EASTMAN, Crystal (1881 – 1928)
to be published in the Dictionary of American Philosophy

Crystal Eastman was born on 25 June 1881 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. She received her BA from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie in 1903 and a MA in sociology from Columbia University in 1904. In 1907 she graduated 2nd her in class from New York University Law School, Living in the lower east side of New York she became involved with progressive and radical politics. Almost forgotten for fifty years Eastman’s writing and political organizing have only begun to be appreciated context fairly recently.

In 1907 Eastman was hired by the Russell Sage Foundation for their Pittsburgh study on labor conditions, which was the first in depth sociological investigation of industrial accidents. This led to her appointment in 1909 to the New York State Commission of Employee’s Liability and Causes of Industrial Accidents, Unemployment and Farm Labor. Based on her research Eastman published Work Accidents and the Law in 1910 and acted as investigating attorney for the US Commission on Industrial Relations in 1913. Eastman authored New York State’s first workman’s compensation law (as well as co-authoring the first Equal Rights Amendment).

After leading an unsuccessful Wisconsin suffrage battle in 1912 Eastman went on to co-found the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in Washington, which later became the National Women’s Party. She also helped to found the Woman’s Peace Party in 1915, which later went on to become the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She often worked with Emma Goldman on advocacy of birth control, the legalization of prostitution, and protecting the rights of free speech. Like Goldman Eastman advocated pacifism, socialism, socialism, and was a firm supporter of “free love.”

From 1917 to 1921 Eastman worked as the editor of the Liberator, a radical journal. She also worked with and helped to co-found the National Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Union. Between her work with the NCLB and the American Union Against Militarism Eastman was critically important during this period in championing the rights of dissenters, conscientious objectors, and maintaining civil liberties, especially during war times.

Eastman was deeply enmeshed in currents of radical feminist thought and political organizing, acting as a prominent writer, editor, researcher, investigator, and political organizer. Sister to Max Eastman she worked with him on the journal “The Masses,” which was closed for its opposition to World War I. Eastman advocated that women’s freedom would be found through industrial democracy but did not believe that female liberation was inherent in the communist ideal.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution. Ed Blanche Wiesen Cook (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Toward the great change (New York: Garland Publishers, 1976).
Work-accidents and the Law (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910).
Schoen, June. The New Woman in Greenwich Village, 1910-1920 (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972).