Rand School of Social Science
Encyclopedia
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
by adherents of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator of a summer camp for socialist and trade union activists. The school changed its name to the "Tamiment Institute and Library" in 1935 and it was closely linked to the Social Democratic Federation after the 1936 split of the Socialist Party. Its collection became a key component of today's Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives
The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The Robert F. Wagner Archives, which is also housed in...
at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
in 1963.
Formation
The idea for the Rand School of Social Science began with the Christian socialist minister, George D. HerronGeorge D. Herron
George D. Herron was an American clergyman, lecturer, writer, and Christian socialist activist. Herron is best remembered as a leading exponent of the so-called "Social Gospel" movement and for his highly publicized divorce and remarriage to the daughter of a wealthy benefactor which scandalized...
, and his mother-in-law, the widowed lumber baroness from Burlington, Iowa, Caroline (Carrie) A. Rand. Due to his radical and overtly anti-clerical ideas, Herron was forced from his position as head of the department of Applied Christianity at Iowa College (now Grinnell) in November 1899.
He married in 1901 Mrs. Rand's only daughter (also named Carrie), and they resided together in New York City in an apartment at 59 West 45th Street. After joining the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (United States)
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...
in late 1900, Herron rose to a position of influence among American Socialists and played a key role in the formation of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
at Indianapolis in the summer of 1901. He also authored the SPA platform in 1904 and gave the nominating speech for the party's presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
. In a detailed letter to the prominent New York socialist Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
, Herron outlined the Rand School's origins, beginning with the germ of the idea back in Iowa in the 1890s:
“Mrs. Rand originally had under consideration the establishment of school of Social Science in connection with Iowa College. But when she became aware that it would be impossible to establish such foundation, especially following my enforced resignation, she gave up the thought of what she had in mind at Iowa College…The school is, in fact, some such thing as Mrs. Herron and I had planned and talked about for many years, and to which I expected at the time, to give my own life personally, as a teacher and organizer of the same.”
The school was established in 1906, made possible by a $200,000 endowment by Mrs. Rand at the time of her sudden death in 1905. The fund was administered by Rand's daughter, Carrie Rand Herron, and Morris Hillquit.
Operations of the Rand School were governed by the American Socialist Society, incorporated in 1901, and its board of directors. The initial board members included Algernon Lee
Algernon Lee
Algernon H. Lee was an American socialist politician and educator, best known as the Director of Education at the Rand School of Social Science for 35 years.-Early years:...
, Job Harriman
Job Harriman
Job Harriman was an ordained minister who later became an agnostic and a socialist. In 1900 he ran for Vice President of the United States along with Eugene Debs on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America. He later twice ran for mayor of Los Angeles, drawing considerable attention and support...
, Benjamin Hanford
Benjamin Hanford
Benjamin Hanford was an American politician during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He made two unsuccessful runs for the post of Vice President of the United States, as Eugene Debs' running mate as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party, in 1904 and 1908.-Early life:Benjamin Hanford...
, William Mailly
William Mailly
William "Will" Mailly was an American socialist political functionary, journalist, and trade union activist. He is best remembered as an early National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America and as the first managing editor of the socialist daily newspaper, the New York Call.-Early...
, Leonard D. Abbott, and Henry Slobodin.
In its early years, the school conducted regular lectures and night courses. Beginning in 1911–12, the Rand School implemented a full-time training course, in which students devoted themselves to the study of history, economics, public speaking, and socialist theory without interruption for a period of six months. During the first four years of the existence of the full-time course, 38 men and 8 women completed the program, with 15 others withdrawing before graduation.
The Rand School maintained a close relationship not only with the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
proper, but also with the Intercollegiate Socialist Society
Intercollegiate Socialist Society
The Intercollegiate Socialist Society was the a Socialist student organization from 1905-1921. It attracted many prominent intellectuals and writers and acted as the unofficial Socialist Party of America student wing...
and such trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
.The school's Labor Research Department declared:
"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 studying 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."
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. In addition to classes and public lectures, the Rand School also maintained a reading library and a book store.
Instructors and occasional lecturers at the school included Algernon Lee, Scott Nearing, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
, Charles A. Beard
Charles A. Beard
Charles Austin Beard was, with Frederick Jackson Turner, one of the most influential American historians of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science...
, John Spargo
John Spargo
John Spargo was a British-born American socialist political activist, orator, and writer who later became a renowned expert in the history and crafts of Vermont...
, Lucien Sanial, James Maurer, David P. Berenberg
David P. Berenberg
David Paul Berenberg was an American socialist teacher, editor, and writer. He is best remembered as a founder and editor of The American Socialist Quarterly, the theoretical magazine of the Socialist Party of America during the 1930s....
, and August Claessens
August Claessens
August "Gus" Claessens was an American socialist politician, best known as one of the five New York Assemblymen expelled from that body during the First Red Scare for their membership in the Socialist Party of America...
.
In 1917, with the assistance of a significant financial gift from international gem merchant A.A. Heller, the Rand School moved into a new headquarters facility located a 7 East 15th Street in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...
neighborhood–a building which it purchased from the YWCA
YWCA
The YWCA USA is the United States branch of a women's membership movement that strives to create opportunities for women's growth, leadership and power in order to attain a common vision—to eliminate racism and empower women. The YWCA is a non-profit organization, the first of which was founded in...
.
World War I prosecution and raid
During World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
the Rand School was prosecuted for alleged violation of the Espionage Act for publishing the radical anti-militarist pamphlet, "The Great Madness," written by Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, and advocate of simple living.-The early years:...
. In a sensational trial, conducted in 1919 after conclusion of the war itself, Nearing was acquitted of the charges against him, but the Rand School was found guilty for having distributed Nearing's work and was fined $3,000.
The Rand School was also raided in the summer of 1919 by the New York State Legislature's 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.
Post-war development
In 1921, individuals close to the Rand School opened a summer school in the Pocono Mountains of PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
called "Camp Tamiment." The summer camp idea, pioneered by the Fabian socialist movement in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, allowed socialists and trade unionists the opportunity to escape the summer heat in the city and to attend courses with their fellows in a pastoral setting. Among those teaching classes at Camp Tamiment over the years were Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
, Jessie Wallace Hughan
Jessie Wallace Hughan
Jessie Wallace Hughan was an American educator, a socialist activist, and a radical pacifist. During her college days she was one of four co-founders of Alpha Omicron Pi, a national sorority for university women. She also was a founder and the first Secretary of the War Resisters League,...
, Solon DeLeon, and Stuart Chase
Stuart Chase
Stuart Chase was an American economist and engineer trained at MIT. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His hybrid background of engineering and economics places him in the same philosophical camp as R. Buckminster Fuller...
.
By 1924, the Rand School boasted a library with over 6,000 bound volumes, as well as a wide array of pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s, magazines, and newspapers. The school was responsible for the publication of an annual almanac of the labor movement entitled The American Labor Year Book and was instrumental in the establishment of the Labor Education Council, together with the Furrier's Union, the Amalgamated Knit Goods Workers, and other unions centered in New York.
In 1935, the Rand School changed its name to the "Tamiment Institute and Library," although it continued to use the imprint "Rand School Press" for its printed publications.
The Rand School after the 1936 split
During the Socialist Party split of 1936, the Rand School of Social Science followed the Old Guard factionOld Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
out of the party and into the new Social Democratic Federation.
Termination and legacy
In 1956, the economically failing school was purchased by the operators of Camp Tamiment, who formally terminated its educational operations while continuing to maintain its library, renamed after the camp's managing director, Ben Josephson. This status ended in 1963, when the Josephson Library was made a part of the special collections library at New York UniversityNew York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, known today as the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives
The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The Robert F. Wagner Archives, which is also housed in...
.
The Rand School is not related to either the New School for Social Research, a separate and unaffiliated institution of higher learning also located in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
or the RAND Corporation, a non-profit global-policy think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
.
External links
- "The Tamiment Library", by Andrew H. Lee, Autumn 2004, London Socialist Historians Group.
- "History and Description", The Taminent Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
- Guide to the Rand School of Social Science Records 1905-1962 Taminent Library