26 Facts About Crystal Eastman

Crystal Catherine Eastman was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist.

Crystal Eastman is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage, as a co-founder and co-editor with her brother Max Eastman of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and co-founder in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Crystal Eastman was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on June 25,1881, the third of four children.

Crystal Eastman's oldest brother, Morgan, was born in 1878 and died in 1884.

Crystal Eastman's father was a Congregational minister, and the two served as pastors at the church of Thomas K Beecher near Elmira.

Crystal and her brother Max Eastman were influenced by this humanitarian tradition.

Crystal Eastman became a socialist activist in his early life, and Crystal had several common causes with him.

Crystal Eastman graduated from Vassar College in 1903 and received a Master of Arts degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1904.

Crystal Eastman then attended New York University Law School, graduating in 1907 as the second in her class.

Crystal Eastman continued to campaign for occupational safety and health while working as an investigating attorney for the US Commission on Industrial Relations during Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

Crystal Eastman was at one time called the "most dangerous woman in America," due to her free-love idealism and outspoken nature.

Crystal Eastman advocated for "motherhood endowments" whereby mothers of young children would receive monetary benefits.

Crystal Eastman argued it would reduce forced dependence of mothers on men, as well as economically empower women.

One of the few socialists to endorse the ERA, Crystal Eastman warned that protective legislation for women would mean only discrimination against women.

Crystal Eastman claimed that one could assess the importance of the ERA by the intensity of the opposition to it, but she felt that it was still a struggle worth fighting.

Crystal Eastman delivered the speech, "Now We Can Begin", following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, outlining the work that needed to be done in the political and economic spheres to achieve gender equality.

Crystal Eastman served as president of the New York City branch.

Crystal Eastman became executive director of the American Union Against Militarism, which lobbied against America's entrance into the European war and more successfully against war with Mexico in 1916, sought to remove profiteering from arms manufacturing, and campaigned against conscription, imperial adventures and military intervention.

In 1916 Crystal Eastman married the British editor and antiwar activist Walter Fuller, who had come to the United States to direct his sisters' singing of folksongs.

Crystal Eastman died in 1927, nine months before Crystal, ending his career editing Radio Times for the BBC.

Crystal Eastman's only paid work during the 1920s was as a columnist for feminist journals, notably Equal Rights and Time and Tide.

Crystal Eastman claimed that "life was a big battle for the complete feminist," but she was convinced that the complete feminist would someday achieve total victory.

Crystal Eastman's friends were entrusted with her two children, then orphans, to rear them until adulthood.

Crystal Eastman has been called one of the United States' most neglected leaders, because, although she wrote pioneering legislation and created long-lasting political organizations, she disappeared from history for fifty years.

Crystal Eastman was for thousands a symbol of what the free woman might be.

In 2000 Crystal Eastman was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.