Brookwood Labor College
Brookwood Labor College was a labor college located at 109 Cedar Road in Katonah, New York, in the United States. Founded as Brookwood School in 1919 and established as a college in 1921, it was the first residential labor college in the country. Its founding and longest serving president was A.J. Muste. The school was supported by affiliate unions of the American Federation of Labor until 1928. The Brookwood faculty's emphasis on trade union militancy and advocacy of socialism was opposed by the AFL's Executive Council, which pressured AFL unions to withdraw support for the school. Brookwood was later riven by internal dissent over whether to support militant unionism or remain a strictly educational organization. Suffering from financial difficulties, Brookwood closed in 1937. It is considered one of the most influential labor colleges in American history, and was known as "labor's Harvard". It's best known alumnus was Walter Reuther.
Between 1914 and 1921, a number of adult education and training organizations were founded to serve the American labor movement.Adult education was considered by these organizations and individuals to be the key to promoting class consciousness and teaching the skills needed to challenge the power of employers. Among the many different types of organizations created were labor colleges—experimental institutions of higher education designed to meet the needs of the labor movement as well as the educational needs of labor's often-uneducated adult members.
The Brookwood School was the predecessor to Brookwood Labor College. On March 19, 1914, William Mann Fincke, a liberal clergyman and son of a coal mine owner, purchased the 53-acre (210,000 m2) Brookwood Estate in Katonah, New York, for $3,700. Deeply upset by the crushing of the steel strike of 1919, Fincke and his wife, Helen Hamlin Fincke, decided to found a school to teach working-class teenagers nonviolent ways to achieve social justice and political change. The curriculum was organized by Fincke to reflect the business life of the local community. The curriculum also emphasized social service and the study of economics, English literature, mathematics, social problems, and history. Students were urged to participate in the daily management of the school. With financial assistance and organizational support from Robert W. Dunn, John Nevin Sayre, and Norman Thomas, Brookwood School opened in the fall of 1919. The student body was initially 16- to 19-year-old males who were accepted on the basis of merit, and there was no tuition.
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