The California Labor School (until 1945 named the Tom Mooney Labor School) was an educational organization in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

from 1942 to 1957. Like the contemporary

Jefferson School of Social Science The Jefferson School of Social Science was an adult education institution of the Communist Party USA located in New York City. The so-called "Jeff School" was launched in 1944 as a successor to the party's New York Workers School, albeit skewed mo ...

and the

New York Workers School The New York Workers School, colloquially known as "Workers School," was an ideological training center of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) established in New York City for adult education in October 1923. For more than two decades the facility play ...

, it represented the "transformed and upgraded" successors of the "workers schools" of the 1920s and 1930s.

History

During World War II, as part of

Browderism Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Duri ...

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Duri ...

established new communist "schools of social sciences" in major urban areas. On the East Coast, these schools included names of American patriots: the Sam Adams School (Boston), Tom Paine School of Social Sciences (Philadelphia), George Washington Carver School (Harlem, New York), Abraham Lincoln School (Chicago), and Jefferson School of Social Sciences (New York). West Coast schools used geographic names: the Pacific Northwest Labor School and the California Labor School.

Founding

The CLS was founded in August 1942, in premises above a car showroom at 678 Turk Street in San Francisco, and named for labor leader

Tom Mooney Thomas Joseph Mooney (December 8, 1882 – March 6, 1942) was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916. It quickly became apparent that Mo ...

, who had died on March 6 that year. It later moved to a 5-story building at 216 Market Street, and in 1947 bought premises at 240 Golden Gate Avenue. The school was supported by 72

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

s, including members of the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...

and the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...

. Its initial program "promised to analyze social, economic and political questions in light of the present world struggle against fascism". It also taught the arts: the teenage

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

had a scholarship to study dance and drama. The school taught students on many subjects such as labor organization, journalism, music, drama, history, women's studies, economics and industrial arts. Union officials and professors from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

taught the courses at CLS. The most popular course at the CLS called "Mental Hygiene Today" was taught by

Erik Erikson Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity cr ...

. The most important history course was called "History and Problems of the

Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...

in America". The school offered different kinds of services such as preparing union pamphlets and newspapers, conducting dance concerts and theatrical shows at local meetings.

Funding

The largest funder of the CLS was the

International Longshore and Warehouse Union The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 Wes ...

(ILWU), headed by Harry Bridges. The

(AFL), Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), American Veterans Committee, and the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP) also supported it.

Attendance and closure

From 1945 to 1947 the school was accredited for veterans' education under the

G.I. Bill of Rights The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, and by 1947 there were 220 full-time students, among the 1800 students attending 135 classes. In 1948 the school was placed on the

Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 at the request of the United States Attorney General (and later Supreme Court justice) Tom C. Clark. The list was intended to be a c ...

and attendances declined. The school closed in 1957.

Faculty and teachers

David Jenkins was the initial director and Holland Roberts was the first education director for this "people's school."

Legacy

Archives of the school's material are held in the Labor Archives & Research Center of

California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...

and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. ''Includes several paragraphs about the school'' The Graphic Arts Workshop (GAW) of San Francisco, a cooperative print studio, was founded in 1952 by several artists from the California Labor School.

Los Angeles People's Educational Center

From 1944 to 1948, the school ran a "counterpart" or "extension" called the "People's Educational Center" (or "Peoples Educational Center). Its head was Dorothy Healey, head of the Communist Party of Los Angeles. Frances Eisenberg of Canoga Park High School served on its board of directors.

John Howard Lawson John Howard Lawson (September 25, 1894 – August 11, 1977) was an American writer, specializing in plays and screenplays. After starting with plays for theaters in New York City, he worked in Hollywood on writing for films. He was the first pres ...

was an instructor there.

Robert E. Stripling Robert E. Stripling (circa 1910–1991) was a 20th-century civil servant, best known as chief investigator of the United States House of Representatives, House Dies Committee and its successor the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), parti ...

stated that the center succeed the writers school of the

League of American Writers The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935. The group included Communist Party members, and so-called " fell ...

Sam Wood Samuel Grosvenor Wood (July 10, 1883 – September 22, 1949) was an American film director and producer who is best known for having directed such Hollywood hits as ''A Night at the Opera (film), A Night at the Opera'', ''A Day at the Races (fi ...

testified that

Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s films noir, noir films and received an Academy Award for Best Director, Oscar nomination for Best Director for ''Crossfire (film), Cros ...

taught there. Oliver Carlson testified that William Wolfe of the ILGWU education department ran it, succeeded by Sidney Davison (sent from New York); Herbert Biberman taught there (Soviet theater), as did

Guy Endore Samuel Guy Endore (July 4, 1901 – February 12, 1970), born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was an American novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both publish ...

Robert Lees. Advisors included Lees, Lawson, Healey, Herbert Sorrell, Frank Tuttle, and Sondra Gorney.

References

External sources

* {{Authority control Education in San Francisco 1942 establishments in California Labor schools 1950s disestablishments in California Educational institutions established in 1942

History

Founding

Funding

Attendance and closure

Faculty and teachers

Legacy

Los Angeles People's Educational Center

See also

References

External sources