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“The Children and the Instruments of a Militant Labor Progressivism:” Brookwood Labor College and the American Labor College Movement of the 1920s and 1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Richard J. Altenbaugh
Richard J. Altenbaugh*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education, University of Pittsburgh
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Extract

When labor strikes, it says to its master: I shall no longer work at your command. When it votes for a party of its own, it says: I shall no longer vote at your command. When it creates its own classes and colleges, it says: I shall no longer think at your command. Labor's challenge to education is the most fundamental of the three.

Henry de Man (1921)

A growing body of literature is calling for the historical study of educational experiences outside of the realm of the established school system. Lawrence Cremin has recommended that educational historians move beyond the traditional analysis of schools and colleges. In Traditions of American Education, he broadly defines education “as the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit, evoke, or acquire knowledge, values, skills, or sensibilities, as well as any outcomes of that effort.“ Herbert Gutman similarly urges that educational historians transcend the exclusive study of institutional history by exploring such untouched areas as the “selfactivity” of workers and its relationship to class development and class formation. Rolland Paulston delineates a theoretical framework to ascertain the social and economic conditions, ideological bases, programmatic characteristics, and contributions of “nonformal education” in social movements. He posits that nonformal education functions as structured, systematic, nonschool education that relies upon training activities of relatively short duration and involves a fairly distinct target population. “It is, in sum, education that does not advance to a higher level of the hierarchical formal school system.”

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Winter 1983 , pp. 395 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. Cremin, Lawrence, Traditions of American Education (New York, 1977), p. 134. Also, see the “Preface” to Cremin, Lawrence, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 (New York, 1970). A prototype of this paper was presented to the “Beyond the System: New Research on the History of Urban Education Conference,” Teachers College, Columbia University, December 12–13, 1980.Google Scholar

2. Gutman, Herbert G., “Observations on Selected Trends in American Working-Class Historiography,” Work, Youth and Schooling: Historical Perspectives on Vocational Education, eds. Kantor, Harvey and Tyack, David (Stanford, 1979), pp. 463 & 471. I appreciate Professor Tyack's generosity in sharing this highly valuable and now published manuscript with me.Google Scholar

3. Rolland, G, Paulston, , Nonformal Education: An Annotated International Bibliography (New York, 1972), p. ix. Also see Paulston, Rolland G., Folk Schools in Social Change: A Partisan Guide to the International Literature (Pittsburgh, 1974); Paulston, Rolland G. and LeRoy, Gregory, “Strategies for Nonformal Education,” Teachers College Record, 76 (May 1975); Paulston, Rolland G., Conflicting Theories of Social and Educational Change: A Typological Review (Pittsburgh, 1976); Paulston, Rolland G., Other Dreams, Other Schools: Folk Colleges in Social and Ethnic Movements (Pittsburgh, 1980).Google Scholar

4. Lorwin, Louis (Levine), The Women's Garment Workers (1924; rpt. New York, 1969), pp. 20–21, 147, 467–68. Jacob Riis discovered a twelve-year old child who could neither read nor write. See, Riis, Jacob A., How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1901; rpt. New York, 1971), pp. 54, 98–100. Also, see Report of the Committee of the Senate Upon the Relations Between Labor and Capital (Washington, D.C., 1885), Vol. 1, p. 851; Vol. II, p. 67; Rippa, Alexander, Education in a Free Society: An American History, (New York, 1976), p. 157; Boyer, Richard O. and Morais, Herbert M., Labor's Untold Story (New York, 1976), p. 184. Maurer, James H., It Can Be Done: The Autobiography of James Hudson Maurer (New York, 1938), p. 36; Maurer, James H., “Labor's Demand For Its Own Schools,” Nation, 115 (1922): 276–78. Debs, Eugene V., Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and William (“Big Bill”) Haywood expressed similar criticisms of the formal schools.Google Scholar

5. Weinstein, James, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900–1918 (Boston, 1968), p. 38; Hays, Samuel P. The Response to Industrialism, 1885–1914 (Chicago, 1965); Green, Marguerite, The National Civic Federation and the American Labor Movement, 1900–1925 (Westport, Connecticut, 1956). While the AFL represented over 1,500,000 workers in 1904, Federation officials appeared to ignore the plight of more than 7,000,000 unorganized factory and transportation workers as well as the majority of the more than 30,000,000 gainfully employed wage-earners. See Boyer, and Morais, , Labor's Untold Story pp. 140, 181. Levin, Nora, While Messiah Tarried: Jewish Socialist Movements, 1917–1971 (New York, 1977), p. 185.Google Scholar

6. Levin, , While Messiah Tarried, pp. 93–95, 181. Lorwin, , Women's Garment Workers, pp. 100, 103–107, 108–109, 142–143.Google Scholar

7. Lorwin, , Women's Garment Workers, pp. 140, 146–147, 155, 161, 166, 176, 181–82, 184, 194; Levin, , While Messiah Tarried, pp. 186–188; Montgomery, David, “The ‘New Unionism’ and the Transformation of Workers' Consciousness in America, 1909–1922,” Journal of Social History, 7 (1974): 509–29.Google Scholar

8. Tussey, Jean Y., ed., Eugene V. Debs Speaks (New York, 1972), pp. 54, 55–58, 110, 132; Ginger, Ray, Eugene V. Debs: A Biography (New York, 1977); Shannon, David, The Socialist Party of America: A History (New York, 1955), pp. 7, 75. Also see, Kipnis, Ira, The American Socialist Movement, 1897–1912, (New York, 1952); Weinstein, James, The Decline of Socialism in America 1912–1925, (New York, 1967), pp. 53, 93–103. Levin, , While Messiah Tarried, p. 201; Giffen, Frederick C., Six Who Protested: Radical Opposition to the First World War (Port Washington, New York, 1977), p. 67.Google Scholar

9. de Man, Henry, “Labor's Challenge to Education,” New Republic, 2 Mar. 1921, pp. 16–18; Schaefer, Robert J., “Educational Activities of the Garment Unions, 1890–1948: A Study in Workers' Education in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in New York City,” Diss. Columbia University 1951, p. 48; Lorwin, , Women's Garment Workers, p. 483.Google Scholar

10. Fichlander, Alexander, “Labor Education,” Survey 45 (1921): 542–43; Lorwin, , Women's Garment Workers, pp. 490–92 Schaefer, , Educational Activities, pp. 87, 89, 137–139, 141, 146–147; Gleason, Arthur, Workers' Google Scholar Education: American Experiments With a Few Foreign Examples (New York, 1921), pp. 21–22, 27; Lorwin, , Women's Garment Workers, p. 500.Google Scholar

11. Weinstein, , Decline of Socialism, pp. 84–85; Kipnis, , The American Socialist Movement, pp. 246–247, 255–257.Google Scholar

12. Hansome, Marius, World Workers' Educational Movements: Their Social Significance (1931; rpt. New York, 1968), pp. 299, 302, 304. Quote is in Kipnis, , The American Socialist Movement, p. 257; Shannon, , The Socialist Party of America, p. 9.Google Scholar

13. “Plan Workers' College,” The New York Times, 1 Apr. 1921, p. 18, col. 3.Google Scholar

14. Muste, A. J., The Essays of A. J. Muste, (New York, 1967), p. 92, 93, 96. See an address delivered by Maurer as Presiding Officer at the Fifth Annual Convention of the Workers' Education Bureau of America, held in Boston, April 22, 1937. A copy of this speech is included in Maurer It Can Be Done, pp. 367–70. Also see, Maurer, , “Labor's Demand,” p. 277.Google Scholar

15. “Academic Freedom in Labor College,” The New York Times, 2 Apr. 1921, p. 8, col. 1.Google Scholar

16. Quoted in “Aims of Workers' College,” The New York Times, 16 June 1921, p. 8, col. 1. Also, see Bulletin and Announcement of Courses for 1932–33 (Katonah, New York, 1932), p. 3. Hereafter cited as Brookwood Bulletin. Google Scholar

17. The New York Times, Apr. 1921; Muste, , The Essays of A. J. Muste, p. 98.Google Scholar

18. “Commonwealth College Makes New Start,” Christian Century, 54, (1937): 1037–38; Bernstein, Irving, The Lean Years: A History of the American Workers, 1920–1933, (Boston, 1960), p. 416.Google Scholar

19. “Workers Study How To Do It,” Brookwood Review, Feb. 1932, p. 4; Muste, , The Essays of A. J. Muste, p. 94; Altenbaugh, Richard J. and Paulston, Rolland G., “Work Peoples' College: A Finnish Folk High School in the American Labor Movement,” Paedagogica Historica, 18 (1978): 237–56; Altenbaugh, Richard J., “Forming the Structure of the New Society Within the Shell of the Old: The Labor College Movement and Its Contribution to the American Labor Movement.” Diss. University of Pittsburgh, 1980; Brookwood Bulletin, pp. 7–10; Curricula, Brookwood Collection, Box 5, Wayne State University; “Workers' College at Katonah, N.Y.” Monthly Labor Review, 14 (1922): 1084; “Training of Labor Leaders in the United States,” International Labor Review, 8 (1923): 138–139; “Brookwood,” New Republic, 43 (1925): 287–289; Hansome, , World Workers Educational Movement, pp. 203–204.Google Scholar

20. Ollila, Douglas and Karni, Michael, For the Common Good: Finnish Immigrants and the Radical Response to Industrial America (Superior, Wisconsin, 1977), pp. 102, 109; Wiita, John, “Tyovaen Opisto—Working Peoples' College,” unpublished and undated manuscript obtained at the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota; “Courses of Study and Entrance Requirements,” Commonwealth College Fortnightly (1 Jan. 1930): 2.Google Scholar

21. Quoted in Norton, Helen G., “Drama at Brookwood,” Labor Age 15 (May 1926): 18–19; Brookwood Bulletin, p. 10.Google Scholar

22. “Dramas of Toil Are Staged at Brookwood Labor College,” The New York Times, 7 Mar. 1926.Google Scholar

23. Brookwood Bulletin, p. 10. “Brookwood Players Appear in New York,” Brookwood Review, Apr. 1926, p. 4; “Crowds Like Labor Drama,” Brookwood Bulletin, May 1932, p. 1; “Brookwood Players to Troupe in South,” Brookwood Review, Mar. 1926, p. 1. For further information on this subject, see Altenbaugh, Richard J., “Proletarian Drama: An Educational Tool of the American Labor Colleges,” Theatre Journal 34 (May 1982): 197–210.Google Scholar

24. Brookwood Bulletin, (May 1932): 1.Google Scholar

25. “Brookwood Students Out on Strike—But Not Against Brookwood,” Brookwood Review, Apr. 1923, p. 3. Also, see “Students Help Win New York Garment Strike,” Brookwood Review, Mar. 1926, p. 1.Google Scholar

26. Brookwood Labor College: Twelfth Anniversary Review (Katonah, New York, 1933), p. 5. Hereafter cited as Twelfth Anniversary Review. Google Scholar

27. “Field Work and Political Action Courses Are Added to Curriculum,” Brookwood Review, Feb. 1931, p. 1.Google Scholar

28. Commonwealth College Fortnightly Supplement, 1 Dec. 1927, p. 2. Hereafter, this periodical will be referred to as Fortnightly. Google Scholar

29. Brookwood Bulletin, p. 13; Executive Board Minutes, 1922–1932, Brookwood Collection, Box 7, Folder 1, Wayne State University.Google Scholar

30. De Caux, Len, Labor Radical: From the Wobbilies to CIO (Boston, 1970), pp. 95–96; Ellis, Clifford B., “What Life Means to a Worker: The Story of the Past Winter at the Work Peoples' College,” Industrial Pioneer, 4 (May 1926): 14–18; “New Students Come From 16 Industries,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1928, p. 1; “Workers Flock to School's 10th Year,” Brookwood Review, Sept. 1930, p. 1; “A Motley Gang at Brookwood,” Brookwood Review, Dec. 1932, p. 4; “Meet New Commoners!” Fortnightly, 1 Nov. 1926; p. 1; “Here's a Peak at New Student Group,” Fortnightly, 15 Nov. 1926, p. 1; “Wobbily, Cabby, Electrician, Wind Up New Student List,” Fortnightly, 1 Dec. 1926, p. 3; “Cosmopolitan Group at Commonwealth,” Fortnightly, 1 Nov. 1927, p. 1.Google Scholar

31. Twelfth Anniversary Review, p. 10.Google Scholar

32. Muste, , The Essays of A. J. Muste, p. 102; Brookwood Fifteenth Anniversary Review (Katonah, New York, 1936), contains many photographs of graduating classes which attests to the diversity of the student body. Thomas, Ben, “The Negro Problem,” Brookwood Review, May 1925, p. 2; “Negroes Can Organize Is Conference Feature,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1927, p. 4; “Negro Workers' Problems, Conference Subject,” Brookwood Review, Feb. 1931, p. 2; “Drive Planned to Aid Negroes in Industry,” The New York Times, 2 Jan. 1931, p. 6, col. 7. Grubbs, Donald, Cry From the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union and the New Deal (Chapel Hill, 1971); Raymond, and Koch, Charlotte, Educational Commune: The Story of Commonwealth College (New York, 1972); “United Front Formed at Commonwealth,” Fortnightly, 15 Feb. 1935, p. 3, “Sharecroppers' Union Greets Commonwealth,” Fortnightly, 15 Jan. 1936, p. 1.Google Scholar

33. “A Diversity of Action,” Work Peoples' College Bulletin, 1 Jan. 1924, p. 3, IHRC; Hansome, , World Workers' Educational Movements, pp. 211–12; Brookwood Bulletin, p. 15; Minutes, Executive Board, 4 Apr. 1925, Brookwood Collection, Box 7, Folder 1, Wayne State University; “Students Elect Council: Many States Represented,” Fortnightly, 15 Feb., 1926, p. 1; “Students Admitted to Governing Body,” Fortnightly, 15 Oct. 1928, p. 1.Google Scholar

34. “Four Teachers Added to Faculty,” Brookwood Review, Oct. 1934, p. 4; Brookwood Bulletin, p. 5; Muste, , The Essays of A. J. Muste, p. 104; Cunningham, William, “Commonwealth College, Learning and Earning,” American Association of University Professors Bulletin, 15 (1929): 158; Koch, and Koch, , Educational Commune, pp. 65–71; “Brookwood,” American Teacher, 15 (Feb. 1931): 13; “Commonwealth College Local 194,” American Teacher 18 (Oct. 1934): 28; “Teachers Take Stock of Labor Education,” Brookwood Review, Feb.-Mar. 1928, p. 1; “Record Crowd at Conference,” Brookwood Review, Feb. 1932, p. 1. In 1932, representatives of Work Peoples' College and Commonwealth attended the workers' education conference at Brookwood.Google Scholar

35. Smith, Tucker P., “Workers Prepare for Power,” Progressive Education, 11 (1934): 303–306; “Are Commonwealth Teachers ‘Good’ Teachers?” Fortnightly, 1 July 1932, p. 2.Google Scholar

36. Fortnightly, 1 July 1932, loc. cit.; Smith, , “Workers Prepare for Power,” p. 303; Ellis, , “What Life Means to a Worker,” p. 15.Google Scholar

37. The New York Times, 16 June 1921, p. 8, col. 1. Parts of this section were presented in a paper by the author, “The Relationship Between Work and Education in the American Labor College Movement of the 1920s and 1930s,” at the History of Education Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, Oct. 27–29, 1978. “Brookwooders Have Easy Time Now,” Brookwood Review, Dec. 1927-Jan. 1928, p. 2; Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1927, p. 1; “Stone House Built by Student Workmen,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1927, p. 4; “No More Dry Washes for Cabin Inhabitants,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1928, p. 3.Google Scholar

38. Brookwood Bulletin, p. 11; “Brookwood Summer School,” Brookwood Review, Dec. 1924, p. 1; “Rest and Recreation for the Work Worn,” Fortnightly 1 Apr. 1921, p. 1; Norton, Helen G., “Strike Relief” (Katonah, New York, 1934); “Come to Brookwood by Correspondence,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1929, p. 2; “Extension Courses Given by Faculty,” Brookwood Review, Jan. 1926, p. 4; “The Chautauqua Grows,” Brookwood Review, Nov. 1935, p. 1.Google Scholar

39. “50,000 For Building and Endowment Fund in Sight,” Brookwood Review, Feb., Mar. 1928, p. 1; “Labor College Seeks $2,000,000,” The New York Times, 2 Feb. 1928, p. 16, col. 6; “Labor College to Expand,” The New York Times, 2 May 1926, II, p. 19, col. 4; “Endowment Campaign Generously Endorsed,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov., 1926, p. 1; Brookwood Review, Feb.-Mar. 1928, loc. cit.Google Scholar

40. Bernstein, , The Lean Years, pp. 97–108; “Brookwood Denies A. F. of L.'s Charges,” The New York Times, 9 Aug. 1928, p. 8, col. 1.Google Scholar

41. Dewey asked Muste to examine a draft of his speech to the Teachers Union in New York City. A draft of the speech as well as correspondence between Dewey and Muste appears in AFL Correspondence, 1928–29, Brookwood Collection, Box 17, Folder 16, Wayne State University: “Denounced Action on Brookwood,” The New York Times, 10 Nov. 1928, p. 7, col. 2; “New York Teachers Protest AFL Action,” Brookwood Review, Oct.-Nov. 1938, p. 4.Google Scholar

42. Dewey, John, “Labor Politics and Labor Education,” New Republic 57 (Jan. 1929): 211–214; Report of the Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor (Washington, D.C., 1928).Google Scholar

43. Muste, A. J., “Shall Workers' Education Perish?” Labor Age, 18, (Jan. 1929): 5–6.Google Scholar

44. “Help For Brookwood,” Nation, 135 (1932):592.Google Scholar

45. “Muste Quits in Rift Over CPLA,” Brookwood Review, May 1933, p. 1; “Dean Bolts at Labor College,” The New York Times, 8 Mar. 1933, p. 15, col. 1.Google Scholar

46. “Legion Loses Sleep Over Commonwealth,” Fortnightly, 15 Set p. 1926, p. 1; “Thanks, Your Honor,” Google Scholar Fortnightly, 1 June 1927, p. 1; “Thanks Friends,” Fortnightly, 1 Dec. 1932, p. 1; “College Is Fined $2,500,” The New York Times, 23 Nov. 1940, p. 19, col. 4; Koch, , Educational Commune, pp. 206–208.Google Scholar

47. Ollila, and Karni, , For the Common Good, pp. 111–112.Google Scholar

48. Fifteenth Anniversary Review , pp. 27–28; Hansome, , World Workers' Educational Movements, pp. 204–205; Brooks, Thomas, Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor (New York, 1964), p. 154.Google Scholar

49. “Eleven Scholarships,” Brookwood Review, Dec. 1924, p. 8; “Union Scholarships,” Brookwood Review, Oct. 1925, p. 2; “New Scholarship Granted by Unions,” Brookwood Review, Jan. 1936, p. 3. Also, see congratulatory comments and letters of support in the Fifteenth Anniversary Review. Google Scholar