Max Baginski (1864 – November 24, 1943) was a
German-American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.
...
.
Early life
Baginski was born in 1864 in
Bartenstein
Bartoszyce (pronounced , german: Bartenstein, ; lt, Barštynas) is a town on the Łyna River in northern Poland, with 22,597 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the capital of Bartoszyce County within the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship.
Geog ...
(now
Bartoszyce
Bartoszyce (pronounced , german: Bartenstein, ; lt, Barštynas) is a town on the Łyna River in northern Poland, with 22,597 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the capital of Bartoszyce County within the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship.
Geog ...
), a small
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
n town. His father was a shoemaker who had been active in the
1848 revolution
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
and was thus shunned by the conservative inhabitants of the village. Under his father's influence, Baginski read
freethinker
Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...
August Specht's writings and ''
Berliner Freie Presse'',
Johann Most
Johann Joseph "Hans" Most (February 5, 1846 – March 17, 1906) was a German-American Social Democratic and then anarchism, anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator. He is credited with popularizing the concept of "propaganda of the dee ...
's newspaper, in his youth. After school Baginski became his father's apprentice.
Already a staunch socialist, Baginski moved to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
in 1882. He emigrated to the
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
in 1893.
Professional career
From 1894 to 1901, he was an editor of the ''
Chicago Worker'' newspaper. He helped publishing the 1906–07 issues of the magazine ''
Freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
'' and editorials for the anarchist magazine ''
Mother Earth
Mother Earth may refer to:
*The Earth goddess in any of the world's mythologies
*Mother goddess
*Mother Nature, a common personification of the Earth and its biosphere as the giver and sustainer of life
Written media and literature
*Mother Earth ...
'' in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
This is a quote from the first issue of Mother Earth Magazine.
Death
Baginski died at
Bellevue Hospital
Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States b ...
in New York on November 24, 1943.
Works
*1906: Mother Earth
*November, 1907: The Anarchist International
*1907: Stirner: The Ego and His Own
*1907: Anarchy and Organization: The Debate at the 1907 International Anarchist Congress
*January, 1912: The Right To Live
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
*
List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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References
*
External links
Max Baginski Pagefrom the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia
A brief description of Baginski's lifeMax Baginski, The right to live*
1864 births
1943 deaths
20th-century American philosophers
20th-century German philosophers
American anarchists
American male non-fiction writers
American political philosophers
American political writers
American revolutionaries
Anarchist writers
Anarcho-communists
German anarchists
German emigrants to the United States
German male non-fiction writers
German political philosophers
German political writers
German revolutionaries
People from Bartoszyce
People from the Province of Prussia
Philosophy writers
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