Ben Reitman

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.

Ben Reitman
Ben Reitman
Born
Ben Lewis Reitman

1879
Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
Died1943 (aged 63–64)
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]

Biography

Reitman was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to poor Russian Jewish immigrants in 1879, and grew up in Chicago. At the age of twelve, he became a hobo,[3] but returned to Chicago and worked in the Polyclinic Laboratory as a "laboratory boy".[4] In 1900, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, completing his medical studies in 1904. During this time he was briefly married; he and his wife had a daughter together.[4] His wife was Mae Schwartz, and their daughter was "Jan Gay" (Helen Reitman), the author, nudism advocate, and founder of the nudist Out-of-Door Club at Highland, New York.[5][6][7]

He worked as a physician in Chicago, choosing to offer services to hobos, prostitutes, the poor, and other outcasts. Notably, he performed abortions, which were illegal at the time.[4] In 1907, 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.[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 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.[9] The two traveled together for almost eight years, working for the causes of birth control, free speech, worker's rights, and anarchism.

Sketch by Marguerite Martyn, 1910

During this time, the couple became involved in the San Diego free speech fight in 1912–13. Reitman was kidnapped by a mob, severely beaten, tarred and feathered,[10] branded with "I.W.W.,"[9][11][12][13] and his rectum and testicles were abused.[14] Several years later, the couple were arrested in 1916 under 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
  • The Second Oldest Profession - A Study of the Prostitute's "Business Manager" (1931) (A sociological study of pimps)[18]
  • Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (1937) (fiction)[19][20][21][22]

See also

Notes
  1. "REVIEW: NO REGRETS". dwardmac.pitzer.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  2. "Helen Reitman". Gay History Wiki. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  3. Patrick, Clinton (1987-02-01). "A REBEL OF MANY CAUSES". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  4. 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. Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Volume 1.
  10. "REITMAN DESCRIBES HOW HE WAS TARRED; Emma Goldman's Manager Tells About Tortures Inflicted by Vigilantes on California Desert". The New York Times. 1912-05-17. p. 7. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  11. John A. Farrell, Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, (Doubleday 2011), p. 243. ISBN 978-0-385-52258-8
  12. "Free Speech in the Progressive Era | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  13. "May 20, 1913: Emma Goldman returns". 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. Roth, Walter (2005-08-01). Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Jewish Past. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9780897338271. Retrieved 2020-05-17 – via Google Books.
  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. Pfahlert, Jeanine (April 1, 2004). "Book Reviews (Rev. of Sister of the Road)". European Journal of American Culture. 23 (1): 6465. doi:10.1386/ejac.23.1.63/0. ISSN 1466-0407.

Works cited

Further reading
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