San Francisco Workers' School

San Francisco Workers' School
Successor California Labor School
Formation 1934
Extinction circa 1942
Purpose educational, propagandist, indoctrinal
Headquarters 121 Haight Street, San Francisco
Services ideological training center of CPUSA, adult education
Key people
Samuel Adams Darcy, Benjamin Ellisberg, Langston Hughes, Lincoln Steffens, Anita Whitney
Affiliations Communist Party USA

The San Francisco Workers' School was an ideological training center of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) established in San Francisco for adult education in 1934. "It was a typical specimen of a Communist school, such as would come under investigation by federal and state authorities for decades afterward.".[1] in the 1940, it emerged as the California Labor School.

History

In 1934, Anita Whitney, Samuel Adams Darcy, Benjamin Ellisberg, Lincoln Steffens, and Steffens' wife Ella Winter supported the establishment of the San Francisco Worker's School, housed at CPUSA headquarters at 121 Haight Street in San Francisco.[1]

The school drew inspiration from the Jack London Memorial Institute (founded 1917[2]).

Organization

Like similar workers' schools in New York and Chicago, it held classes at night (after normal work hours) and taught the basics of Communism.[1]

Administrators

(forthcoming)

Advisory Board

According to Tenney Committee report of 1947,[3] the following people served on an advisory board for the school:

Teachers

According to Stephen Schwartz,[1] the following people taught at the school:

Courses

According to Stephen Schwartz,[1] the following courses were taught at the school:

Publications

The school published a journal called Writers' Workshop, edited by activist, novelist, historian Alexander Saxton.[4][5]

Impact

(forthcoming)

Legacy

"The early San Francisco Workers School morphed into the Tom Mooney School, and then reappeared as CLS" (the California Labor School).[5]

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Schwartz, Stephen (1998). From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. New York: Free Press. pp. 238–239. ISBN 0-684-83134-1. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  2. Sherman, Joan R. (1977). Jack London: A Refetence Guide. G. K. Hall. p. xiii. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  3. Bosmajian, Haig A. (2010). Anita Whitney, Louis Brandeis, and the First Amendment. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 150. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  4. Wald, Alan (1994). Writing from the Left: New Essays on Radical Culture and Politics. Verso. p. 91. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  5. 1 2 Gettleman, Marvin E. (2008). "Defending Left Pedagogy: U.S. Communist Schools Fight Back Against the SACB . . . and Lose (1953-1957)". Reconstruction. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  6. "Re: Workmen's Educational Association - San Francisco". H-LABOR@H-NET.MSU.EDU. 26 July 2000. Retrieved 7 February 2016.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.