onym of equality, freedom,
brotherhood.

Thus thought the two girls as they travelled, in the year 1886, from
New York to Rochester. Soon, all too soon, disillusionment awaited
them. The ideal conception of America was punctured already at
Castle Garden, and soon burst like a soap bubble. Here Emma Goldman
witnessed sights which reminded her of the terrible scenes of her
childhood in Kurland. The brutality and humiliation the future
citizens of the great Republic were subjected to on board ship, were
repeated at Castle Garden by the officials of the democracy in a more
savage and aggravating manner. And what bitter disappointment
followed as the young idealist began to familiarize herself with the
conditions in the new land! Instead of one Tsar, she found scores of
them; the Cossack was replaced by the policeman with the heavy club,
and instead of the Russian CHINOVNIK there was the far more inhuman
slave-driver of the factory.

Emma Goldman soon obtained work in the clothing establishment of the
Garson Co. The wages amounted to two and a half dollars a week. At
that time the factories were not provided with motor power, and the
poor sewing girls had to drive the wheels by foot, from early morning
till late at night. A terribly exhausting toil it was, without a ray
of light, the drudgery of the long day passed in complete
silence--the Russian custom of friendly conversation at work was not
permissible in the free country. But the exploitation of the girls
was not only economic; the poor wage workers were looked upon by
their foremen and bosses as sexual commodities. If a girl resented
the advances of her "superiors", she would speedily find herself on
the street as an undesirable element in the factory. There was never
a lack of willing victims: the supply always exceeded the demand.

The horrible conditions were made still more unbearable by the
fearful dreariness of life in the small American city. The Puritan
spirit suppresses the slightest manifestation of joy; a deadly
dullness beclouds the soul; no intellectual inspiration, no thought
exchange between congenial spirits is possible. Emma Goldman almost
suffocated in this atmosphere. She, above all others, longed for
ideal surroundings, for friendship and understanding, for the
companionship of kindred minds. Mentally she still lived in Russia.
Unfamiliar with the language and life of the country, she dwelt more
in the past than in the present.