The Jefferson School of Social Science was an adult education institution of the Communist Party USA located in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The so-called "Jeff School" was launched in 1944 as a successor to the party's

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 ...

, albeit skewed more towards community outreach and education rather than the training of party functionaries and activists, as had been the primary mission of its predecessor. Peaking in size in 1947 and 1948 with an attendance of about 5,000, the Jefferson School was embroiled in controversy during the McCarthy period including a 1954 legal battle with the Subversive Activities Control Board over the school's refusal to register as a so-called "Communist-controlled organization." With the Communist Party in membership decline and financial chaos, the Jefferson School was forced to close its doors in 1956 in the face of government pressure.

Institutional history

Establishment

The Jefferson School of Social Science was established by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1943 as part of that organization's effort to expand the teaching of

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

to the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

.Marv Gettleman, "Jefferson School of Social Science," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of the American Left.'' First Edition. New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; pp. 389-390. Communists of the day believed that Marxism was a form of science which it believed was being willfully ignored in the public schools and sought to correct what it viewed as a systemic educational shortcoming. Moreover, the Communist Party sought to bolster community goodwill through its efforts as part of its

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

effort to integrate itself into American society. Unlike its predecessor, the

, the Jefferson School was not focused upon the recruitment and training of new party members but was rather conceived as tool for more broad outreach into the community. The school did contain within it a more traditional apparatus for training of professional party cadres, however, an Institute of Marxist Studies which conducted a three-year program of study.David A. Shannon, ''The Decline of American Communism: A History of the Communist Party of the United States Since 1945.'' New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1959; pg. 87. The Jefferson School was housed in a 9-storey building located at 575 Sixth Avenue in Lower Manhattan.Peter Filardo
"Guide to the Jefferson School of Social Science Records and Indexes: Historical/Biographical Note,"
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New York, NY. The school was built around a library of 30,000 volumes and offered scores of classes each term covering history, politics,

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 ...

affairs, ideology, and the sundry

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

s. In addition to "serious" topics, the Jefferson School added courses of a more whimsical or apolitical nature, including such topics as creative writing, art appreciation, health, interior decorating, and personal beauty on a budget. Traditional lecture-based adult education was further supplemented by the Jefferson School's hosting of periodic public events, including single-admission lectures, workshops, musical concerts, and dramatic performances. Director of the Jefferson School was a former professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College,

Howard Selsam Howard Selsam (born Howard Brillinger Selsam; 28 June 1903 – 7 September 1970) was an American Marxist philosopher. Background Howard Brillinger Selsam was born on 28 June 1903 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His parents were John T. Selsam, a ...

. Instructors and school administrators were paid for their efforts, with funds coming at least in part from course registration fees.

Growth

At the time of its launch in 1943, about 2,500 students attended courses at the Jefferson School of Social Science. Participation in the school doubled by the 1947/48 academic year, when attendance peaked at approximately 5,000. In addition to its main facility on Sixth Avenue, the Jefferson School also for a time operated satellite facilities, including two temporary schools in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

aimed at building African-American participation in the Communist movement — the Harlem Leadership Training School and the Maceo Snipes School. These branch operations were primarily focused upon the radicalization of black students and their attraction to the Communist Party rather than the adult education orientation of the main branch of the Jefferson School. While the Jefferson School in New York City was the flagship of the Communist Party's adult education and party training schools, it was not the organization's sole enterprise. Other Communist Party schools during the middle part of the 20th century included the

Abraham Lincoln School for Social Science The Abraham Lincoln School for Social Science in Chicago, Illinois was a "broad, nonpartisan school for workers, writers, and their sympathizers," aimed at the thousands of African-American workers who had migrated to Chicago from the American S ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the Samuel Adams School in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, and the San Francisco Labor School.

Legal battle

In 1949, FBI undercover agent/informer Angela Calomiris testified during the

Foley Square trial The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in New York City from 1949 to 1958 were the result of US federal government prosecutions in the postwar period and during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Leaders of the ...

that she took "educational courses" on communism at the Jefferson School and the

. During the

Second Red Scare McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

of the early 1950s, the United States government attempted to identify, isolate, and discredit various so-called front groups of the Communist Party. Key to this process was mandatory registration of Communist-controlled institutions with the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). The Jefferson School initially fought this requirement, an action which resulted in a 1954 legal case, ''Jefferson School v. Subversive Activities Control Board''. An appeal dragged on to 1963, after the dissolution of the school.

Termination

From about 1953 the Jefferson School of Social Science had begun having trouble attracting enough paying students to cover the cost of its operations, forcing the Communist Party to assume an active role in subsidizing its operations.Shannon, ''The Decline of American Communism,'' pg. 359. This situation worsened as the decade progressed, with negative publicity associated with the school's legal difficulties and a growing popular hostility to Communism placing both the school and the party in an ever more difficult financial position. The February 1956 secret speech of Soviet leader

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

, "

On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», «''O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh''»), popularly known as the "Secret Speech" (russian: секре ...

," had the effect of disorienting and discouraging the membership of the CPUSA. Shocked by Khrushchev's revelations of the mass crimes of the Stalin era, the party lost a spate of members and split into bitterly feuding factions who disagreed about the nature of the Soviet state and the path forward for American radicals. The Jefferson School played a part in this internal debate, sponsoring a series of four public meetings dealing with the importance of the soviet leader's revelations at the

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...

. At the last of these sessions,

John Gates John "Johnny" Gates, born Solomon Regenstreif (28 September 1913 – 23 May 1992) was an American Communist business man, best remembered as one of the individuals spearheading a failed attempt at liberalization of the Communist Party USA in ...

, editor of the official party newspaper, '' The Worker,'' was sharply critical of the American party's blind obedience, its support of its

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

opponents under the

Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...

, and its failure to commit itself to a peaceful path to socialism based upon maintained civil liberties.Shannon, ''The Decline of American Communism,'' pg. 282. The school became in its last year loosely associated with the Gates reform faction, which was opposed by a group favoring continuation of past practices, which included party leaders William Z. Foster,

Eugene Dennis Francis Xavier Waldron (August 10, 1905 – January 31, 1961), best known by the pseudonym Eugene Dennis and Tim Ryan, was an American communist politician and union organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of the Communist Party USA a ...

, and

Gus Hall Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a perennial candidate for president of the United States. He was the Communist Party nominee in the ...

. With the Communist Party shattered and impoverished, the Jefferson School of Social Science terminated its operations in 1956, having been branded as a "Communist-controlled organization" by the SACB.

Leadership

The first and only director of the school was the philosopher

. According to investigation led by Benjamin Mandel of the US

Senate Internal Security Subcommittee The United States Senate's Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951–77, known more commonly as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and sometimes the M ...

(SISS), the school's 1951 administration included Frederick V. Field as secretary and Alexander Trachtenberg as treasurer. According to a 1956 announcement of the school's closure, the school's administration comprised: Howard Selsam, director; David Goldway, executive secretary; and Doxey A. Wilkerson, director of curriculum.

Legacy

The bulk of the Jefferson School's papers resides at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. Some eight linear feet of material is held in the New York University collection.

Footnotes

External sources

* Richard J. Altenbaugh, ''Education for Struggle: American Labor Colleges of the 1920s and 1930s.'' Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990. * Peter Filardo
"Guide to the Jefferson School of Social Science (New York, NY) Records and Indexes,"
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New York, NY. * Marvin Gettleman
"Lost World of U.S. Labor Education: Curricula at East and West Coast Community Schools, 1944-1957,"
Paper presented to the Gotham Center for New York City History, October 7, 2001. * Marvin E. Gettleman, "'No Varsity Teams': New York's Jefferson School of Social Science, 1943–1956," ''Science & Society,'' vol. 66, no. 3 (Fall 2002), pp. 336–359
In JSTOR
* Daniel F. Ring, "Two Cultures: Libraries, the Unions, and the 'Case' of the Jefferson School of Social Science," ''The Journal of Library History,'' vol. 20, no. 3 (Summer 1985), pp. 287– 301. * Ellen Schrecker, ''No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. * Jefferson School of Social Science Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson School of Social Science Labor schools Socialism in New York (state) Communist Party USA mass organizations Educational institutions established in 1943 Educational institutions disestablished in 1956 Schools in Manhattan 1943 establishments in New York City 1956 disestablishments in New York (state)