No single figure better represents the complexities and contradictions, the strengths and weaknesses, or the ambiguities of anarchist-feminism than Voltairine de Cleyre. Yet until recently we knew very little about the second most important woman in the American anarchist movement, in part because Emma Goldman-who had served as this country's symbol of anarchist womanhood during her and de Cleyre's lifetimes-eclipsed de Cleyre after their deaths as well...de Cleyre's career was marked by less notoriety and by a quieter, though nonetheless genuine, defiance of American norms of femininity. To a degree, de Cleyre chose a comparatively less aggressive role than Goldman. Although during her early years as an anarchist propagandist she had participated in a wide variety of reform and radical activities, from the late nineties until her death she worked largely among anarchists.