Anarchist Portraits

Anarchist Portraits is a 1988 history book by Paul Avrich about the lives and personalities of multiple prominent and inconspicuous anarchists.

Summary and publication
Anarchist Portraits is a series of biographical studies about the American anarchist movement written by Paul Avrich over twenty years. At the time, Avrich was the foremost scholar of the history of anarchism. He intended his vignettes to reflect the character of the anarchist movement through the lives of individual participants from the late 19th century through the 1930s. He draws from personal interviews and old periodicals across multiple languages. Some of the chapters are revisions of prior essays.

The essay's anarchist subjects are largely European emigrants to the United States, such as Mollie Steimer (from the Abrams free speech case) and Charles Mowbray. He also covers other Russian, Italian, and Jewish anarchist immigrants. Avrich also writes about anarchist luminaries who visited the United States, such as Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Bakunin visited the United States in 1861 before the movement had momentum, while Kropotkin attracted crowds. Other figures include Alexander Berkman, Nestor Makhno, Voline, Ricardo Flores Magón, Gustav Landauer, and the Australian agitator Chummy Fleming. Outside of the United States, he also briefly touches Brazilian anarchism and Anatoli Zhelezniakov.

A new essay on Jewish anarchism in America covers the anarchist movement among East European Jewish immigrants between the 1880s and 1890s. It includes the working class movement in Jewish garment unions, the creation of housing communes and experimental schools, the Yiddish periodical Fraye Arbeter Shtime, and the influence of Kropotkin.

His essay on Sacco and Vanzetti shows the influence of the Luigi Galleani, an anarchist who avocated for violent revolt against capitalism and government. Avrich contends that Sacco and Vanzetti were part of an insurrectionary movement belied by the innocent image their supporters projected, but admits no direct evidence of their participation.