[1] She later went on to write her memoirs, which were later translated and published as a collection, Storm in My Heart: Memories from the Widow of Johann Most, which provides her personal perspective of her and Most's lives, as well as a close look into the conditions of late 19th- and early 20th-century immigrant life in the United States.
[6] Likely due to continued religious persecution, Helene (16), Anna (17), and her father Isaac Minkin (35) decided to emigrate to the United States in 1888 among the first wave of Eastern European immigrants from Russia; they boarded the Wieland on May 20 in Hamburg, and began the long journey to New York.
[11] Though particular stances and tactics varied, the anarchist ideologies that spread during this time, including those of Minkin, all held a core principle that rejected any form of coercive authority - particularly that of the state.
[1] Historian Paul Buhle argued that if anarchists hadn't contributed to the beginnings of the labor movement, worker rights gains within the country could have been delayed for another generation.
[13] It was in Sach's that Minkin was engaged in the uproar caused by the Haymarket Affair in 1886 - violence had erupted in an anarchist rally against police brutality of demonstrators and strikers in support of the eight hour work day.
[13] In her memoirs, Minkin describes this as a huge blow to her confidence in her new home and its promise of freedom, and was likely the catalyst that grew her passive interest in radical politics to active participation.
[16] She criticized the anarchist movements’ marginalization of women within its leadership circles with pointed comments directed towards Johann Most, with whom she had a brief intimate relationship and is credited with launching her political career.
[18] In addition to her criticisms, Goldman took more direct action against Most when a disagreement over Berkman's assassination attempt on Henry Frick lead her to horsewhip him in 1892 at Jewish anarchist meeting.
[20] Johann Most and Minkin met in 1888, and the movement leader, twenty-six years her senior, made an impression on her - but due to the harsh opinions fostered by Goldman, a close friendship wasn't formed until 1892.
[24] Other radical press groups of the time, such as those behind one of the many competing periodicals Amerikanische Arbeiter-Zeitung (American worker's newspaper), questioned hierarchical positions such as editor.
[30] Through Freiheit - which he brought with him from London upon his immigration to the U.S. in 1882 - and his lectures, Most found himself in the center of the growing German anarchist movement in the Lower East Side of New York City - where he would eventually meet Minkin.
[24] Such claims as well as instructions to build explosives published by Most within Freiheit and in his pamphlet, Science of Revolutionary Warfare,[31] further contributed to the public's generalization of anarchists as violent criminals despite a relatively low body count compared to other radical groups such as white nationalists.
[24] Helene's intentions of writing her own memoirs were put on the back burner until Goldman's Living my Life painted her, Most, and Anna Minkin in a negative light.