Marie Ganz (1891–1968) was an anarchist and activist.

Biography

Marie was born in Galicia,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, in 1891. She started work at 8 years old and left school at 13 to work full-time as a delivery person, then in a

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...

. In 1914, she threatened to shoot

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in ...

as she arrived with a crowd and a loaded pistol in front of the Standard Oil Building in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. She traced that desire, in part, to the Ludlow Massacre, for which, she felt, the Rockefellers were directly responsible:

"The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, controlled by the Rockefellers, had employed armed guards to shoot down the strikers. In a battle with the State troops forty-five persons had been killed and many wounded, and women and children had been burned to death in pits as fire destroyed the tent colony at Ludlow. The whole country was ringing with these reports. The Colorado Federation of Labour was calling on the unions to arm and to aid the strikers. The Anti-Militarist League was making plans to recruit fighters to wage war against the soldiers. At the White House and in Congress labour was appealing for justice against the tyranny of capital."

The judge was lenient. Later, she authored an autobiography in which she renounced anarchism and wrote: "''During all this time, Emma Goldman, the anarchist leader, was away on a lecture tour and out of harm's way. She paid no attention to appeals to come back and to take part in the meetings. She was making money and she was living comfortably at first-class hotels, and I became convinced that she had always been actuated by sordid motives.''"

She was arrested during the

New York City Food Riot of 1917 The New York City Food Riot of 1917 were a series of demonstrations and riots which began on February 19, 1917, after a mob composed mostly of women confronted store and pushcart owners over the raising of prices following the shortages of World W ...

. In 1919, she met her future husband, journalist Nat J. Ferber, as he visited her in jail to interview her. They would go on to write her autobiography'', Rebels: Into Anarchy–And Out Again''. On September 30, 1921, their daughter, Lenore Ferber Kahn, was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Marie died at

Saint Vincent's Hospital Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York d/b/a as Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent's, or SVCMC) was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to a ...

, New York City in 1968.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ganz, Marie 1891 births 1968 deaths Austrian anarchists Jewish anarchists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links