California Labor School

The California Labor School (until 1945 named the Tom Mooney Labor School) was an educational organization in San Francisco from 1942 to 1957. Like the contemporary Jefferson School of Social Science and the New York Workers School, it represented the "transformed and upgraded" successors of the "workers schools" of the 1920s and 1930s. History During World War II, as part of Browderism, Communist Party USA Earl Browder established new communist "schools of social sciences" in major urban areas. On the East Coast, these schools included names of American patriots: the Sam Adams School (Boston), Tom Paine School of Social Sciences (Philadelphia), George Washington Carver School (Harlem, New York), Abraham Lincoln School (Chicago), and Jefferson School of Social Sciences (New York). West Coast schools used geographic names: the Pacific Northwest Labor School and the California Labor School. Founding The CLS was founded in August 1942, in premises above a car showroom at 678 Turk Street in San Francisco, and named for labor leader Tom Mooney, who had died on March 6 that year. It later moved to a 5-story building at 216 Market Street, and in 1947 bought premises at 240 Golden Gate Avenue.