Ben Reitman Explained

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 Sister of the Road, one of Reitman's books.

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. His wife was Mae Schwartz, and their daughter was Jan Gay (born 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. 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]

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.

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.,"^{[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. Goldman and Reitman ended their relationship in 1917, after Reitman was released from prison.

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

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

• Boxcar Bertha, the Scorsese film loosely adapted from Reitman's novel "Sister of the Road"
• Birth control movement in the United States

Works cited

• Frank O. Beck, Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators & Outsiders In 1920s/30s Chicago (Charles H. Kerr Press, 2000, (description)
• Roger Bruns, (University of Illinois, 2001)
• Mecca Reitman Carpenter, No Regrets: Dr. Ben Reitman and the Women Who Loved Him (SouthSide Press, 1996) (biographical memoir by Reitman's daughter)
• Emma Goldman, Living My Life (1931)
• University of Illinois at Chicago, University Library, "Ben Reitman Biographical Sketch", Reitman papers.
• Alice Wexler, . New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. . Republished as Emma Goldman in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984. .
• Tim Cresswell, The Tramp in America. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. .

Further reading

• Geis . Gilbert . Gilbert Geis . Ben L. Reitman, MD: colorful critical criminologist . Contemporary Justice Review . 11 . 3 . 271–285 . September 2008 . 10.1080/10282580802295534 . 143500946 . 1028-2580 . . mdy-all .
• Book: Pateman . Barry . Afterword . Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha . 2002 . 978-1-902593-03-6 . AK Press/Nabat . 48534916 . mdy-all .
• News: Sante . Luc . On the Bum . . 1989-04-27 . 0028-7504 . mdy-all .

External links

• The More Things Stay the Same (Ben Reitman Documentary)
• Emma Goldman PBS American Experience
• Emma Goldman Ephéméride Anarchiste
• Ben Reitman Anarchist Encyclopedia
  • Ben Lewis Reitman (letters and papers from 1907 to 1989), University of Illinois at Chicago
  • Web site: Ben L. Reitman papers . Special Collections of the University of Illinois Chicago Library .

Notes and References

1. Web site: REVIEW: NO REGRETS. dwardmac.pitzer.edu. 2020-05-17.
2. Web site: Helen Reitman. Gay History Wiki. 2020-05-17.
3. News: Patrick . Clinton . 1987-02-01 . A REBEL OF MANY CAUSES . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-07-17 . 0362-4331.
4. Reitman profile, UIC.
5. Web site: 1932, Jan Gay, On Going Naked, Falstaff Pr,PRIVATE PRINT! LIM/NUMBERED/SIGNED!! | #1756939110. Worthpoint. 2020-05-17.
6. Web site: THE NUDIST Vol. 02, No. 06, August: (1933) | Alta-Glamour Inc.. www.iberlibro.com. 2020-05-17.
7. Web site: THE NUDIST Vol. 02, No. 07, October [stated; otherwise identical to September issue]

   (1933) | Alta-Glamour Inc.]

   . www.abebooks.co.uk. 2020-05-17.
8. https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/goldman/love-sexuality/ben-reitman JWA
9. [Emma Goldman]
10. News: 1912-05-17 . REITMAN DESCRIBES HOW HE WAS TARRED; Emma Goldman's Manager Tells About Tortures Inflicted by Vigilantes on California Desert. . en-US . 7 . The New York Times . 2023-07-17 . 0362-4331.
11. John A. Farrell, Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, (Doubleday 2011), p. 243.
12. Web site: Free Speech in the Progressive Era American Experience PBS . 2022-08-20 . www.pbs.org . en.
13. Web site: 2018-05-20 . May 20, 1913: Emma Goldman returns . 2022-08-20 . . en-US.
14. Web site: Smith . Jeff . July 4, 2012 . The Big Noise: The Free Speech Fight of 1912, Part Seven San Diego Reader . 2023-07-17 . . en.
15. Wexler, Intimate, pp. 211–215.
16. Wexler, Intimate, pp. 140–147.
17. Book: Roth, Walter. Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Jewish Past. 2005-08-01. Chicago Review Press. 9780897338271. 2020-05-17. Google Books.
18. • Anderson . Nels . Review of The Second Oldest Profession . . 37 . 2 . 323 . September 1931 . 10.1086/215696 . . 0002-9602 . 2766573 . mdy-all .
    • Review of The Second Oldest Profession. A Study Of The Prostitute's Business Manager . The British Medical Journal . 2 . 3951 . 630 . 1936 . 0007-1447 . 25354062 . mdy-all .
    • Book Review Digest 1931
19. http://theportlandalliance.org/2002/nov/boxcar.html Boxcar Bertha: Tales spun from the hobo world
20. http://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1337711986 "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."
21. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62802483 Hidden histories, Ben Reitman and the "outcast" women behind Sister of the Road : the autobiography of Box-Car Bertha
22. Pfahlert . Jeanine . Book Reviews (Rev. of Sister of the Road) . European Journal of American Culture . 23 . 1 . 6465 . 2004-04-01 . 10.1386/ejac.23.1.63/0 . 1466-0407 . mdy-all .