Series IV: Education, 1940-2002, inclusive

The Education Department is a vital component of the Party that functions at the national, district, and club level. At every level the Department is responsible for instructing membership on the foundations of communist ideology, informing members of key policy issues, and guiding members in carrying out Party initiatives. The work of the Education Department is closely tied with the teachings and curriculum of many of the schools that were affiliated with the CPUSA. As a result, many of the discussion guides from the National Education Department are likely duplicated in Subseries B: Schools. Records of the National Education Department contain discussion guides and new member course work, which are useful for understanding topics and themes important to Party education. A small amount of teaching resources and research materials are also included in this series. Of particular interest are scripts and image boards for a mail-order course on the "History of the American Negro," that the Party distributed in the early 1950s. Records from the New York State education department are largely comprised of Carol Pittman's files from her time as Director.

Throughout much of the 20th century, there were a number of institutions designed to educate the working class on the fundamentals of communism, union organizing and labor history, political writing, and economic theory. Some of these institutions were directly affiliated with the CPUSA, such as the Du Bois Foster Schools or the Workers School (later known as the Jefferson School of Social Science), and aimed to recruit, train, and mobilize members. Others, like the California Labor School, were not explicitly affiliated with the CPUSA though they taught progressive curriculum that was often in line with Party ideology and initiatives. Though the majority of course offerings focused on political theory, history, and action, many schools also offered classes on culture and the arts. Teachers were usually former university or college professors or prominent CPUSA leaders and intellectuals. Student applications, course descriptions and outlines, discussion guides, and other course materials from several of these educational institutions form the bulk of this subseries. The Jefferson School of Social Science and its predecessor, the Workers School, are well represented; their records date from the early 1920s to the 1980s. Audio recordings of lectures and forum discussions at National Party Schools and Regional Party Schools are well represented in this series as well. These schools were organized and run by Communist Party leadership annually, and usually consisted of several weeks of coursework and presentations. Also represented are a small amount of recordings from the People's School for Marxist Studies.

The Reference Center for Marxist Studies was a radical library founded by the CPUSA circa 1979 and was located at the CPUSA headquarters in New York City. RCMS contained thousands of books, pamphlets, and serials devoted to the study of communism, the history of the CPUSA, socialism, the working class, African Americans, women's issues, and national liberation struggles. The Center also sponsored cultural and educational programs, lectures, forums, and discussions. This subseries documents the library's founding and the initiatives of its staff, including their efforts to preserve Party history by acting as a central archival repository for the personal papers of Party members. Financial records, correspondence, and committee meeting minutes can be found here. Cataloging manuals, book lists, and research guides are particularly noteworthy as they clearly illustrate the intentions of the library's founders to serve Party members, workers, and scholars of communism in a way that would complement the goals of the CPUSA. Researchers should note that the complete holdings of the RCMS were donated to the Tamiment Library along with the CPUSA records. Monographs and serials have been cataloged at the item level and are accessible via BobCat. Pamphlets were incorporated into the Reference Center for Marxist Studies Pamphlet Collection (PE 043).