This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GRuban (talk | contribs) at 17:30, 14 December 2015 (→Success: <!-- Despite Benenson's claim that Stein sculpted the bronze plaque on Goldman's gravestone, Avrich states, on page 491, that it was Jo Davidson. -->.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 17:30, 14 December 2015 by GRuban (talk | contribs) (→Success: <!-- Despite Benenson's claim that Stein sculpted the bronze plaque on Goldman's gravestone, Avrich states, on page 491, that it was Jo Davidson. -->.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Modest Stein (1871-1958), born Modest Aronstam, was a Russian-born American illustrator and supporter of the anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman.
Early life
Stein was born Modest Aronstam in Kovno, Russian Empire, on February 22, 1871. He was the cousin of Alexander Berkman, on Berkman's mother's side. Stein's father, Lazar Aronstam, was a pharmacist who moved to Kovno from Vilna. Stein attended gymnasium with Berkman, and left Russia for the United States in 1888, soon after Berkman did.
Stein met up with Berkman in New York City soon after arriving. Berkman introduced him to Emma Goldman, and the three shared an apartment, both men becoming romantically involved with Goldman. On July 25, 1892, after Berkman's unsuccessful assassination attempt on Henry Clay Frick, Stein followed to Pittsburgh with pockets full of dynamite to finish the job, but saw a newspaper with a headline warning against "Aaron Stamm" as a Berkman conspirator. Stein became frightened, left the dynamite in an outhouse and returned to New York.
Success
In the late 1890s, Stein worked as a pen and ink artist for the New York World and The New York Sun newspapers, and found even greater success as an illustrator for periodicals such as Argosy. He married photographer Marcia Mishkin on June 18, 1899 (becoming the eventual uncle of Leo Mishkin). Their daughter Luba was born in 1902.
With success, Stein reduced direct involvement with the anarchist movement, though kept supporting his old friends financially. Besides Berkman and Goldman, he was also a friend of Hippolyte Havel and Harry Kelly. He was sympathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution until the 1930s, when he visited the Soviet Union in 1931, and Goldman and Berkman in southern France.
Stein died in New York City, on February 26, 1958.
References
- ^ "Luba Stein Benenson", interviewed by Paul Avrich, in Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, AK Press, 2005, pp 55-56.
Raw sources
- Marcia Stein "Marcia Mishkin Stein, perhaps the brashest of Broadway portraitists during the 1910s and 1920s, was born in Minsk, Russia, circa 1875. ... Through her pursuit of the art she met photographer, magazine illustrator, and anarchist Modest Aronstam in the mid-1890s and married him in June 1899..."
- Luba Stein Benenson "My father was born Modest Aronstam..." page from Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, By Paul Avrich
- Emma Goldman’s “Morose Moon”;Alexander Berkman’s Passionate Anarchism by Leonard Lehrman, from the Autumn 2013 issue of Jewish Currents, Discussed in this essay: Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman by Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich. Harvard University Press, 2012, 528 pages.
- Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, By Paul Avrich, Karen Avrich "Modska" pockets filled with dynamite...
- http://www.pulpartists.com/Stein.html - probably not RS, but fair summary of above
- Emma Goldman: Made for America, 1890-1901
- !. :1 MODEST STEIN, 87, DIES; Pen-and-Ink Newspaper Artist Won Prize on Monday Feb 27, 1958, NYTimes obit, not available free.
- "Berkman met Emma Goldman on 15 August 1889 in New York, and within a short time they began living communally with Modest Stein (called Fedya in Goldman's Living My Life) and Anna and Helene Minkin (who later would become the partner of Johann Most). After living in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Goldman, Berkman and Stein returned to New York in an effort to work out support for the striking and locked out steel workers at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania." Barry Pateman, curator of Emma Goldman Archive and Kate Sharpley Library, intro to: Alexander Berkman What is Anarchism?
- Storm in My Heart: Memories from the Widow of Johann Most, by Helene Minkin " Alexander Berkman, in his memoir Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, referred to him as “Fedya.” Aronstam arrived in New York in August 1888..."
- Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist online in several places.
- Name change: Laws of the State of New York, 130th session, Jan 2-July 26, 1907. Nice, even his daughter didn't know when he changed his name, and this narrows it down to 7 months!