the Socialist and Communist parties. As one early theorist explained, the movement was ‘‘positively partisan’’ in its commitment to strengthen the labor movement, but it would not ‘‘stereotype men’s thoughts, ideals and beliefs . . . substitute one dogma for another.’’ Clint Golden, a machinist who would serve as Brookwood Labor College’s field secretary in the 1920s, reiterated this distinction in a 1925 survey of the movement. ‘‘Where classes have been organized or conducted primarily for propaganda purposes [such as those offered by the Communist and Socialist parties] they have had but a brief existence. . . . Those efforts seem most directly and permanently felt which are pragmatically conducted—dealing with the individual problems with which the workers are confronted,’’ and allowing for ‘‘free investigation, examination and inquiry.’’84
As Golden’s comments suggest, pedagogically, this independence was expressed through a commitment to the ‘‘factual approach,’’ in which worker-students would be presented with a real, living problem and the data and tools necessary for solving it themselves. Historians have typically interpreted the social science language of ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘neutrality’’ as a retreat from the values of advocacy and service that had animated the previous generation of intellectuals.85 But for enthusiasts of workers’ education, faith in the tools of the social sciences coexisted with a rejection of academic notions of objectivity and detachment. ‘‘There is a great deal of bunk current which suggests that . . . both or more sides must be presented for the students’ judgment. Mental gymnastics, however, is not education. . . . Teach students to think by all means, but thought must have a content and education a purpose.’’86 Students were given leave to participate in strikes and other labor activities, which were viewed as ‘‘laboratories’’ for testing the hypotheses and methods that they had explored in their classes. As Louis Budenz explained in the pages of Labor Age, ‘‘It is in the pragmatic field of the workers’ trench warfare that workers’ education will be worked out.’’87
The alliance between progressive unionists and intellectuals represented by the workers’ education movement shows that not all intellectuals retreated from their faith in the masses and social service after World War I, nor did all workers ascribe to the anti-intellectualism preached by Samuel Gompers.88 Indeed, the movement served as a residual expression of a once robust bond between workers and intellectuals, though laborites made it clear that intellectuals were there to serve the movement and ‘‘not as prophets.’’89
The origins of Brookwood Labor College reflect the developments outlined above. Its founders were Christian pacifists who had been converted to labor’s cause during World War I. The most important of these was William Fincke, a minister who had resigned his pulpit in opposition to the war. In the fall of 1919, he and his wife, Helen, decided to turn their country estate—complete with a mansion, ‘‘white and wooden-grand with high pillars and wide portico’’—outside of Katonah, New York, into a secondary school to promote their ideals.90 For a variety of reasons, the school never really got off the ground, and the Finckes, inspired by the example of Ruskin College in England, decided to reopen the school as a labor college.91
In the spring of 1921, they invited a small group of intellectuals, academics, and trade unionists to discuss the founding of a residential school for adult workers.92 As a pacifist, a socialist, and a trade unionist with working-class credentials, Muste provided the bridge between the various groups and quickly emerged as the most likely candidate to direct the school. At first, he only agreed to teach history, but the demise of the ATWA, his own growing interest in workers’ education, and the decision of the Finckes to leave Brookwood at the end of the summer of 1921 all pushed him to assume the chairmanship. It was like ‘‘screwing in the spark plug of an engine,’’ the Finckes’ son recalled of the recruitment of Muste.93
Personal factors also played a role in Muste’s decision. The years since he left Newtonville’s Central Congregational Church had been chaotic and insecure ones for his family. While he led the Lawrence strike, Anne remained in Boston, pregnant with their second child, Constance, who was born in August 1919. That same summer, Muste moved his family to New York City where the ATWA had set up its headquarters. In some ways, this was a more stable existence. As head of the union, he earned a regular salary, albeit much reduced from what he had received as an upstanding minister. Yet, despite these improvements, Muste was rarely at home and his involvement with the ATWA meant that he constantly faced arrest and even death. As Muste recalled of those years, ‘‘I do not recall a single week when there was not a strike on somewhere. . . . There was no strike without labor spies; no strike in which we did not encounter arbitrary, and usually violent, conduct on the part of the police; no strike, hardly a union meeting in those days, where raids by Attorney General Palmer’s men were not carried out or at least threatened.’’ Though he found these experiences decidedly stimulating, he began to feel as though he was ‘‘running out of ammunition,’’ with never a moment to pause for reflection. Brookwood thus offered some respite from the constant ferment of leading a persecuted union in decline.94
Two miles outside of Katonah in Westchester County, ‘‘up a winding road through overhanging woods,’’ Brookwood also offered an idyllic, though primitive, environment for raising children. Nancy, Constance, and John Martin (born in 1927) recalled these years as happy ones for the family. Though conditions were initially quite rustic, eventually the campus included a stone cottage for the Mustes, volleyball and tennis courts, and a swimming pool, ‘‘nestled in surrounding greenery’’ and overlooking ‘‘the wooded hills and valleys’’ of nearby estates. Other faculty and staff, along with their children, also lived on the campus, which had a communal atmosphere in which residents took their meals together and often worked cooperatively to improve the campus. The Muste children thrived in the idealistic, community-centered culture of the school. One of their fondest memories was of being asked to act in plays written by students and faculty. As Nancy recalled of one Saturday night, the Muste family ‘‘was up on the stage, huddled around some mechanical parts, while we sang a song about [how] ‘the Anarchist family threw the bomb-bomb-bomb.’ ’’95
Anne also apparently enjoyed ‘‘the settled life at the school.’’96 She was, however, often sick; sometime in the late 1930s, a doctor would diagnose her with a serious heart condition that resulted from having rheumatic fever when she was a child.97 Perhaps the combination of having poor health and the sole responsibility for household chores and raising the children explains why contemporaries described her as shy and retiring. Yet her reserve may also have reflected disinterest in the political and ideological concerns that consumed her husband. While other movement wives occasionally make an appearance in the historical record from this period, Anne appears only once—in a letter from her resigning as head of Brookwood’s kitchen committee because of the constant squabbling between ‘‘the girls.’’98
Under Muste’s leadership, Brookwood Labor College quickly outgrew its pacifist roots and became a central institution of the progressive wing of the labor movement. At this point, Muste remained a committed pacifist, viewing ‘‘modern’’ educational methods as reflective of the ideals of nonviolence.99 Yet he also recognized that workers came from a variety of ideological and political perspectives and would not abide preaching. Thus, he supported the decision to discard the Christian pacifist ethos of Brookwood School and to place it under the control of unionists, a move that pushed pacifists to the margins.100
Muste and the other unionists who founded Brookwood worked hard to make it ‘‘labor’s own school,’’ thus differentiating it from workers’ educational initiatives sponsored by private colleges and state universities.101 The college’s board of directors was dominated by trade unionists, all with long, distinguished careers, including Maurer, Fitzpatrick, Brophy, Rose Schneiderman of the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), Abraham Lefkowitz of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Jay G. Brown of the Farmer-Labor Party, Phil E. Ziegler of the Brotherhood
