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Nick Toloudis
Nick Toloudis (M.A., M. Phil, Ph.D. Columbia University, B.A.
Johns Hopkins University) is a visiting assistant professor of
politics at Mount Holyoke College. He does research on, and
teaches courses in, European politics, welfare states, social
movements, and the history of the left. Over the past few years,
he has written on the history of the French teachers' movement,
Tocqueville's views on public education, and the trajectory of
Mark Kesselman's career's work in studying French and American
politics.
His forthcoming book,
Teaching Marianne and Uncle Sam, is about the origins of
public school teacher unionization in France and the United
States. It traces teacher organizing back to crucial conflicts in
both countries between centralizing authorities and local
administrators around the turn of the 20th century. In both
countries, inspired by the of workers in private industry and
fearful of the power of a bureaucratized school system, groups of
teachers chose to step beyond the confines of their professional
associations to form trade unions. But two problems impeded
unionization efforts: the power of a repressive state and the
animosity of other teachers and their organizations.
In New York, the rise and fall of the Teachers Union is an
important part of this story. In particular, he argues, the
Union’s battles with its city rivals, the Teachers Guild, the High
School Teachers' Association, and the Joint Committee directly led
to the settlement among the teachers’ organizations that resulted
in the formation of the United Federation of Teachers. Only after
the political "undesirables" of the Union had been marginalized
and suppressed could teachers contend with the Board of Education
in a unified and aggressive manner. |