13 Facts About Ben Reitman

Ben Reitman is best remembered today as one of radical Emma Goldman's lovers.

Ben Reitman was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to poor Russian Jewish immigrants in 1879, and grew up in Chicago.

Ben Reitman worked as a physician in Chicago, choosing to offer services to hobos, prostitutes, the poor, and other outcasts.

In 1907, Ben Reitman became known as "King of the Hobos" when he opened a Chicago branch of the Hobo College, which became the largest of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association centers for migrant education, political organizing, and social services.

Ben Reitman's lips, disclosing beautiful teeth when he smiled, were full and passionate.

Emma Goldman on Ben Reitman in Living My Life, Volume 1.

Ben Reitman met Emma Goldman in 1908, when he offered her use of the college's Hobo Hall for a speech, and the two began a love affair, which Goldman described as the "Great Grand Passion" of her life.

Several years later, the couple were arrested in 1916 under the Comstock laws for advocating birth control, and Ben Reitman served six months in prison.

Ben Reitman remarried when one of his lovers became pregnant; their son was born while he was in prison.

Goldman and Ben Reitman ended their relationship in 1917, after Ben Reitman was released from prison.

Ben Reitman returned to Chicago, ultimately working with the City of Chicago, establishing the Chicago Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease in the 1930s.

Ben Reitman died in Chicago of a heart attack at the age of sixty-three.

Ben Reitman was buried at the Waldheim Cemetery, in Forest Park, Illinois.