly publication ''[[Time and Tide (magazine)|Time and Tide]]''.<ref name=":1" /> Eastman claimed that "life was a big battle for the complete feminist," but she was convinced that the complete feminist would someday achieve total victory.<ref name=":1" />

===Death===
Crystal Eastman died at age 47, on July 8, 1928, of [[nephritis]], a year after her husband had passed.<ref name=":1" /> Friends were entrusted with their two orphaned children, then seven and eleven years old, to rear them until adulthood.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}}

==Legacy==
Eastman has been called one of the most neglected leaders in the United States because although she wrote pioneering legislation and created long-lasting political organizations, she disappeared from history for 50 years.<ref name="vassar2" /> [[Freda Kirchwey]], the editor of ''[[The Nation]]'', wrote at the time of her death, "When she spoke to people—whether it was to a small committee or a swarming crowd—hearts beat faster. She was for thousands a symbol of what the free woman might be."<ref name="vassar2" />

In 2000, Eastman was inducted into the (American) [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in [[Seneca Falls (town), New York|Seneca Falls, New York]].

In 2018, ''The Socialist'', the official publication of the [[Socialist Party USA]], published the article "Remembering Socialist Feminist Crystal Eastman" by Lisa Petriello, which was written "on the 90th-year anniversary of her [Eastman's] death to bring her life and legacy once again to the public eye."<ref>{{cite web |author=Lisa Petriello |date=May 24, 2018 |title=The Socialist » Remembering Socialist Feminist Crystal Eastman |url=http://www.thesocialist.us/remembering-socialist-feminist-crystal-eastman/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180528062227/http://www.thesocialist.us/remembering-socialist-feminist-crystal-eastman/ |archive-date=May 28, 2018 |access-date=May 6, 2020}}</ref>

==Works==
===Papers===
Eastman's papers are housed at [[Harvard University]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Eastman, Crystal, 1881–1928. Papers, 1889–1931: A Finding Aid|url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00562|publisher=Harvard University Library|access-date=September 9, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218150944/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00562|archive-date=February 18, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Publications===
The Library of Congress has the following publications by Eastman in its collection, many of them published posthumously:
* '' 'Employers' Liability,' a Criticism Based on Facts'' (1909)
* ''Work-accidents and the Law'' (1910)
* ''Mexican-American Peace Committee (Mexican-American league)'' (1916)
* ''Work accidents and the Law'' (1969)
* ''Toward the Great Change: Crystal and Max Eastman on Feminism, Antimilitarism, and Revolution,'' edited by [[Blanche Wiesen Cook]] (1976)
* ''Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution,'' edited by [[Blanche Wiesen Cook]] (1978)
* "Crystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life," by Amy Aronson (2020)

==See also==
===People===
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Alice Paul]]
* [[Lucy Burns]]
* [[Jane Addams]]
* [[Lillian D. Wald]]
* [[Roger Nash Baldwin|Roger Baldwin]]
* [[Norman Thomas]]
* [[Walter Fuller (editor)|Walter Fuller]]
* [[Jeffrey Fuller]]
* [[Max Eastman]]
{{div col end}}

===Political groups===
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[National Woman's Party]]
* [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]]
* [[Woman's Peace Party]]
* [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]]
* [[American Union Against Militarism]]
* [[National Civil Liberties Bureau]]/[[American Civil Liberties Union]]
{{div col end}}

===Other===
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[List of peace activists]]
* ''[[The Pittsburgh Survey]]''
* [[Workers' compensation]]
* [[U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations]]
* [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|19th Amendment]]
* [[Equal Rights Amendment]]
* ''[[Liberator (magazine)|The Liberator]]''
{{div col end}}

==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Amy Aronson]], ''Crystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life'', Oxford University Press, 2019.
* [[Blanche Wiesen Cook]], ed., ''Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution.'' (1978).
* Cook, Blanche Wiesen, "Radical Women of Greenwich Village," in ''Greenwich Village,'' eds. Rick Beard and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz. Newark: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
* Sochen, June, ''The New Woman in Greenwich Village, 1910–1920''. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972.
* Read J., Phyllis; Witlieb L., Bernard: ''The Book of Women's Firsts''. New York Random House 1992.
* Kerber K., Linda; Sherron DeHart, Jane: ''Women's America: Refocusing The Past'', Oxford University Press, 1995, 4th Edition.

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Crystal Eastman |sopt=t}}
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00562 Crystal Eastman Papers Finding Aid], [[Schlesinger Library]], Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
* [https://crystaleastman.org/ crystaleastman.org]

{{ACLU}}
{{National Women's Hall of Fame}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastman, Crystal}}
[[Category:1881 births]]
[[Category:1928 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American journalists]]
[[Category:20th-century American women journalists]]
[[Category:20th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:20th-century American women lawyers]]
[[Category:American anti–World War I activists]]
[[Category:American Civil Liberties Union people]]
[[Category:American magazine editors]]
[[Category:American pacifists]]
[[Category:American political activists]]
[[Category:Suffragists from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Journalists from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Journalists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Massachusetts socialists]]
[[Category:National Woman's Party activists]]
[[Category:New York (state) socialists]]
[[Category:New York University School of Law alumni]]
[[Category:American opinion journalists]]
[[Category:Pacifist feminists]]
[[Category:People from Canandaigua, New York]]
[[Category:People from Croton-on-Hudson, New York]]
[[Category:People from Greenwich Village]]
[[Category:People from Marlborough, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:American socialist feminists]]
[[Category:Vassar College alumni]]
[[Category:Women's International League for Peace and Freedom people]]
[[Category:American women magazine editors]]
[[Category:Female Christian socialists]]
[[Category:Women Christian religious leaders]]
[[Category:Proponents of Christian feminism]]
[[Category:Equal Rights Amendment activists]]
[[Category:Deaths from nephritis]]
[[Category:Suffragists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:American women founders]]