Rand School of Social Science

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The Lusk Committee raided the Rand School in August 1919 and seized documents to fuel its investigations.

The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by the Socialist Party in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness. From 1917 until it closed in 1956, it was located at 7 East 15th Street in Manhattan's Union Square neighborhood.


[edit] History

The Rand School of Social Science was established in 1906, made possible by an endowment by Carrie D. Rand and the suggestion of her son-in-law, the Christian Socialist professor George D. Herron. Additional funding was provided by Carrie Rand Herron after her mother's death, until her own untimely death in 1914.[1] In its initial years, the school conducted periodic lectures and night courses. Beginning in 1911, the Rand School implemented a full-time course, in which students devoted themselves to the study of history, economics, oratory, and socialist theory without interruption for a period of six months.[2] During the first 4 years of the existence of the full-time course, 38 men and 8 women completed the program, with 15 others withdrawing before graduation.[3]

In the words of its own Labor Research Department:

"The school had a very definite object — that of providing an auxiliary or specialized agency to serve the Socialist and Trade Union Movement of the United States in an educational capacity — to offer to the outside public an opportunity for stydying the principles, purposes, and methods of this movement; and to offer to the adherents of the movement instruction and training along the lines calculated to make them more efficient workers for the Cause."[4]

Starting in 1913, the Rand School established a Correspondence Department, conducting coursework by mail with socialists and sympathetic unionists around the country. Some 5,000 people took courses by mail from the Rand School by 1916.[5]

In addition to classes and public lectures, the Rand School also maintained a reading library and a book store.[6]

During World War I the Rand School was prosecuted for alleged violation of the Espionage Act by publishing the radical anti-militarist writings of Scott Nearing. In a sensational trial which followed, conducted in 1919 after conclusion of the war itself, Nearing was found innocent but the Rand School found guilty and was fined.

The Rand School was additionally raided in the summer of 1919 by the Lusk Committee, searching for evidence of connection to the Communist Party of America. No prosecution followed from this raid although records were seized providing the names of students through the years.

Instructors at the school included Algernon Lee, Scott Nearing, Morris Hillquit, Charles Beard, John Spargo, Lucien Sanial, James Maurer, and August Claessens.[7]

During the Socialist Party split of 1936, the Rand School of Social Science followed the Old Guard faction out of the party and into the new Social Democratic Federation.

Rand's Meyer London Library was given to New York University and served as the basis for its Tamiment Library.

The Rand School is not to be confused with either the New School for Social Research, a separate and unaffiliated institution of higher learning also located in New York City[8][9] or the Rand Corporation, a non-profit global policy think tank.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 151.
  2. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 152.
  3. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 152.
  4. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 151.
  5. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 152.
  6. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 152.
  7. ^ The American Labor Year Book, 1916. New York: Rand School of Social Science, [1916]; pg. 153.
  8. ^ Rauchway, Eric (2001). The Refuge of Affections: Family and American Reform Politics. Columbia University Press. p. 159. ISBN 0231121474. 
  9. ^ "The name of the avowedly uncommitted New School for Social Research sounded too much like that of the sternly socialist Rand School of Social Science—and, [New School founder] Johnson said, "the delusion has persisted that they follow the same doctrine." Rauchway 2001, p. 159.

[edit] External links

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