Ben Reitman

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Ben Reitman
Chicago, Illinois, US
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Physician, hobo
Known forLover of Emma Goldman
Notable workSister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (1937)
Spouse(s)Mae Schwartz
Anna Martindale[1]
Rose Siegal
Medina Rivets Oliver[2]
Partner(s)Emma Goldman
Eileen O'Connor[1]

Ben Lewis Reitman M.D. (1879–1943) was an American anarchist and physician to the poor ("the hobo doctor"). He is best remembered today as one of radical Emma Goldman's lovers. Martin Scorsese's 1972 feature film Boxcar Bertha is based on one of Reitman's books.

Biography

Reitman was born in

nudism advocate, and founder of the nudist Out-of-Door Club at Highland, New York.[5][6][7]

He worked as a

Hobo College, which became the largest of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association centers for migrant education, political organizing, and social services.[8]

His eyes were brown, large, and dreamy. His lips, disclosing beautiful teeth when he smiled, were full and passionate. He looked a handsome brute. His hands, narrow and white, exerted a peculiar fascination. His finger-nails, like his hair, seemed to be on strike against soap and brush. I could not take my eyes off his hands. A strange charm seemed to emanate from them, caressing and stirring... Emma Goldman on Reitman in Living My Life, Volume 1

Reitman met

worker's rights, and anarchism
.

Sketch by Marguerite Martyn, 1910

During this time, the couple became involved in the

Comstock laws for advocating birth control, and Reitman served six months in prison.[15]

Both believed in free love, but Reitman's practice incited feelings of jealousy in Goldman.[16] He remarried when one of his lovers became pregnant; their son was born while he was in prison.[4] Goldman and Reitman ended their relationship in 1917, after Reitman was released from prison.[4]

Reitman returned to Chicago, ultimately working with the City of Chicago, establishing the Chicago Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease in the 1930s.[4] His second wife died in 1930, and Reitman married a third time, to Rose Siegal.[4] Reitman later became seriously involved with Medina Oliver, and the couple had four daughters – Mecca, Medina, Victoria, and Olive.[4]

Reitman died in Chicago of a heart attack at the age of sixty-three. He was buried at the

Waldheim Cemetery[17] (now Forest Home Cemetery), in Forest Park, Illinois
.

Works by Reitman

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "REVIEW: NO REGRETS". dwardmac.pitzer.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  2. ^ "Helen Reitman". Gay History Wiki. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  3. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Reitman profile, UIC.
  5. ^ "1932, Jan Gay, On Going Naked, Falstaff Pr,PRIVATE PRINT! LIM/NUMBERED/SIGNED!! | #1756939110". Worthpoint. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  6. ^ "THE NUDIST Vol. 02, No. 06, August: (1933) | Alta-Glamour Inc". www.iberlibro.com. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  7. ^ "THE NUDIST Vol. 02, No. 07, October [stated; otherwise identical to September issue]: (1933) | Alta-Glamour Inc". www.abebooks.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  8. ^ JWA "Women of Valor — Emma Goldman - Love & Sexuality - Ben Reitman", Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  9. ^ a b Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Volume 1.
  10. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  11. ISBN 978-0-385-52258-8
  12. ^ "Free Speech in the Progressive Era | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  13. San Diego Union-Tribune
    . 2018-05-20. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  14. ^ Smith, Jeff (July 4, 2012). "The Big Noise: The Free Speech Fight of 1912, Part Seven | San Diego Reader". San Diego Reader. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  15. ^ Wexler, Intimate, pp. 211–215.
  16. ^ Wexler, Intimate, pp. 140–147.
  17. ISBN 9780897338271
    . Retrieved 2020-05-17 – via Google Books.
  18. ^
  19. ^ Boxcar Bertha: Tales spun from the hobo world The Portland Alliance, Ruth Kovacs, November 2002 issue
  20. ^ "Despite decades of scholarship claiming otherwise, Boxcar Bertha is not a real woman but an imagined representation of unconventional female life in the early twentieth century. In her unpublished dissertation, Martha Reis carefully documents the lives of the women who inspired Bertha’s character, including a female pickpocket, anarchist, and ex-patriot poet." Venturing More Than Others Have Dared: Representations of Class Mobility, Gender, and Alternative Communities in American Literature, 1840-1940; dissertation, Heather Joy Thompson-Gillis, MA, The Ohio State University 2012
  21. ^ Hidden histories, Ben Reitman and the "outcast" women behind Sister of the Road : the autobiography of Box-Car Bertha Martha Lynn Reis, dissertation, Ph. D. University of Minnesota 2000
  22. ISSN 1466-0407
    .

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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