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Watch preview highlights of the Teachers Union members we've
interviewed for the documentary, Dreamers and Fighters:
The NYC Teacher Purges. See their testimony and then read
their biographies to fill in their stories -- pre- and post-
Teachers Union membership.
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Samuel Wallach
Former NYC Teachers Union President
Sam’s daughter, Joan Wallach Scott is an author and Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Social Science.
She contributed this edited version of her talk given at Sam’s memorial service in June 2001.
Addressing a House Sub-committee
investigating Communism in the Teachers Union in 1948, Sam
said:
I've been a teacher for 15 years – a
proud American teacher. I've tried to inspire my youngsters with
a deep devotion for the American way of life, our Constitution
and Bill of Rights. Hundreds of my youngsters fought in WWII and
I know their understanding of the need to fight for their
country was inspired by my teaching and the Bill of Rights. As a
teacher and believer in those fundamental principles, it would
be a betrayal of everything I have been teaching to cooperate
with the committee investigating a man’s opinions, political
beliefs and private views.
Read more about
Sam Wallach
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Ann Matlin
I remember teaching a fifth grade class with a textbook written by the same
Mr. Jansen who questioned me before he tried to get me fired (for my
political affiliations).
There was a picture of slaves dancing in front
of their cabins with the notation below stating that you could see that the
slaves were very well off. "Look how happy they are. They are dancing."
I had a box of scissors, Board of Education
scissors, and I gave them to every child in the room ...
Read more about Ann Matlin |
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Irving Mauer
Irving Mauer’s first involvement in the labor movement came before he was born. In
1914, his father, a house painter, was on strike and a scab was working near his family’s
Bronx apartment. His mother, heavily pregnant, went downstairs to remonstrate with
him: “you’re taking food away from my unborn baby.” As his mother later recounted, the
scab “took off his overalls and joined the union.”
Read more about Irving Mauer
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Henry Foner
Henry Foner was a member of the Teachers Union from 1940 to 1948,including his four years of military service in Italy and Austria in World War II, during which he was awarded the Legion of Merit, the military’s fourth highest award and the Italian Military Valor Cross.
Read more about
Henry Foner
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Irving Adler
Upon recently turning 96, Irving Adler, former Stuyvesant HS math teacher said, “I’m now entering my 97th year. Ninety-seven is a prime number, so you could say, I’m now in
my prime.” It’s more likely that Mr. Adler’s entire life was lived in prime
performance.
I entered high school at the age of eleven. I was sent to Townsend Harris Hall,
the preparatory school for City College. In 1927 I was admitted to City College
at the age of fourteen.
1931 I began my graduate studies, taking mathematics and physics courses in the
daytime at Columbia University and pedagogy courses at City College at night.
Read more about
Irving Adler |
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Morris Schappes Born in the Ukraine, but raised in Brazil, Morris Schappes and his family were en route back to his birthplace when WWI broke out and they were stranded in New York where they remained.
When Morris got to the City College of New York, he began his writing career –which would span a lifetime...
Read more about
Morris Schappes
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