Brookwood College for Union Workers

[JH1] Mom at Brookwood

In 1921, the International Lady’s Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union established a college for Union workers.  It was called “Brookwood College.’”  The reason I know this is a real story.

Brookwood College, Katonah, NY circa 1936

 

 

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Back in 1985 I was attending the annual membership meeting of a coalition called “Women’s Alliance for Job Equity” with my Mom in tow because she was visiting to have her eyes checked at the Wills Eye Hospital.  She was 75 and had macular degeneration which had left her legally blind.  At that meeting, the documentary “The Women of Summer” was shown. The movie depicted the summer programs at Bryn Mawr College in the 20’s.  What to my surprise, my Mother knew one of the professors!   When questioned, we found that she had attended the Brookwood College during two semesters from 1935-36.  She had never told any of her children because my father ridiculed her often when younger about all the “commies” associated with the school. 

About 5 years later, when we had the Summer School at the Cornell in Ithaca, I searched the archives at Cornell for information about Brookwood School and my mother.  I found several pictures of her in ad books but nothing that she wrote while in school.  (This year when I went to the archives I found out that the student records are at the Walter Reuther library in Detroit.)   I made copies of the ad books and blew them up and took them to my Mom.  Yes she confirmed that the pictures were of her.  She lit up like a child getting candy when my sister and I went through each page.  We would not allow my Dad to ridicule her.  Amazingly, she knew the names of all the Professors and students in the ad book as well as all their stories.  It was plainly the biggest thing that happened to her up to that time and she remembered every minute.  It changed her life as well.  She thumbed home to Quakertown after her last class and managed to talk her younger sister in to moving to Philadelphia and getting an apartment. 

I was amazed that, even though I had been teaching Summer School, she never talked about this event with us.   But, I do know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Her independent spirit and her progressive politics live on.  My mother said that the students went around New York state performing “tableaus” while organizing.  They made their own props and curtains.  The pictures below show the class of 1936 as well as one of the stage scenes.  The third picture is of students making curtains.  My mom was good at sewing as she was pulled from a picket line in Quakertown during a strike at the shirt factory where she worked since she was13 years old.  Her name was Hallie Hagan.

Judy Hoover, AFSCME DC47, Philadelphia, PA


At right is the Brookwood Class of 1936
My Mom Hallie Hagan is 2nd from left.  You can click on it to enlarge the picture.


Below is scene from an organizing tableu. 
Hallie Hagan is the 5th one from the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At right is a picture of the female students
sewing curtains for their organizing shows.
Hallie Hagan is the one who is bending over the sewing machine instructing one of the other students,

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