The Socialist Woman

The Socialist Woman

Cover page featuring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, December 1908.
Editor	Josephine Conger-Kaneko Kiichi Kaneko
Categories	Socialist, Feminist
Frequency	Monthly
Format	Print
Circulation	15,000
Publisher	The Socialist Woman Pub. Co.
Founder	Josephine Conger-Kaneko
Year founded	1907
First issue	June 1907
Final issue	July 1914
Country	United States
Based in	Chicago
Language	English

The Socialist Woman (1907-1914) was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko. Its aim was to educate women about socialism by discussing women's issues from a socialist standpoint. It was renamed The Progressive Woman in 1909 and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O'Hare, suffragist Alice Stone Blackwell, union leader Eugene V. Debs, poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and other notable writers and activists.

Josephine Conger-Kaneko founded The Socialist Woman when she was living in Chicago, home of the national office of the Socialist Party of America. When she published the first issue in June 1907, she had only 26 subscribers. At the time, only about 2,000 women belonged to the male-dominated Socialist Party, and party leaders made little effort to welcome women or address their concerns. Conger-Kaneko believed that women were essential to the success of the socialist movement, and set out to educate women about socialism by creating a magazine that would appeal to a female audience:

The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women's lives, from the Socialist standpoint.

Both Conger-Kaneko and her husband, Kiichi Kaneko, were feminists who supported the women's suffrage movement, and the magazine reflected their views. Conger wrote editorials, poetry, and news articles about socialism and women's rights. Before his death in 1909, Kaneko co-edited the magazine and contributed essays on women's issues around the world. Many noted activists and writers contributed to the magazine, including Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O'Hare, suffragist Alice Stone Blackwell, union leader Eugene V. Debs, and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, among others. The magazine received no funding from the Socialist Party, and supplemented its subscription fees by carrying advertisements for books, periodicals, anti-Catholic tracts, hair tonics, patent medicines, and the like.