Young People's Socialist League (1907)

Young People's Socialist League
Original logo of the Young People's Socialist League
Chairman	Various
Founded	May 17, 1907
Dissolved	December 31, 1972
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois, United States
International affiliation	None

The Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), founded in 1907, was the official youth arm of the Socialist Party of America. Its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic socialists and affecting the issues impacting that demographic group.

The youth section of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) had its roots in non-coordinated groups established at the local level by party members interested in conducting special activities to attract young people to the socialist movement. These groups have diverse names, including the "Athenian Literary Society," "Young People's Alliance," and "Social Science Study Club."

The Young People's Socialist League (YPSL, pronounced "YIP-sell") was founded on May 17, 1907, in Chicago, Illinois, with the group containing about 30 members at the time of its formation. Key individuals in the formation of the group included Charles Schuler, A.W. Mance, Merle B. Haver, and Rube Burrows. Schuler remained as the Secretary of the organization all the way through 1913. Participants sought their own headquarters and held a series of money-raising entertainments and social events to that end, successful enough for the group in November 1907 to open an office in the building of the Chicago Daily Socialist.

Simultaneously in New York City, several already existing socialist youth groups united themselves in 1907 to form a "Young People's Socialist Federation." In connection with this growing New York socialist youth movement, in 1908 the publishing association responsible for producing the New Yorker Volkszeitung began to issue The Little Socialist Magazine for Boys and Girls — a publication which was renamed The Young Socialists' Magazine in June 1911 and which eventually became the official organ of the national YPSL movement.

The 1912 National Convention of the Socialist Party took note of a need to better coordinate the Socialist youth movement, placing it under the Women's Department of the National Office. This move proved to be merely cosmetic and there was still no national organization binding the numerous largely autonomous local organizations together until 1913. It was at this time the SPA's National Committee was pushed into action by the efforts of the party's California State Secretary, a vociferous supporter of the socialist youth movement. While there remained support among some for the formation of a semi-autonomous organization which elected its own National Secretary and Executive Committee, in the end the National Committee of the SPA decided to form a "Young People's Department," directly attached and fully subordinate to the National Office of the adult SPA. Formal establishment of the YPSL as the official youth section of the Socialist Party began at this date.