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‘Learning and labor’: facultyunionization at the University ofIllinois, 1919–1923Timothy Reese Cain aa University of Illinois at Urbana–ChampaignPublished online: 02 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: Timothy Reese Cain (2010) ‘Learning and labor’: faculty unionization at theUniversity of Illinois, 1919–1923, Labor History, 51:4, 543-569, DOI: 10.1080/0023656X.2010.528992

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Labor HistoryVol. 51, No. 4, November 2010, 543–569

‘Learning and labor’: faculty unionization at the University

of Illinois, 1919–1923

Timothy Reese Cain*

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

This article examines the creation, activities, and demise of the Federationof Teachers of the University of Illinois, American Federation of TeachersLocal 41. Organized in 1919, the local sought to unite faculty, provide themwith input into academic governance, and improve their remunerationwhile also linking faculty with other workers. The efforts of, experiences of,and reactions to Local 41 demonstrate conflicted notions of professional-ism and labor, divisions within the faculty, barriers between educators andother laborers, and threats to academic freedom during the first wave offaculty unionization.

In the aftermath of the January 1919 chartering of the Federation of Teachers of theUniversity of Illinois as American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 41,1

University of Illinois historian Arthur C. Cole identified the purpose of the local aspromoting ‘the cause of democracy in education’. He told a reporter from theChristian Science Monitor:

Conditions in the University of Illinois reflect the general situation in the academicworld. Unlike the followers of most professions, instructors generally are withoutdemocratic voice in determining the conditions under which they perform their servicesto the public. This has caused a widespread academic unrest . . . . There is alsodissatisfaction with the financial returns that come to the university teacher. He seesvast sums of money put into brick and plaster and yet finds himself impotent tomaintain the standards which the profession requires.2

The Federation of Teachers of the University of Illinois was the second AFT localorganized exclusively for college faculty in the USA, after the founding of Local 33at Howard University in late 1918. Cole’s desire to restructure universityadministration and reward systems was shared by faculty at Howard and otherinstitutions in the years following the First World War. Through membership in thenew and growing AFT, these faculty believed that they could apply pressure foreducational, employment, and societal change. They thought that a union ofprofessionals would allow them to participate in academic governance, protectacademic freedom, and improve remuneration for instructors and faculty members.These hopes were, however, fleeting, as the unions themselves faced stresses thatlimited their growth and threatened participants’ careers. Amid concerns overcommunism and pressure from conservative interests, all but one of the facultyunions founded before 1921 folded by the middle of the decade.3 Cole’s experiences

*Email: tcain@illinois.edu

ISSN 0023–656X print/ISSN 1469–9702 online

� 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/0023656X.2010.528992

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were similar to those of faculty at other institutions, as the Illinois local closed in1921, shortly after he left the institution as a result of conflicts involving his politicaland union activity.4 Indeed, at the 1923 AFT Annual Meeting, the daughter of theuniversity’s first chief executive claimed that most of the active members of Local 41had been forced out of the institution. University leaders denied this assertion but theepisode dramatized that the institution’s motto, ‘Learning and Labor’, certainly didnot refer to organized labor.5

These efforts to organize faculty at the University of Illinois and elsewhere sitamid larger transformations in US higher education that altered organizationalstructures, changed institutional purposes, and affected faculty roles. Examining theIllinois local in this historical context adds complexity to our understandings offaculty and higher education in the period, highlights longstanding concerns overacademic exceptionalism, points to the relationships between faculty unionizationand academic freedom, corrects the common perception that faculty unionizationbegan in the 1960s, and provides needed context for considerations of faculty workand life in ensuing years.6 More broadly, this article responds to the need foradditional scholarship on public sector unionization which has been articulated inthese pages.7

Higher education and faculty life

American higher education underwent significant changes in the late nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries.8 In the decades after the Civil War, a small group ofinstitutions created new organizational structures, affected the missions andpurposes of higher education, and fostered an era of growth within an increasinglystratified system. The changes at both new and existing institutions centered aroundthe rise of graduate education, increased specialization, and a newfound focus onresearch. They were spurred by transformed views of knowledge and faith in science,abetted by increased resources, and imbued with both utilitarianism and acommitment to research. Although these new universities varied in size, they allbecame increasingly complex and by the early 1900s had developed academicbureaucracies emphasizing efficiency and specialization.9 Along with these institu-tional changes came the development of academic disciplines and the growth of bothprofessional associations and professors’ extramural affiliations.10 Institutionsthemselves sought affiliations, and, in 1900, 14 elite universities established theAssociation of American Universities (AAU) to coordinate their efforts for graduateeducation and raise both the real and perceived standards of universities.11

While these fundamental changes set the stage for modern universities, David O.Levine has argued that Laurence Veysey’s claims that by 1910 the ‘structure of theAmerican university had assumed its stable twentieth-century form’ with ‘few newideas’ and ‘few deviations in its basic pattern of organization’ were useful butoverstated.12 It was, according to Levine, in the years during and just after WorldWar I that higher education ‘moved into the mainstream of American economic,social, and cultural life’.13 He continued:

Faculty members no longer toiled in obscurity; they assumed responsibility for thecreation of new knowledge as well as the transmission of the old, but only with thesupport of America’s public and private establishments. Colleges and universities

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pursued greater visibility in society . . . . The functions of institutions of higher learningand of their students, faculty, and administrators were no longer antithetical to thebroad economic and social values of society; indeed, the colleges became the primarychampions of those values. The campus became a center for the ethos of an emergentwhite-collar, consumption-oriented middle class.14

As such, the changes around the turn of the century and just after World War Isignificantly affected institutions and their faculty.

The changes benefitted a number of internal and external stakeholders but alsocreated unrest and led to questioning of the academic enterprise. Faculty memberscriticized governance structures, the status of the professoriate, overspecialization,and the rise of business practices. Of particular concern was the perceived influenceof industrialist donors and external governing boards. Economist Thorstein Veblen,psychologist James McKeen Cattell, and others urged reforms in academicadministration and governance while decrying autocratic presidents and over-reaching boards.15 Although, as Veysey argued, these were minority voices, thecomplaints were widespread enough for J.B. Johnston to note in 1913:

When a university president speaks, the shortcomings of the university are due to thefact that the governing board are ignorant, shallow-minded, arrogant and headstrong;that they insist upon deciding matters beyond their knowledge and will not be guided bythe president. When a university professor speaks it is the university presidency which isat fault. Autocracy, blindness, willfulness, prejudice, partiality, lofty-mindedness,oratorical ability, money-getting talents, piety and many other virtues and vices areascribed to our presidents, but in the minds of nearly all writers the presidency is anunsatisfactory tool. When an outsider speaks, both president and governing board areparts of a vicious organization.16

Johnston, who became dean of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts at theUniversity of Minnesota shortly thereafter, granted that these complaints werelegitimate, although he blamed not ‘the autocrat, but . . . the bureaucrat’.17

These issues of governance and control further implicated academic freedom, oneof the primary battlegrounds on which faculty struggled for professional status.Beginning with Cornell’s decision not to renew Henry Carter Adams’ contractbecause of his statements in support of labor shortly after the 1886 Haymarketbombings, conflicts between teachers and other institutional stakeholders assumednew importance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the socialsciences developed and research began to address social and economic issues, facultyincreasingly reported violations of academic freedom and grew more concerned withtheir abilities to conduct research and speak their minds on controversial issues. Thecelebrated cases involving Richard T. Ely, Edward W. Bemis, and John R.Commons highlight that economists were in especially tenuous positions. Those whosupported labor were viewed as radical and were vulnerable to pressure from theconservative business leaders and philanthropists who had assumed tremendousinfluence in American higher education. By the end of World War I, progressiveviews on economic issues would be seen as un-American, as well.18

Faculty were simultaneously uneasy about their financial returns. Institutionalcompetition had led to financial success for some, but great disparities in payprovoked both outrage and anxiety. These concerns were shared by administratorswho recognized that the decreased purchasing power of faculty affected individualinstitutions and higher education as a whole. Calling the situation ‘deplorable’,

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Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler reported in 1906 that hisinstitution’s faculty had less than 40% of the purchasing power of those 30 yearsearlier and that ‘Perhaps no class in the entire community has suffered more from therise in the cost of living than the college and university teachers’.19 A decade later,

Pennsylvania State University engineer Hugo Diemer found that former facultymembers identified low salaries as their primary reasons for leaving the profession.Diemer noted that a professor’s ‘income curve remains a horizontal line until hisdeath’, leading to claims that the profession was a ‘blind alley’.20 Although averagefaculty salaries were actually in the upper 10% of American incomes, Diemer’shyperbole can be explained in part by the worsening situation in the mid-to-late1910s.21 From the 1913–14 academic year to the 1919–20 academic year, real facultysalaries at public universities dropped an average of 5.29% per year.22 Faculty lostpurchasing power as a result of rapid inflation and also lost ground relative to those

in other professions, with some arguing that the situation was threatening theviability of the profession.23

Faculty financial considerations extended beyond salary to include provisions forretirement. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie and Henry S. Pritchett created the CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) with the dual purposes ofimproving education by establishing the ‘principle of the retiring salary’ andstandardizing US higher education by creating minimum institutional requirementsfor participation in the program.24 They believed that pensions based on years ofservice would encourage capable individuals to pursue academic careers. At first,participation was open only to faculty members with extended service at a handful ofprivate non-denominational institutions, but in 1908 the program expanded to

include some state universities. Many welcomed these new funds and the potentialfor long-term security that they provided, but others were highly critical. Cattell andUniversity of Wisconsin psychologist Joseph Jastrow would have preferred themoney up front; University of Missouri philosopher Arthur O. Lovejoy worried thatchanges announced in 1909 were designed to control faculty; and others protested‘against the alleged notion that ‘‘colleges and universities should be conducted onmachine-shop principles’’’.25 When the CFAT acknowledged that its endowmentcould not meet the demands on it and began planning to replace pensions with theTeachers Insurance and Annuity Association, the criticisms spread.26

In response to these broader concerns – and with the impetus of highly publicizedviolations of academic freedom – faculty began to associate across disciplinaryboundaries for their common interests. Led by Lovejoy, elite professors formed

the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915 to address theconditions of the faculty and of higher education, including those related to thetransformations of colleges to universities over the preceding decades. The AAUPsought increased faculty input into institutional governance and addressed on-goingfinancial concerns, including by releasing reports that were highly critical of thechanges in the CFAT pension system in 1916 and 1918. Of course, the AAUPquickly was most closely associated with academic freedom. Beginning withLovejoy’s inquiry into a dismissal at the University of Utah, the AAUP investigatedfive cases of alleged violation of academic freedom in its first year. In doing so, it

initiated a process that remains vital to its work into the twenty-first century. Also in1915, the AAUP prepared the Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and

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Academic Tenure, outlining a tripartite understanding of academic freedom thatgrafted American ideals of political and speech rights onto German-inspired notionsof freedom to research and freedom in the classroom. The Declaration of Principleswas a landmark statement that called for tenure rights as a means for protectingacademic freedom while at the same time allowing that ‘there are no rights withoutcorresponding duties.’ In these early years, AAUP leaders offered repeatedassurances that theirs was a professional association similar to the AmericanMedical Association or the American Bar Association. They emphasized that theassociation was not a union and would not affiliate with labor.27

The AAUP was not alone in considering these and related issues. The NationalCivil Liberties Bureau, which grew out of efforts to keep the United States out ofWorld War I and soon became the American Civil Liberties Union, defended thefreedom of speech from a civil liberties perspective, including supporting teachersand faculty members who lost their positions because of alleged disloyalty during thewar. Moreover, although the AAUP’s approach precluded unionization, othereducators saw its value. In April 1916, three teachers unions from Chicago, Illinois,and one from Gary, Indiana, formed the American Federation of Teachers as anaffiliate of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Controlled by high schoolteachers, the early AFT demonstrated some interest in issues involving highereducation but did not permit the organization of locals on college campuses until1918, when it liberalized its constitution and broadened its membership eligibility.From the founding of the Howard University Teachers’ Union (Local 33) on 18November 1918 through the organization of the Federation of Teachers of theMontana State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (Local 181) in October1920, college, university, and normal school faculty formed 20 AFT locals forvarious purposes, such as improving their working conditions, influencing academicgovernance, and supporting K–12 teachers unions. The local at the University ofIllinois was especially important owing to its early founding and the nationalattention it received.28

University of Illinois

Founded in 1867 as the state’s land grant college, the University of Illinois developedslowly in part because of a governance structure that allowed trustees to meddle ininstitutional affairs. For its first 27 years, the university was headed by a regentrather than a president, as a regent held less power and could be more easilycontrolled. Concerns about the institution’s status and prospects lingered into the1890s.29 Only with the interim regency of Thomas J. Burrill (1891–94) followed bythe presidency of administrative progressive educator Andrew Sloan Draper (1894–1904) did the institution begin to transform, growing in both size and scope. By thetime Edmund Janes James (1904–20) succeeded Draper, the institution had ‘founditself’ and was recognized as one of the leading state universities in the nation.30 In1908, it joined the prestigious AAU; and two years later, when it was the eighth-largest school in the nation, Edwin E. Slosson included the University of Illinoisamong his 14 Great American Universities.31

Still, the national concerns about economic conditions and status of facultymembers resonated at Illinois. At the National Conference of Trustees of American

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Colleges and Universities, held at the institution in conjunction with James’1905 inauguration, scholars, administrators, and governing board membersweighed issues of institutional governance, presidential authority, and facultyparticipation.32 Industrialist and advocate of educational efficiency James P.Munroe argued,

Unless American college teachers can be assured by some such changes as this that theyare no longer to be looked upon as mere employees paid to do the bidding of men who,however courteous or however eminent, have not the faculty’s professional knowledgeof complicated problems of education, our universities will suffer from a dearth ofstrong men and will remain outside the pale of the really learned professions.33

At the same conference, Jastrow noted, ‘Officially and authoritatively, the facultyenjoys – as one is said to enjoy bad health – painfully restricted rights. . . .The systemthat so generally prevails and whose deficiencies detract from the value of theacademic career may be called ‘‘government by imposition’’.’34

At Illinois, dissatisfaction with ‘government by imposition’ included ProfessorGeorge T. Kemp’s complaints in Science that President James ruled the institutionautocratically and impinged on academic freedom. James, the trustees, and theSenate of the University of Illinois all denied the claim.35 A more significantstatement on the administration resulted from James’ 1914 confrontation of rumorsof faculty discontent caused by the enforcement of a policy against nepotism. Hecalled a referendum on whether his leadership was ‘liberal and progressive’ andwhether he had the full confidence of the faculty. In a secret ballot, 188 facultymembers on contracts of two years or longer voiced their support for hiscontinuation, compared with only four who voted in the negative. On their owninitiative, faculty on one-year contracts responded similarly.36 Even Cattell notedthat this was ‘most striking’ and indicative of positive university organization.37

One of the factors that likely contributed to this support was James’ proactiveefforts on behalf of faculty governance and authority. In 1911, noting the nationalcriticism of university administration and the occasional questions ‘in regard to theefficiency of our own organization’, James called for the University Senate to form acommittee to write a new constitution for the institution.38 The Committee onOrganization and Efficiency met 80 times over the next four years, gatheredinformation from various institutions, and heard from experts on and critics ofuniversity administration. These speakers included Cattell, who gathered responsesfrom a national sample of 299 faculty members in preparation for his 1912 visit tothe university. These letters and his presentation to Illinois faculty were the basis ofUniversity Control, Cattell’s famous treatise on faculty governance.39 The detailedrecommendations that the committee presented to the Senate in June 1915 called forfaculty control of internal administration, protections against dismissal withoutcause, and academic freedom.40 Continued consideration over the next three yearsfurther refined the plan, but the slow progress stopped altogether when the FirstWorld War disrupted campus and re-oriented the institution.41

The confidence expressed in James in 1914 may have also been linked to his earlysuccess in responding to the fiscal challenges that faced the institution. Comparedwith other nearby states, Illinois contributed a far smaller proportion of its wealth tosupport a state university in the first decade of the twentieth century. By 1909,faculty salaries were so low that the state legislature proclaimed the importance of

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the university, warned that other universities might raid its faculty, and declared thatsalaries were ‘not sufficient to enable the institution to compete on equal grounds’.The resolution called on the Board of Trustees to ‘adopt such measures as will intheir judgment attract to, and retain in, the service of the university and the State the

best available ability of this and other countries’.42 Due in part to James’ activelobbying, the state appropriated additional funds that allowed for salary increases ina period of low inflation.43 Toward the end of the 1910s, however, war pressures, arevaluation of state property, and significant inflation fundamentally changed thefinancial situation of the institution and the faculty. Actual salaries, which hadimproved after 1909, flattened, and real salaries at the institution droppeddramatically. In 1920, real faculty salaries were just 66.5% of what they had beenin 1913.44

Despite Slosson’s inclusion of the University of Illinois among the GreatAmerican Universities in 1910, others were not convinced that it had arrived. A yearearlier, the CFAT had excluded the institution from its pension plan owing to the

existence of a preparatory department on campus and its affiliation with aproprietary medical school in Chicago that Pritchett claimed was ‘injuring medicaleducation in the state, not helping it’.45 Although the CFAT would grant twoesteemed faculty members and a long-time administrator from the institution specialpensions as a result of their contributions to higher education, the majority ofuniversity faculty could not initially participate in the program or share in thebenefits it offered.46

These institutional pressures were joined by larger social and political concerns.The outbreak of war in Europe and the United States’ eventual participationdisrupted far more than efforts for a new institutional constitution. Before Americanentry, colleges and universities across the nation avowed and at times enforced

neutrality, including by encouraging their faculty to refrain from advocacy for any ofthe warring parties. Things changed quickly with the April 1917 declaration of warand institutions experienced dramatic decreases in male student enrollment. In 1918,schools counteracted this trend by declaring ‘It’s patriotic to go to college’, recruitingstudents into the newly created Student Army Training Corps (SATC), and turningtheir supervision over to military commandants stationed on each campus. Manyfaculty also joined the war effort by enlisting in the army, providing their expertise tothe federal government, or redesigning courses to emphasize the righteousness of theUS cause. Still, some inside and outside academe questioned the loyalty of theprofessoriate and called for the dismissal of educators deemed insufficiently

American.47 The University of Illinois was among the institutions affected bythese events, as 1262 students withdrew in spring 1917; 3000 students joined theSATC when it was organized in October 1918; and the war dominated faculty andstudent life.48 Carl Haessler, a graduate student and instructor, was dismissed andlater jailed for refusing conscription. A handful of faculty members’ pacifistactivities, such as their refusal to purchase war bonds, led to two investigations intofaculty loyalty in late 1917. The US Department of Justice and the University ofIllinois Board of Trustees each formally inquired into the activities and beliefsof progressive faculty. While initially cleared of the charges, all but one of the

faculty members involved, including Arthur C. Cole, left the institution by the endof 1920.49

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The founding of Local 41

The First World War ended in November 1918, but financial and social pressurescontinued to afflict the University of Illinois. Shortly after the founding of Local 33at Howard University, John V. Ross, the vice president of the Illinois TypographicalUnion and secretary of the Twin City (Champaign–Urbana) Federation of Labor,sensed an opportunity to spread the labor movement in the state that had given riseto teachers unions. Working with the assistance of Chicago-based AFT PresidentCharles B. Stillman and Illinois faculty members Cole and M.A. Myers, Rosscircularized the faculty, provided information on teacher unionization, and asked ifthey would look favorably on joining a local at the institution.50 Ross encouragedthe university community to look across craft lines to see the common needs andgoals of ‘the brain worker and the hand worker’.51 He argued that unionizationwould prove mutually beneficial as he shared pamphlets promoting the AFT.

The results were not initially promising, as faculty questioned the need forunionization and challenged the connections between education and labor.52

Following a 19 January 1919 meeting with a small group of faculty, Ross wrote toStillman that organizing Illinois faculty would be ‘slow work’, termed the situationan ‘emergency’, and noted that Stillman would struggle to overcome the resistance.He stated, ‘Without a doubt, these men are the most ignorant of the benefits to bederived from the organization, than any set of educated men I ever had anything todo with.’ According to Ross, this reticence to unionize was based on several factors,including because faculty ‘are afraid, regard theirselves [sic] on a plane above labor,believe in Carnegie pensions, and dream of good paying jobs in the future under thepresent system’.53 Faculty uncertainty over what union affiliation actually meant,concern over being bound to larger AFL positions, and confusion over whether theunion was aimed at all faculty or only junior members also became evident as theorganizing progressed.54 Still, some faculty were open to the idea, and the DailyIllini, the student newspaper, praised the AFT’s stated goals of promotingdemocracy in education and improving the economic and working conditions ofthe faculty. An editorial encouraged professors and instructors to investigateunionization, noting, ‘the whole program is worthy of the best examination andconsideration that it can be given. We’re not so sure but that the foundation of abranch of the union here would be a good move.’55

On 27 January, Stillman addressed an open meeting in a local labor hall andafterward granted an AFT charter to a small group of Illinois faculty.56 This nucleusof organized faculty noted that they were ‘met so far with less opposition thanindifference’ and sought ‘by constant friction to wear down objection’ to unionaffiliation.57 Their organizing highlights not only how faculty rank and positionaffected individual opportunities and group affiliations but also the uncertaintyabout policy at both the local and national levels. Correspondence indicates thatspecial attention to full professors was needed to convince them of the benefits ofjoining, yet they were mistakenly left out of early recruitment efforts. Organizershoped to appeal to this group and also sought permission to invite department headsto join the union, believing that including them would provide opportunities forcooperation. The inclusion of administrators was, in Stillman’s terms, ‘an exceedingvexed question’ for the early AFT.58 They offered the potential for expandedmembership and closer relations with administration but also threatened to diminish

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the local’s autonomy and portended company unionism. Indeed, administrators’control of teachers associations was one of the reasons why separate teachers unionswere needed. With faculty unionization in its infancy, there was no set policy.Stillman encouraged Local 41 to make its own decision, noting that the AFT wouldfollow its lead in future similar situations.59

In mid-February, the group held an open meeting for faculty at the institution,followed by a closed business meeting for both current and potential members. Localleaders hoped that this meeting, which included another address by Stillman andserved to introduce Local 41 to the public, would attract the senior faculty who hadbeen largely missing from their organization. Rather than securing their participa-tion, however, the meeting demonstrated divisions within the faculty and differencesin whom the AAUP and AFT could serve. When some faculty objected tounionization because the AAUP already served similar purposes, it became clear thatthe AAUP’s restrictive membership criteria were problematic. The Champaign DailyNews reported that only 10 of the 150 people at the meeting were, in fact, eligible tojoin the AAUP, indicative of the organizations’ differing appeals to different sectorsof the faculty.60 Indeed, the elite nature of the AAUP precluded many of theinstitution’s faculty from membership in the association and helped foster and justifythe affiliation of Local 41 with the AFT.61

Despite the Urbana Daily Courier’s January prediction that the union would‘flourish from the start’, organizing remained difficult.62 The February meetingattracted numerous faculty and a great deal of attention, both locally andnationally, but the majority of those in attendance did not formally join the unionand membership in the organization hovered near 30 for most of its existence.63

Local and campus papers show continuing disagreements over unionization, withsome viewing the movement positively but others charging that it evincedradicalism in education, arguing that aligning with labor would precludedisinterested consideration of economic issues, and expressing concern about theaffiliation of the AFT with the AFL.64 The Champaign Gazette even argued thatthe faculty could have a negative effect on the local labor movement. In responseto the Daily Illini’s claim that the faculty would not be radicalized by joining theunion, the Gazette claimed that the student paper had missed the point and warnedthat the opposite might happen. Relying on the still-fresh war hysteria andimplicating the investigations into faculty loyalty at the institution, the Gazettenoted,

The Federation of Labor locally was a fair-minded, truly American body of men. Not amember was under suspicion during the war. If the association of teachers will notdisplay their radicalism in the federation, and not use their trained talents to a wronginterpretation of labor’s problems, then the action of affiliation will be justified. If not,it will be to the detriment of the federation, and labor in general.65

The union itself capitalized on some of these concerns and tried to use them to recruitnew members. Aubrey J. Kempner, a member of the membership committee, wrotein the Daily Illini that Local 41 ‘is not tied to any program, it will be nothing but theresultant of its component members. The more sane and sober-minded people [who]join, the greater will be the influence for good in the Union.’66 Over the ensuingmonths, some would come to recognize the union as ‘sane and sober-minded’ andcriticize it for being too staid.67 This same approach, though, also earned the union

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some respect and praise. Reflecting on the organization’s first year, student HaroldF. Cope noted,

At a time when several hundred labor unions of the country are busy thinking uptrouble for the capitalists, it is encouraging to find one which starts out in a careful anddignified way to find the causes of all the trouble. We have one here on the campuswhich shows no symptoms of becoming boisterous or troublesome. . . .They don’t talkabout strikes, six hour days, 85 cents an hour, closed shop and the like. They talk aboutinvestigations, research, efficiency, cooperation, and education.68

Differentiation within faculty ranks and concerns over radicalism in education werecentral to the disagreements over organizing, but, as Ross noted, so too was theseeming divide between professional educators and laborers. Stereotypical depictionsof both faculty and other union workers prevailed with even supporters of theunionization expressing surprise at the seeming incongruity of faculty joining withlabor. Included among these were the Urbana Daily Courier’s observations that,

. . . the common picture of a member of a labor union is a healthy specimen ofmanhood, in the full prime of physical vigor, his well developed muscles encasedoutwardly in overalls or their equivalent. The ideal professor isn’t quite that inappearance. He is disassociated from work of a manual flavor, and we think of him as abug chaser, or with a bulging forehead, retreating chin, and double lens glasses,circumscribed with hideous horn binding.

And so, however mistaken these notions may be of either the unionist or his latestconvert, thinking of them as we do, it is purely pardonable to gasp with astonishment, ifnot with incredulity, when told that the two are to become bedfellows, as it were . . . .69

The belief in an almost unbridgeable divide between faculty and laborers offeredevidence of both the potential benefits of organizing and the inherent difficulties indoing so.

Union program

Despite Kempner’s disavowal of any specific program, several issues were identifiedas the most significant from the local’s beginning. Its constitution, finalized at theend of March, included,

The purpose of the organization is to promote the welfare and efficiency of the teachingstaff of the University; to help bring the University and its staff into contact with thepeople of the State and with the labor movement; and to further such aims generally ascome within the scope of an organization of teachers acting directly for the best interestsof the University and State of which they form an important and responsible part.70

The members were clearly concerned about tenure and working conditions at theinstitution and hoped to provide faculty with greater input into institutional affairs.Cole suggested that the local might attempt to revive consideration of the proposedconstitution, although the role of Local 41 in the unsuccessful efforts to do so isunclear. In fact, there is no archival evidence that the union influenced the internalorganization or policies of the institution. The local also demonstrated its interest inincreasing understanding between ‘intellectuals’ and ‘laborers’ by sponsoring talksabout their shared interests by AFT vice president L.V. Lampson, InternationalTrade Union of Cigar Makers leader George W. Perkins, and educator andmagazine editor Robert Morss Lovett, among others. The local sent representatives

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to the local labor federation, encouraged interaction between the groups, and soughtto build a stronger local labor movement.71 The evidence demonstrates, however,that the most pressing issue for faculty, both unionized and not, was economicdistress.

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, institutions of highereducation that had been disrupted by the war effort – including through the loss ofstudents and faculty to the military effort, the creation of the SATC, and theconcurrent changes in the curriculum – found themselves with the unexpectedproblem of a tremendous enrollment surge.72 Although the 1920s became an era ofprosperity for universities, funding increases were not immediate and institutions hadto juggle the demands of new students without expanded resources or capacity. Atthe University of Illinois, David Kinley, who served as acting president in 1919 andas president from 1920 to 1930, later termed the period as ‘the difficulties of thebiennium, 1919–1921’ and endorsed Leon Deming Tilton and Thomas EdwardO’Donnell’s assessment that ‘This was a most critical period in the history andmaterial development of the University – one of pressing needs, no funds, increasingenrollment, and no positive assurance that adequate funds would be appropriatedduring the post-war period of readjustment.’73

Faculty were worried about the costs and benefits of the revisions to CFAT’spension plan, which offered potential for long-term security but was not endowed tothe level necessary to fully support retired faculty.74 They were more concerned,though, about how the administration was using the institution’s limited resourcesand what priorities were identified in requests for state appropriation. At the local’sfounding, the Urbana Daily Courier recognized the legitimacy of the union’sconcerns:

The university has spent millions for bricks and mortar, and the legislature is apparentlywilling to appropriate millions more for the same purpose. Seemingly there is no limitbut the sky. If the board of trustees, or the President of the University, or whoever it isthat really does things over there has devoted half the time, energy, political pull andhard working endeavor, to raising the salaries of the deserving men on the job, that havebeen expected to get other appropriations, the wages paid over there to the teachingforce would quickly have reached such a figure that the most competent instructors inall the world would long since have flocked to Illinois begging positions on its staff.75

Others at the university and in the community echoed these sentiments.76

The most significant activity of Local 41 during its short existence spoke directlyto this concern. Beginning in November 1919, a subcommittee led by Kempnersurveyed the institution’s faculty members about their economic circumstances, theadequacy of their salaries, and any sacrifices that they had been forced to make.When the report was released in April 1920, it painted an ‘ominous picture’ thatrevealed ‘the nearly desperate character of the situation’.77 Roughly 40% of thefaculty returned the survey, including 30% of the full professors. The report notedthat over half of the respondents spent more than their salaries in the previous yearand were worse off financially than they had been half a decade earlier, despitepromotions and longer terms of service. It determined that ‘two-thirds of the marriedInstructors, three-fourths of the Assistant Professors having more than one child,and one-half of the Full Professors having more than two children, can not livewithin their salary’.78 More compelling, however, were the open remarks, whichmade ‘plain the narrow limitations, the strain, the worry, the struggle for mere

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subsistence’ faced by the faculty.79 Numerous professors reported retrenchment intheir diets, the inability to keep up professional appearances, and difficulties insupporting their families. More than 20 indicated postponing medical and/or dentalwork for themselves and their families, with one noting that as a result, ‘completerecovery is now doubtful’.80 This financial difficulty hampered faculty members’abilities to fulfill their professional responsibilities and caused some to considerleaving the profession or, at least, the institution.

The report dramatically portrayed the situation at the institution, leading Coleand others to believe that they had done the institution a service by presenting theissue in such a spectacular fashion.81 The findings were discussed nationally,including in School and Society, the American Teacher, and, a few years later, inUpton Sinclair’s The Goose-step. President Kinley also recognized the difficultiesthat rapid inflation and limited public funds were causing and, as the study was stillunderway, began a public relations campaigns to increase pressure on the legislatureto fund the institution more fully, although with a focus on building new facilitiesrather than increasing remuneration for the faculty. He knew that some professorswere dissatisfied with their salaries but denied that this satisfaction was causing themto leave the institution.82 Kinley claimed that the institution was able to keep allfaculty members that it wanted to retain, an ominous statement for the moreprogressive among the faculty. Years later, he acknowledged that some faculty hadcomplained; but he downplayed the significance of the criticisms.83

Despite this report, the speaker series, and the continuous membership efforts,Local 41 struggled to gain a foothold and undertook few additional projects. By fall1920, the local was in disrepair and considered disbanding. Its president, HaroldHillebrand, wrote to the AFT national office in February 1921 that its members hadinstead decided to ‘lie dormant’, awaiting the results of pending efforts for increasedappropriations. He explained,

Our reason was that if the expected legislation at [the state capitol in] Springfield for theUniversity does not materialize, then in the ensuing dissatisfaction our local might serveas a rallying point for action. If the legislature, however, does come across, then we shallquietly disappear. It is evident that under present conditions, or unless there is a changefor the worse, we cannot command enough interest here to make it worth while to keepon.84

Later that spring, with the legislature about to approve the University’s request for aUS$10,500,000 appropriation, the local disbanded.85 Although not its only purpose,its main effort and rallying point had been to obtain increased funding for theinstitution and the faculty. When the state provided the needed support, any hope ofcontinuing the local vanished.

Political pressure on progressive faculty

Hillebrand’s explanation for the closing of Local 41 points to the difficulty ofmaintaining momentum for these early faculty unions. All but one of the localsfounded on college campuses before 1921 closed by the middle of the decade, and thesole survivor was inactive for much of the decade. Many of the unions lacked clearpurposes and struggled to overcome both faculty aversion to unionizing andcomplacency about their working conditions; evidence indicates that these questions

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of purpose and concerns over affiliation lingered at Illinois.86 Still, Hillebrand’saccount does not provide the complete picture, as the closing of Local 41 implicateslarger debates over politically active faculty and academic freedom. An internal AFTreport on the founding and status of its locals blames the demise of Local 41 on

‘Official Pressure’, although without explanation.87 A June 1921 letter from Stillmanto Local 41 member Henry Blumberg expresses ‘great regret’ at the closing of thelocal but with the acknowledgement that the institution had ‘fallen into reactionwhich it is hoped may not be of long duration’.88 These claims, while not themselvesdefinitive, are supported by evidence that the administration sought the removal ofprogressives from campus, including Cole and others affiliated with Local 41.

The late 1910s and early 1920s were tumultuous years for progressive faculty atthe University of Illinois and, indeed, for US higher education as a whole. During theFirst World War, faculty across the nation were pressured to tailor their work to thewar cause, to limit their speech, to purchase war bonds, and to commit to ‘100%Americanism’. Even the AAUP acknowledged that faculty conduct in relation to the

war could be justifiable grounds for dismissal. Immediately after the war, the first redscare engulfed the USA, and definitions of un-American expanded to includeadvocacy for socialism or a suspected affinity for bolshevism. Faculty withheterodox political or economic opinions could find themselves accused of harboringanti-American sentiments and be dismissed as unfit for faculty positions.89 AtIllinois, liberal educators who gathered to discuss politics, including those who werepart of what was sometimes called the Socialist Study Club, often felt themselvesunder pressure from the institution and reported that they were surveilled in anattempt to gather evidence that could be used to force them from their positions.90

During the First World War, both the federal government and the Board of Trusteesinvestigated faculty for disloyalty as part of a larger effort to rid the institution ofsuspected German sympathizers. Cole and the others were cleared by theinvestigation but succumbed to related difficulties. Two of those accused werereleased at the end of the year when their contracts were not renewed; and a fewyears later, only classicist William Abbot Oldfather remained at the institution.Oldfather later claimed that others were forced from their positions but that he wasable to keep his by lying for the administration. The institution maintained a few‘display liberals’ to provide the appearance of freedom on campus even though none

existed.91

The loyalty investigations and Oldfather’s comments were only one symptom ofthe larger conservative atmosphere on campus in this period, an atmosphere related,

in part, to Kinley’s increasing influence. Early in his career, Kinley, an economist,had been an active proponent of the still nebulous ideal of academic freedom and ledRichard T. Ely’s defense in his famous 1894 struggle with the University ofWisconsin. Kinley was involved in other cases, as well: he expressed outrage atEdward W. Bemis’ removal from the University of Chicago in 1895 and led theAmerican Economics Association’s investigation into the forced resignation ofWillard C. Fisher from Wesleyan University in 1913. The Fisher case helped fosterthe formation of the AAUP and was one of the first such violations addressed bythat association. As Karl Max Grisso noted, however, it also pointed to an evolution

in Kinley’s thinking about faculty behaviors and speech. By 1913, Kinley hadabandoned his earlier defense of faculty advocacy, replacing it with a belief that

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faculty must remain loyal to their institutions and protect them from publicembarrassment. Although the AAUP ultimately declared that Fisher’s academicfreedom had been violated, Kinley viewed the situation differently. He believed thatFisher should have restricted his speech so as to fit with the institutional ethos andperspective: ‘If one does not believe in [an institution’s doctrines] and feels obliged tocriticize them he should not join or belong to the organization. In other words, whileI believe thoroughly in the principle of freedom of speech, I do not believe in anarchyof speech.’92

Even as his views were evolving in the early twentieth century, Kinley staked outground that foretold difficulty for the members of Local 41. In an October 1905speech before the Northern Illinois Teachers’ Association, Kinley argued fordemocracy in educational administration, warning that centralized control might bepraised for efficiency but could ultimately harm educators and institutions. Hecritiqued the tendency to remove instructors from decision-making processes andwarned that the degradation of teachers would force many from the profession,before offering what he saw as another troubling potential outcome:

If, instead of submitting and degenerating, the teachers rebel, we are likely to see a widermovement for affiliation of the teachers of the country with organizations of labor.They will organize and seek the strength that comes from affiliation with other labororganizations in order to protect themselves against the autocratic authority ofadministrative officers. It would be deplorable to have such a movement general [sic],for the conditions of the teachers’ work and life are in too many ways different fromthose of the members of ordinary labor unions; and the causes which justify theorganization in the one case in many respects do not apply in the case of teachers. But Ido not know what other explanation to give for the tendency which seems to be growingfor teachers to seek connection with organized labor. The movement cannot be stoppedby force, since there are men and women of independent minds in the teachingprofession, and who choose to remain in it and fight against autocratic administration;and they will call to their aid all resources available, even if it brings them into affiliationwith class organizations.93

Kinley’s warning proved prescient. When he became less tolerant of facultyexpressing controversial views, some pursued labor affiliation, a route that he couldonly oppose.

As Kinley’s views on economic issues and the appropriate role of scholarlyexpertise evolved, he became increasingly aligned with capital interests rather thanpopulist movements. He favored limited government and individual freedom foreconomic actors over social movements and joint action.94 He was joined in thesebeliefs by a Board of Trustees dominated by bankers and business people, includingWilliam Abbot, who used his close ties to Samuel Insull to facilitate Kinley’s accessto business leaders, and Mary E. Busey, a member of a powerful local bankingfamily. During this period, the institution struggled with larger labor issues, as well,including concerns over the dismissal of union laborers from building projects and acitywide strike of printers. By the time that he represented the administration in theFirst World War disloyalty hearings, Kinley’s views on faculty responsibility,emphasis on personal morality, and increasing pessimism about human nature wereall contributing to friction between the administrator and his faculty.95

In response to a 1919 survey administered by the Intercollegiate Socialist Society,an unnamed University of Illinois teacher noted that ‘an instructor with unorthodoxviews was likely to be penalized’.96 Cole, already recognized for his historical

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scholarship and committed to lifelong egalitarian and libertarian views, was one suchinstructor.97 His war-related activities continued to concern institutional leaders evenafter he was cleared during the aforementioned disloyalty hearings. Particularlyoffended was Busey, who lost a son in the war. Cole’s activities on behalf of Local 41

kept him in the spotlight and continued his difficulties. At a February 1919 unionmeeting, he sharply criticized Congressman William Brown McKinley. When thecomments were carried in the Champaign Gazette, even History Departmentchairman and Cole defender Evarts Boutell Greene questioned his judgment. Coleinitially blamed the newspaper for printing the comment, although he later admittedthat his speech had been intemperate. The Board of Trustees agreed to reappointCole at the end of the year but without either the three-year contract or the payincrease that Greene suggested.98

In 1920, Cole remained in purgatory, holding on to his position but with littlehope for security or advancement despite his academic reputation. In March, Kinleyinterviewed Cole to determine his fitness for continued appointment, specifically

addressing Cole’s war-related activity and ‘the alleged spirit in which he becamepresident of the Teachers’ Federation’. At the time, Kinley noted that he believedCole would ‘take, in the future, a more rational and tactful attitude, and give loyalsupport to the University administration and the government’, but he was unable toconvince Busey and the other trustees of such a prospect for the future.99 In theensuing months, Kinley, too, equivocated. When a representative of the Universityof Colorado inquired into Cole’s ‘liberalism, socialistic views, pacifism, and thedifficulty resulting from his having signed a petition favoring the release of someconscientious objectors’ while considering whether to offer Cole a position, Kinley

replied, ‘I myself have not had a high opinion of Professor Cole’s good sense orjudgment. . . .He has been indiscreet and foolish.’100 At the same time, Kinley notedthat if Cole would refrain from his unpolitic behavior, he would be a valuableaddition to the faculty. Despite warnings that he had no future at Illinois, Coleturned down the position at Colorado. Several months later, though, he left for OhioState University and what would continue to be a distinguished career. Althoughbitter about his treatment at Illinois, he remained proud of his role in founding Local41, encouraging other college professors and instructors to organize, and ensuringthat salary issues received attention.101

Three years after Cole’s departure, allegations of political repression andinappropriate administrative action related to union activity resurfaced. AlleneGregory Allen, a former English instructor and the daughter of the institution’s first

regent, pulled a biography of her father that was about to be published by theUniversity of Illinois Press, claiming that the institution no longer adhered to theprinciples that he had established. Along with her husband, she publicly condemnedthe administration, alluded to unethical behavior on the part of Kinley and DeanThomas Arkle Clark, alleged rumor mongering and defamation, and called forinvestigations by institutional and state authorities.102 By the end of 1923, Allenexpanded her allegations to include that members of Local 41 had been removedfrom or pressured to leave the University of Illinois. Her charges were printed in theNation and received hearing at the American Federation of Teachers Annual

Convention, where she claimed that the local ‘did not fail through indifference norfaintheartedness’ but was destroyed by pressure from the administration. Others at

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the convention attested to Allen’s allegations, leading to the AFT calling for theinstitution to justify its actions.103 The Illinois Federation of Labor (IFL) alsoinitiated an investigation, although Kinley was able to forestall negative findings bycontacting University of Illinois graduates in the IFL and claiming that the chargeswere unfounded.104

The existing evidence indicates that Gregory’s allegations regarding the numberof faculty who were forced to leave were most likely exaggerated. When she firstissued her claims in 1923, 15 of the 25 who held elected offices or formal committeeroles in Local 41 were still employed by the institution, over half of the 15 havingreceived pay raises in the years since the union closed.105 Still, her claims about thelarger situation and the pressure on progressive educators appear accurate. They aresupported by an unpublished document by a faculty member forced to leave Illinoisand by historian Robert A. Feer’s undergraduate thesis based on letters written byCole and interviews with former Illinois students and faculty.106 Kinley’s ownwriting confirms that he was not beyond pressuring faculty or removing those withwhom he disagreed on social and political issues. In an April 1920 letter, he calmedTrustee Robert F. Carr’s concerns about radical faculty by noting that he hadresolved the situation and that ‘Most of them, (and certainly those who were theworst) have recently found other places.’107

Conclusion

Taken together, the creation, experience, and demise of Local 41 are one episode in alarger history of faculty organization and academic freedom in American highereducation. Faculty unionization began a few months before the founding of Local 41in 1919 but was met with both resistance and indifference. In the late 1920s and1930s, AFT unionization returned to college campuses as faculty formed unions tofoster societal change, to support K–12 teachers unions, and to establish and defendworkplace rights. Faculty unionization, though, again suffered in the 1940s becauseof war-related pressures and the AFT’s expulsion of communist-dominated locals in1941; many faculty unionists were either members of the expelled locals orsympathized with their plights. Congress of Industrial Organization faculty unionssuffered similar fates in the late 1940s. It was only in the 1960s that faculty were ableto secure their unions and negotiate lasting contracts. Still, these earliest effortshighlight the contested relationships among professionalization, employee stratifica-tion, and unionization that remain central to the ongoing debates over theorganization of college faculty in American higher education.

The Federation of Teachers of the University of Illinois was short-lived and neverachieved the stature hoped for by organizer Ross, early leader Cole, or its membersand supporters. Still, it created a sensation in 1919 and raised key issues involvingacademic labor, academic freedom, and professionalization. Local and nationalnewspapers reported on its activities, and the appropriateness of faculty unionizationwas soon debated in such publications as School and Society, the Nation, theChristian Science Monitor, and the Survey. Its founding invigorated the debates andhelped foster the first wave of college faculty unionization. While there is littleevidence of an increase in shared governance at the university, the union did keepsalary issues at the forefront of institutional considerations. Its survey, for example,

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revealed that faculty not only were struggling to maintain their families but also wereinhibited in their professional activities by low pay and soaring inflation. Afterleaving an institution that he found overly restrictive, Cole remained pleased with his

and the local’s roles in fostering unionization elsewhere and raising awareness of thefinancial conditions of the professoriate.

Academic freedom and concerns regarding administrative authority wereintertwined with the effort to organize faculty at Illinois and beyond.108 Thefounders of Local 41 hoped to provide faculty with greater voice in governance, yetthey were met by an administration that was intent on limiting dissent and that hadbeen hardened by the challenges of the war and its immediate aftermath. Although

members believed that organization could provide for greater liberty, administrativeopposition and colleagues’ apathy precluded this outcome. It was not until the 1930sthat the AFT was able to significantly affect academic freedom on college campuses.Even then, though, the concerns about un-American behavior, disloyalty, andprogressive politics that were implicated at Illinois provided significant impediments

to freedom on college campuses. The quiet removals of faculty at Illinois andelsewhere in the late 1910s were important events that connected the concerns overacademic freedom at the turn of the twentieth century to the more publicizedstruggles of the 1930s and 1950s. It was in this era during and just after the FirstWorld War that advocacy of leftist political positions shifted from offending

industrialists, donors, and taxpayers to being considered disloyal and un-American.This shift set the stage for later faculty persecutions.

Issues of professionalism were also at the heart of these unionizationconsiderations at the University of Illinois and reflect larger concerns of theprofessoriate. Writing a generation after the Local 41 closed, Logan Wilsonidentified the elements of professional status, including specialized training and a‘limitation upon self-interest’, that together ‘form a Gestalt or whole that enables oneto differentiate the profession from other generic types of occupations’.109 The

ongoing professionalization of faculty, then, provided two obstacles to unionization.Many college faculty viewed unionization with mistrust, in part because it appearedto emphasize self-interest, even though Local 41 took pains to highlight other aspectsof its work. At the same time, professionalization was linked to differentiation andstatus; as such, it could be viewed as at odds with efforts to unite the disparate

groups and classes. The very existence of divides between faculty and wage earnerspointed to the potential value of organizing but also highlighted one of the chiefobstacles to its success. As larger national debates highlight, faculty were stillclaiming their professional status and many believed that unionization would harmthese efforts.

Ideas of professionalism were complex and also implicated finances. As BruceKimball argued in his history of the professions in the USA, college faculty were

actually well paid into the early twentieth century, despite their falling realsalaries.110 In his examination of faculty salaries and status before the First WorldWar, Frank Stricker noted that this claim for greater remuneration and for ‘a‘‘professorial’’ standard of living was a demand for privileged treatment’.111 As theirstatus rose, faculty expected to be able to live in ways commensurate with that status,

especially in a society increasingly cognizant of money. The Local 41 studydemonstrated that Illinois faculty were concerned about finances and how their low

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salaries affected both their standards of living and status. Still, it was only when thesituation became dire after the First World War that faculty first experimented withunionization at Illinois and elsewhere.112 When situations improved shortlythereafter, even this was not enough to sustain the effort in a restricted andconservative atmosphere.

To some then, faculty unionization was working at cross purposes by attemptingto attend to the economic and authority concerns that would foster professionalstatus while also working to bridge divides and revealing seemingly unbecomingsalary concerns that might inhibit it. A fundamental issue involved perceptions ofacademic dignity. In The Higher Learning in America, published in 1918 but writtenearlier, Veblen noted,

There is no trades-union among university teachers, and no collective bargaining. Thereappears to be a feeling prevalent among them that their salaries are not of the nature ofwages, and that there would be a species of moral obliquity implied in overtly so dealingwith the matter. . . . So an employe [sic] of the university may not infrequently findhimself constrained to accept, as part payment, an expensive increment of dignityattaching to a higher rank than his salary account would indicate.113

An unnamed member of Local 41 also recognized the importance of dignity. Heargued,

. . . the noble calling of teaching, it might be said, must at all costs be kept dignified.Very valid; but that is the precise reason why members of the faculty have bandedtogether and have united themselves with the American Federation of Labor; they wishtheir profession to have those things that will restore to it the dignity that it has lost. Noprofession is really dignified that compels its practitioners to live beyond their income,to pretend to a degree of economic wealth they do not have, to indulge in countlesssubterfuge to keep up false appearances, or to eke out an existence by veiledcharities . . . .

The Associated Teachers believe that the whole problem of academic dignity, bothfor the individual and for the profession, can be solved only by measures that will givethe worker a voice in the conditions of his work, that will let him give a hand in pushingthat work forward, that will make him a cooperative unit with his fellow workersincluding those who engage and retain him, and which will provide him . . . the naturaland earned dignity his action and worth may deserve.114

For a short period just after the First World War, a group of colleagues agreed andworked collectively for academic dignity; they were opposed by others who ascribeda different meaning to the term.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2008 Association for the Study ofHigher Education Annual Conference. The author would like to thank Philo A. Hutcheson,Steven E. Gump, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Notes on contributor

Timothy Reese Cain is an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research examines academic administration, academicfreedom, and unionization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It has appeared in the

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History of Education Quarterly, Perspectives on the History of Higher Education, and TeachersCollege Record, among other journals.

Notes

1. The local went by various names during its existence. The constitution and some otherdocuments referred to the group as the ‘Federation of Teachers of the University ofIllinois’, while a few documents referred to it as the ‘Federated Teachers’, and otherreports termed it the ‘University Teachers’ Union’. ‘Associated Teachers of theUniversity of Illinois’ was used at its beginning and by the AFT national, although thisusage faded over time in press reports and public statements. For clarity, either ‘Local41’ or the ‘Federation of Teachers’ is used to refer to the organization in this article,except in titles and quotations. Untitled constitution, 22 March 1919, Illinois Federationof Teachers and Union of Professional Employees File, 1969–74, Record Series 48/1/11,Box 1, University of Illinois Archives.

2. ‘Illinois University Teachers’ Union’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 March 1919.3. Cain, ‘First Attempts’.4. Tap, ‘Suppression of Dissent’.5. ‘Proceedings of the 7th Annual Convention, 1923’, 135–9, American Federation of

Teachers Collection (hereafter AFT Collection) Part II, Series XIII, Box 1, FolderProceedings 1923 (2 of 2), Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne StateUniversity. Allene Gregory was the daughter of Regent John Milton Gregory.

6. See, for example, Ladd and Lipset, Professors, Unions, and American Higher Education;Arnold, Politics of Faculty Unionization. This perception is based on the ability of theseunions to collectively bargain, a crucial change for faculty unions but one that shouldnot preclude consideration of organization prior to that period. Histories of teacherunionization often mention faculty members but spend little time on them, withJeannette A. Lester’s dissertation being a notable exception. More recently Philo A.Hutcheson examined the evolution of unionization and the AAUP, including noting thisearly AFT local. Lester, ‘American Federation of Teachers’; Hutcheson, ProfessionalProfessoriate.

7. Robert Shaffer’s review essay focused on school textbooks’ lack of coverage of publicsector unionization but noted that labor historians are partly to blame for this lack ofattention. Joseph A. McCartin further critiqued the lack of historiography of publicsector unionism. Although both focused on the post-Second World War era andMcCartin notes that this gap is beginning to be filled, the larger critique remains.Shaffer, ‘Where Are the Organized Public Employees?’; McCartin, ‘Bringing the State’sWorkers In’.

8. This emphasis on new universities does not imply that higher education was otherwisestatic. American colleges prior to this era were more diverse and willing to experimentwith their curricula than early historians of higher education acknowledged, and theymaintained their appeal well past the creation of universities. Potts, ‘‘‘CollegeEnthusiasm!’’’; Guralnick, ‘Sources of Misconception’; Reynolds, ‘Education ofEngineers’; Axtell, ‘Death of the Liberal Arts College’; Leslie, Gentlemen and Scholars.

9. Veysey, Emergence of the American University.10. Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity; Haskell, Emergence of Professional Social Science;

Ross, Origins of American Social Science.11. Hawkins, Banding Together. The 14 institutions were Catholic, Clark, Columbia,

Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale Universities, and theUniversities of California, Chicago, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

12. Veysey, Emergence of the American University, 398.13. Levine, American College, 17.14. Ibid., 19.15. Veblen, Higher Learning; Cattell, University Control.16. Johnston, ‘University Organization’, 908.17. Ibid., 909.

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18. Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity; Coats, ‘Henry Carter Adams’; Barrow, Universitiesand the Capitalist State, 187–94; Metzger, Academic Freedom, 139–77.

19. ‘The Salaries of Professors’, Science n.s. 24 (23 November 1906): 666–71, 667, 670.20. Diemer, ‘Causes of ‘‘Turnover’’’, 222.21. Kimball, ‘True Professional Ideal’, 266–8.22. Bowen, Academic Compensation, 5. Bowen’s data from this period are drawn from Ruml

and Tickton, Teaching Salaries Then and Now. Ruml and Tickton do not identify theinstitutions but refer to them as large state universities.

23. Ruml and Tickton, Teaching Salaries Then and Now; Hurt, ‘College Professor’, 14.24. Hurt, ‘College Professor’, 14; Pritchett, ‘Mr. Carnegie’s Gift’, 120.25. Cattell, ‘Carnegie Foundation’; Jastrow, ‘Carnegie Foundation’; Lovejoy,

‘Retrospective Anticipations’; Savage, Fruit of an Impulse, 92. Savage does not providea source for the quote.

26. Lord, letter to the editor, Nation 103 (3 August 1916): 108; Ruggles, ‘Proposal of theCarnegie Foundation’, 286–95; Cattell, Carnegie Pensions.

27. Metzger, ‘Origins of the Association’; Metzger, Academic Freedom, 194–221; AmericanAssociation of University Professors (hereafter AAUP), ‘Report of the Committee ofthe American Association’; AAUP, ‘Second Report of the Committee’; Nelson,‘Historical Origins’, 95–6; AAUP, ‘1915 Declaration’, 298.

28. Cain, ‘First Attempts’.29. Solberg, University of Illinois, 269.30. Nevins, Illinois, 210.31. Slosson, Great American Universities, 309–10. The other institutions Slosson described

as ‘great’ in 1910 were Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton,Stanford, and Yale Universities, and the Universities of California, Chicago, Michigan,Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

32. Kinley, ‘National Conference’.33. Munroe, ‘Closer Relations’, 854.34. Jastrow, ‘Academic Career’, 565, 570.35. Kemp, ‘Administration at the University of Illinois’; ‘Resolutions Concerning the Dr.

Kemp Case’. In Board of Trustees, Twenty-Fifth Report, 222–3; Nevins, Illinois, 243;Ray, ‘Academic Presidential Leadership’, 165–71. The Senate included all deans and fullprofessors.

36. ‘The President of the University of Illinois,’ Science n.s. 39 (20 February 1914): 278.James’ diary notes that the vote was 188 to 6. Ray, ‘Academic Presidential Leadership’,175–7; Solberg, ‘Struggle for Control’.

37. Cattell, ‘Democracy in University Administration’, 495.38. Ward, ‘Historical Statement’, 11.39. Cattell, University Control; Ward, ‘Historical Statement’, 15.40. In all, the proposed Constitution consisted of 107 sections plus 16 additional proposed

statutes.41. Minutes of 11 March 1918, ‘Minutes of Committee on Organization and Efficiency,’

Committee on Organization and Efficiency File, 1910–18, Record Series 4/2/25, Box 1,University of Illinois Archives.

42. ‘Joint Resolution of the Illinois Legislature in Re Salaries at the University of Illinois’.As cited by Slosson, Great American Universities, 285, 286.

43. James, Sixteen Years, 27–30.44. Winakor, ‘Illinois Faculty Dollar’.45. Henry S. Pritchett to Edmund J. James, 10 June 1909, and Henry S. Pritchett to

Edmund J. James, 10 January 1910. In Board of Trustees, Twenty-Fifth Report, 174,502.

46. ‘Carnegie Foundation Insurance Plan’. In Board of Trustees, University of IllinoisTransactions, 228–36.

47. Gruber, Mars and Minerva.48. James, Sixteen Years, 249–50.49. Tap, ‘Suppression of Dissent’; Armstrong, ‘German Scholar and Socialist’, 235–53;

Feer, ‘Academic Freedom’.

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50. John V. Ross to Charles B. Stillman, 28 December 1918 and 8 January 1919, AFTCollection Part I, Series VI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs,Wayne State University; Editorial, Daily Illini, 15 January 1919.

51. Editorial, Daily Illini, 15 January 1919.52. ‘The Faculty and Labor,’ Daily Illini, 26 January 1919.53. John V. Ross to Charles B. Stillman, 19 January 1919, AFT Collection Part I, Series VI,

Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.54. Ibid.; C.V. Boyer to Charles Stillman, 4 February 1919; Charles Stillman to C.V. Boyer,

6 February 1919, AFT Collection Part I, Series VI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Laborand Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

55. ‘The Faculty and Labor’, Daily Illini, 26 January 1919.56. ‘Faculty Will Consider Instructors’ Union Plan’, Daily Illini, 26 January 1919; ‘Faculty

Members Vote to Organize Teachers’ Union’, Daily Illini, 28 January 1919; ‘FederatedTeachers Organize with Dr. Cole as President’, Daily Illini, 29 January 1919.

57. C.V. Boyer to Charles Stillman, 9 February 1919, AFT Collection, Part I, Series VI, Box9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University; C.V. Boyerto Charles Stillman, 29 January 1919, AFT Collection, Part I, Series VI, Box 9, Folder41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

58. Charles B. Stillman to C.V. Boyer, 6 February 1919, AFT Collection, Part I, Series VI,Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

59. Ibid.60. ‘Teachers Plan for Future Union’, Champaign Daily News, 18 February 1919.61. Aubrey J. Kempner, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 15 February 1919.62. ‘Illini Faculty Forms Union’, Urbana Daily Courier, 28 January 1919.63. Newspaper reports of this meeting offer differing accounts of the attendance, as well as

of the number who agreed to affiliate with the AFT. The Christian Science Monitorindicated that ‘more than 100 members of the faculty . . . unanimously decided toorganize’. The Champaign Daily News first reported that 150 members attended theopen meeting and that 20 new members joined the 30 existing members at the businessmeeting – but 10 days later reported a total of 36 members. This latter number is similarto figures in the correspondence between the local and national, although even feweractually paid their dues. ‘University Faculty Votes to Form a Union’, Christian ScienceMonitor, 21 February 1919; ‘Teachers Plan for Future Union’, Champaign Daily News,18 February 1919; ‘U. of I. Teachers Plan for Union’, Champaign Daily News, 28February 1919.

64. See, for example, W.C.J., letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 28 January 1919; Grad, letterto the editor, Daily Illini, 29 January 1919; Associated, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 30January 1919; Aubrey J. Kempner, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 15 February 1919;W.C.J., letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 18 February 1919; Editorial, Daily Illini, 19February 1919.

65. Editorial, Champaign Gazette, 20 February 1919.66. Aubrey J. Kempner, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 15 February 1919.67. Body and Soul, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 15 May 1919.68. Cope, ‘Illinois Teacher’s Union’, 27.69. Editorial, Urbana Daily Courier, 29 January 1919.70. Untitled constitution, 22 March 1919, Illinois Federation of Teachers and Union of

Professional Employees File, 1969–74, Record Series 48/1/11, Box 1, University ofIllinois Archives.

71. ‘Union Instructors Make Definite Plan of Action’, Daily Illini, 8 April 1919; ‘FacultyUnion Give Reception for Perkins’, Daily Illini, 17 April 1919; ‘R.M. Lovett Speaks onTeachers’ Union’, Daily Illini, 4 December 1919; ‘Lampson Asks for UnionizedTeachers’, Daily Illini, 30 April 1920. Perkins was invited to give a talk on adjustmentafter the war by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Local 41 then hosted areception for him followed by a discussion on the linkages between labor and educators.There is some evidence that other local unions supported Local 41 but also evidence thatdifferences were difficult to bridge. See, for example, Body and Soul, letter to the editor,Daily Illini, 15 May 1919; L.A. & S., letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 21 March 1919.

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72. Roger L. Geiger points out that this surge was actually part of a much larger trendtoward increased enrollment that had been interrupted by the war. Geiger, To AdvanceKnowledge, 107–9.

73. Kinley, Autobiography, 99–100; Tilton and O’Donnell, History of the Growth andDevelopment, 84–7.

74. See, for example, Aubrey J. Kempner, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 8 February 1919.75. Editorial, Urbana Daily Courier, 29 January 1919.76. See, for example, L.A. Seneca, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 14 February 1919;

Editorial, Daily Illini, 15 February 1919; Editorial, Daily Illini, 11 March 1919.77. ‘Report on the Questionnaire of the ‘‘Federation of Teachers of the University of

Illinois’’’, 1, Illinois Federation of Teachers and Union of Professional Employees File,1969–74, Record Series, 48/1/11, Box 1, University of Illinois Archives.

78. Ibid., 2.79. Ibid., 6.80. Ibid., 16.81. Feer, ‘Academic Freedom’, 60.82. Kinley to Edmund J. James, 29 May 1920, David Kinley General Correspondence,

1919–30, Record Series 2/6/1, Box 12, University of Illinois Archives; Kinley to EdmundJ. James, 21 July 1920, David Kinley General Correspondence, 1919–30, Record Series2/6/1, Box 12, University of Illinois Archives; Kinley, Autobiography, 112–4.

83. Kinley, Autobiography, 102.84. Harold N. Hillebrand to F.G. Stecker, 5 February 1921, AFT Collection, Part I, Series

VI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.85. The Governor reduced this appropriation by over a million dollars before he signed it.

Kinley, Autobiography, 114–16; Unsigned letter to Henry Blumberg, 30 June 1921, AFTCollection, Part I, Series VI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs,Wayne State University.

86. Cain, ‘First Attempts’.87. ‘A Statistical History of the American Federation of Teachers, 1916–1939’, AFT

Collection, Part I, Series III, Box 19, Folder Statistical History of the AFT, Archives ofLabor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

88. Charles B. Stillman to Henry Blumberg, 30 June 1921, AFT Collection, Part 1, SeriesVI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

89. The exact number of related dismissals is necessarily unknown, as faculty were oftenquietly removed rather than publicly fired. Evidence indicates public controversies atmore than 30 institutions, many leading to terminations or forced resignations. Thecontroversies involving Cattell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana at ColumbiaUniversity are probably the most well-known of these difficulties, while the situation atthe University of Michigan offers the most profound evidence of both the shifts indefinition of un-American and administrators hiding the true reasons for the dismissals.Gruber, Mars and Minerva; Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 102–9; Cain, ‘‘‘Silenceand Cowardice’’’.

90. Feer, ‘Academic Freedom’, 56–62; Richard Chace Tolman, ‘Academic Freedom at theUniversity of Illinois’, Richard Chace Tolman Papers, 1735–58, Box 2, Folder 1,California Institute of Technology Archives.

91. Feer, ‘Academic Freedom’; Solberg, ‘William Abbott Oldfather’, 76. The quote is basedon interviews conducted by Feer with an unnamed former University of Illinois studentand an unnamed former University of Illinois faculty member. Solberg, the leadinghistorian of the University of Illinois, is among those who find the quote plausible.

92. David Kinley to Edmund J. James, 7 April 1913, Edmund J. James FacultyCorrespondence, 1904–15, Record Series 2/5/6, Box 27, as cited by Grisso, ‘DavidKinley’, 223. Kinley continued to defend academic freedom publicly, but his privateactions indicate a restricted and conservative view of the principles. Although theevolution in his thinking was greater than that of some of his colleagues, it does fitwithin the larger shifts in the field of economics. As the discipline was actively pursuingprofessionalization and rejecting popularists, it increasingly viewed radical political andeconomic behavior with circumspection. Economists needed at least to appear to be

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objective and offered increasingly restricted notions of appropriate behavior. Furner,Advocacy and Objectivity.

93. Kinley, ‘Democracy in Education’, 387.94. Grisso, ‘David Kinley’, 286.95. Ibid., 414, 528–32.96. ‘Freedom of Discussion in American Colleges’, Socialist Review 8, no. 4 (1920): 252–5,

253.97. Cole won the America Historical Society’s Justin Winsor Prize for The Whig Party in the

South in 1912. His noted publications also include The Irrepressible Conflict, 1850–1865.His career included positions at Illinois, Ohio State University, WesternReserve University, and Brooklyn College, as well as several visiting professorships.He served as managing editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review from1930 to 1940 and as president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. Hewould also remain committed to civil liberties and faculty issues, including throughservice as chair of the ACLU’s Academic Freedom Committee and his membership inthe AAUP. Trefousse, ‘Recent Deaths’, 1016; Trefousse, preface to Toward a New View,vii–ix.

98. Tap, ‘Suppression of Dissent’.99. Untitled interview notes, 29 March 1920, David Kinley General Correspondence,

1919–30, Record Series 2/6/1, Box 5, University of Illinois Archives.100. C.C. Eckhardt to David Kinley, 13 July 1920; David Kinley to C.C. Eckhardt, 20 July

1920, David Kinley General Correspondence, 1919–30, Record Series 2/6/1, Box 5,University of Illinois Archives.

101. Feer, ‘Academic Freedom’, 80–1; Arthur C. Cole to F.G. Stecker, 24 November 1921,AFT Collection, Part I, Series VI, Box 9, Folder 41, Archives of Labor and UrbanAffairs, Wayne State University.

102. Allen, Open Letter to the Board of Trustees; Grisso, ‘David Kinley’, 572–4.103. ‘How Universities Die’, Nation 116 (13 June 1923): 684; ‘Proceedings of the 7th Annual

Convention, 1923’, 135–9, AFT Collection Part II, Series XIII, Box 1, FolderProceedings 1923 (2 of 2), Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne StateUniversity.

104. Grisso, ‘David Kinley’.105. This statement is based on the Board of Trustees Proceedings from 1919 through 1924.

In the ensuing years, former members continued to leave, including Kempner, whomDean Babcock encouraged to leave because of an uncertain future at the University ofIllinois. Others, though, remained, including Hillebrand, who had an offer fromAmherst but whom the institution kept in part to offset the perception that, inBabcock’s words, ‘We are letting all our best men go.’ K.C. Babcock to David Kinley 29July 1925 and 15 February 1925, Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office, PresidentsOffice Correspondence, 1921–31, Record Series 15/1/9, Box 1, University of IllinoisArchives.

106. Tolman, ‘Academic Freedom at the University of Illinois’, Richard Chace TolmanPapers, 1735–58, Box 2, Folder 1, California Institute of Technology Archives; Feer,‘Academic Freedom’.

107. David Kinley to R.F. Carr, 29 April 1920, David Kinley General Correspondence,1919–30, Record Series 2/6/1, Box 4, University of Illinois Archives.

108. At Washburn College, for example, faculty founded an AFT local specifically inresponse to the dismissal of an outspoken faculty member. Cain, ‘First Attempts’.

109. Wilson, Academic Man, 114.110. Kimball, ‘True Professional Ideal’, 266–8.111. Stricker, ‘American Professors’, 249.112. The steep inflation at the end of the 1910s certainly worsened the situation for the

faculty, although Viva Boothe’s study of faculty purchases indicates that they faredrelatively better than the larger public in terms of changes in cost of living until the early1920s. Boothe, Salaries and the Cost of Living, 143–4.

113. Veblen, Higher Learning, 118, n3.114. Associated, letter to the editor, Daily Illini, 30 January 1919.

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