DRAMATIC ACTIVITIES AND WORKERS’ EDUCATION AT
HIGHLANDER POLK SCHOOL,
1932-191^2
Anne W» Petty
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
March 1979 ABSTRACT
This research, examined the dramatic activities con ducted for and by resident students at Highlander Folk
School, a private independent institution in Monteagle,
Tennessee, between 1932 and 1942. Highlander's major objectives were to help meet the current needs of worker- students and of a developing southern labor movement and to prepare the worker-students to formulate and execute actions which would effectively meet their future needs.
The dramatics program reflects the flexibility inherent in these objectives in the diversity of dramatic activities and variety of immediate goals evidenced over the ten-year period. The purpose of all Highlander dramatic activities, however, was to educate, for the present and future. Since preliminary research revealed a significant similarity between Highlander's educational philosophy and theory and that of John Dewey, relevant aspects of Dewey's philos ophy and theory were utilized to examine and explain High lander's program.
Dramatic activities at Highlander Folk School were an organic part of the school's curriculum because their methods of implementation were determined by basic philo sophical and theoretical educational concepts. Drama, a cultural approach to education, was theoretically a means
ii Ill of educational experience. The results of this research indicate dramatic activities provided students with two types of experience: one which led to a greater under standing of subject matter, and, at one time, one which gave them the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic principles of effective and efficient problem solving. This latter type of experience occurred when worker-students improvised original plays because this act is equivalent to solving a problem, as efficiently and effectively as possible, as defined by John Dewey. ACKNOWLEDGMENT S
Many people, who are in no way acknowledged in the text, have freely given of themselves so that this dissertation might be completed. Some of them are listed below, and I am very grateful for their help.
Harold Obee
Bruce Cook
Highlander Research and Education Center Staff
Vicki Jennette
May Justus
Larry Lowe
Middle Tennessee State University Library Staff
Cindy O’Brien
Cassie Petty Anne and Al Romasco
Deborah Shaw
Dave Wellwood
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page CHAPTER I. HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL: DRAMA AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION-BY-EXPERIENCE ...... 1
CHAPTER II. HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL AND THE SOUTHERN LABOR SCENE ...... 13
Introduction ...... 13
The Southern Labor Scene ...... 17
Workers' Education and Highlander Folk School . . 31
CHAPTER III. THE HIGHLANDER DRAMATICS PROGRAM, 1932-1942 ...... 56
Introduction...... 56
1932-36: Education-by-Experience-as-Spectator . . 66
1932-34 ...... 67
1935-36 ...... 80
1937-42: Education-by-Experience-as- Participant...... 96
1937-Spring 1940 102
Fall 1940-1942 128 1943-: A Period of Maturity and Transition .... 132
CHAPTER IV. HIGHLANDER DRAMATICS AND PROBLEM SOLVING, 1939-...... 147 Introduction...... 147
Highlander Dramatics as Problem-Solving Experience...... 167
v VI Highlander Dramatics as Meaningful Problem-Solving Experience ...... 187
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION...... 220
Summary...... 220
Conclusion...... 224
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 227 ILLUSTRATIONS
Page 1. Comparison of the Sequence of Events in the Pattern of Inquiry to Those Associated with Conventional Plot Development ...... 195 CHAPTER I
HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL: DRAMA AS A MEANS OF
EDUCATION-BY-EXPERIENCE
Highlander today is known as the Highlander
Research and Education Center and is located near
Knoxville, Tennessee. It is and always has been a private, independent institution preferring to affiliate with social movements rather than organizations. At present the center is primarily interested in the social and economic development of Appalachia. Advertising itself as "an educational resource for the people who are working to build a new and democratic South,"''' the center offers short-term residential workshops on topics such as strip-mining, land reform, music and poetry, community health and Appalachian history. These work shops are conducted either by Highlander's small staff or by specialists in various subjects. They feature informal discussion sessions which rest on a belief that people can solve their problems by talking about them,
-'■"Highlander Center: A Gathering Place in Appalachia," current Highlander brochure, n. d. 2 formulating solutions, and organizing to carry-out the solutions. Highlander staff receive room and board and occasional subsistence pay in lieu of salary. Students and staff share daily house-keeping chores. This informal, communal approach to education in which teacher and student live, work, and study together has been a consistent Highlander policy throughout the institution's history.
For many the Highlander Folk School has come to symbolize the spirit behind the movement of the American working people. Yet it is much more than a shining ideal. Through it countless men and women have learned how to work and live cooperatively. Characterized as "a focal point for the new labor forces gathering in the South," the school has reached thousands of unionists of all colors and creeds--a rarity in the south. To many thousands more it has given training for some form of leadership in the labor movement. A large proportion of its students hold important offices in their local unions; many have served significantly on grievance committes, negotiating commitees, on Interracial, safety, housing, transportation, and education committees; still others have served as delegates to city councils and state conventions. So the record continues, one of the most significant in recent educational history. It is, says John Dewey, "one of the most important social-educational projects in America."2
This appraisal appeared in a 1949 volume on education in the twentieth century. At that time Highlander Folk School was one of the several resident workers' education
2 Adolph E. Meyer, The Development of Education in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Prentice- Hall, Inc., 193^-1949), p. 551. 3
institutions of the thirties and forties dedicated to elevating the life of the common American worker. Others were Brookwood College in New York, Commonwealth in
Arkansas, School for Workers at the University of
Wisconsin, and Pacific Coast School for Workers in
California. These schools differed from the typical adult education institution in that they were directed toward solving the particular problems of the industrial worker and were often union affiliated. Their curricula therefore offered courses in labor history, economics, and union organizing. The schools also offered courses in art, music, and drama.
This research is concerned with the dramatic activities conducted by Highlander Folk School during its association with the labor movement, which lasted from 1932, when the school was founded, until the early
1950’s. The focus here, however, is on Highlander's first decade because the school's dramatics program developed and matured during this time. The major purposes of this research are to provide an explanation of the development of the dramatics program for resident worker-students and to offer an explanation of how the dramatic activities, at one time, were an appropriate instrument for helping to achieve one of the school's major goals: helping people learn how to solve problems more effectively. 4
Drama was an accepted part of workers' education
programs before Highlander was established. Many of the labor schools advertised classes in dramatics. The type
of theatre practiced at these institutions was very similar, in form and production, to that labeled
"agit-prop." The major goals of school-related workers’
theatre were, however, different from those which
research has generally assigned to this category of
theatre. For the most part, emphasis has been on the
political aspects of workers' theatre as the following titles suggest: Drama Was a Weapon,3 The Political Stage
Stage Lef t,5 "A History of the Radical Theatre in the
United States from 1930 to 1970,and "The International
Ladies Garment Workers Union's Labor Stage, A '
Propagandistic Venture.While it is true that school-
^Morgan Himmelstein (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1963). ^Malcolm Goldstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). ^Jay Williams (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974). Siay Wells Jones (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1971). ?Gary L. Smith (Ph.D. dissertation, Kent State University, 1975). 5 related workers' theatre was acknowledged to be one means of making labor's political views known to the general public, the primary goals associated with it were those of entertainment, cultural enrichment, and education. This research concentrates on the educational aspects of Highlander dramatics. The objective here is to examine Highlander dramatic activities within the situation in which they occurred, and, as nearly as possible, from the viewpoint of those immediately involved.
This viewpoint is represented in Union Leadership
Training: A Handbook of Tools and Techniques (1951) by
Alexander A. Liveright. The publication date is signif icant because by 1951, workers' education was an established field, and the handbook therefore reflects commonly accepted principles and practices. Written as a book for teachers in workers' education programs, the handbook presents the advantages and disadvantages of various educational tools and techniques. The following advantages of dramatics are listed:
Dramatizes a situation or stimulates analysis of problem involving different points of view.
People can indulge natural desire to act.
Involves and interests everyone in the group.
Dramatizes situation and provides a change of pace. 6 Brings out feelings and attitudes that might not otherwise appear.
Presents alternative courses of action.
Permits group to demonstrate or practice action.
People understand other points of view and get better group understanding.
Entertains the group.
Permits analysis and criticism of a problem.
Burlesques a situation in such a way that weaknesses are emphasized.8
Similar advantages, or purposes, of dramatic activities as part of workers’ education programs are listed in Handbook of Adult Education in the United States (1960),9
Workers' Education in the United States (1941), "Highlander Folk School, Drama Workshop Report" (1939), H
8Alexander A. Liveright, Union Leadership Training: A Handbook of Tools and Techniques (NewYork: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1951), p. 21.
q Malcolm S. Knowles, ed. (Chicago: Adult Education Association). ^Theodore Brameld, ed., John Dewey Society, Fifth Yearbook (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers). ^-Chouteau Dyer, in "Report to the William Roy Smith Memorial Fund," Highlander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. 7 Everyman's Drama: A Study of the Noncommercial Theatre
in the United States (1938)Education and the Worker Student (1934), 13 ancj "Report of Dramatics Program of the
Southern Summer School for Women Workers in Industry” (1931).14 .
Highlander Folk School was established in 1932.
In addition to its resident program the school also
maintained and developed community and extension programs,
both of which were directed toward improving the life of
the common worker. While dramatics was included in all
three programs, this research focuses on those activities
in which resident students participated because these
activities are typical of all three programs. There
were times, however, particularly during the first few
years of the school's existence, when the programs over
lapped, and resident students participated in the community
and extension programs. Thus, some discussion of community
and extension program activities is included as a means * l
12jean Garter and Jess Ogden (New York: American Association for Adult Education). l^jean Carter and Hilda W. Smith, A Book About Workers' Education Based Upon the Experience of~Teachers and Students (New York: Affiliated Schools for Workers). l4Hollace Ransdell, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 8
of providing an accurate understanding of the development
of dramatic activities in the resident program.
Some form of dramatic activity was a part of
Highlander's program throughout most of its association
with workers' education and the labor movement. Types
and intensity of activity were determined by three factors:
(1) the current needs of the labor movement, (2) the
training and interests of drama staff, and (3) the nature
of the student body. A constant concern of the program was the purposes served by dramatics. Although Highlander
dramatics was always entertaining for both participant
and spectator and was a part of the school's overall
cultural program, this research emphasizes the educational ends served by the dramatic activities since drama was very much an integral part of Highlander's educational philosophy and theory. , - .
Highlander Folk School operated on the philosophy that education should be derived from experience.
Dramatics as a cultural approach to education, was utilized as a means of providing educational experience.
The results of this research indicate Highlander dramatic activities provided two types of educational experience, each of which is discussed separately. The first was one which led to a greater understanding of subject matter in the school's curriculum. The second type of experience 9
presented students with the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic principles essential to
effective and efficient problem-solving. This latter
type of experience was available because of Highlander’s
commitment to preparing students for solving future problems while helping them deal with current ones.
Problem-solving experience is meaningful if people analyze it and understand the process involved.
This theory guided Highlander attempts to help students become more effective and efficient when solving problems.
During one specific period, the Highlander drama class was structured in a way which provided students with implicit problem-solving experience. Furthermore, students had the opportunity to analyze this experience and, by so doing, gain an understanding of basic principles essential to effective and efficient problem-solving.
Since there is no empirical evidence indicating Highlander alumni of this period became more proficient in problem solving, the discussion concerning this aspect of the dramatics program is presented as an explanation of what could have happened, rather than what did happen.
Any description of Highlander dramatic activities as an appropriate instrument for teaching problem solving requires a definition and theory of problem solving. This research uses John Dewey’s thinking on the 10 subject for two reasons. First, Dewey’s ideas are
compatible with those representative o"f Highlander.
Secondly, Dewey's work provides the detail essential to
explanation.
Since it is very possible and probable other
institutions utilized dramatics in the same way as
Highlander, any claim that the school was unique in this
respect is invalid. Highlander dramatics can, however, be termed special and very worthy of attention because
dramatics was an organic part of the school's curriculum:
its methods of implementation were determined by basic philosophical and theoretical educational concepts. This
characteristic itself is noteworthy. More importantly, this emphasis provokes thinking about the basic nature and potential of drama and theatre, and this, alone, justifies an examination of Highlander dramatic activities.
Thus, the scope of this research-is limited to presenting an explanation of Highlander dramatic activities as a means for implementing two types "'of educational experience: one which effected greater understanding of subject matter, and one which provided students with the opportunity to gain an implicit under standing of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving. These topics will be presented from a 11
variety of viewpoints, some of which are overlapping, resulting in some replication of principles, but this
cannot be avoided because they were interlaced in practice. The material is organized in the following manner: , .
Chapter II: The Southern Labor Scene and Highlander Folk School. This chapter provides background information which creates a framework'for understanding subsequent chapters. Two general topics are discussed: the southern labor scene during the period, especially those aspects with which Highlander was concerned; and Highlander Folk School as a private institution in the field of workers’ education. The data presented is very general in nature. In-depth development of certain topics occurs later when it is most needed and most relevant to discussion.
Chapter III: The Highlander Dramatics Program, 1932-1942, provides a general description of the nature and development of the dramatics program as a means of providing educational experience which led to a greater understanding of subject matter for resident students and spectators.
Chapter IV: Highlander Dramatics and Problem Solving, 1939-. This chapter explains how, during one period, dramatic activities were an appropriate instrument for teaching problem-solving because they provided students with the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving.
Primary resource material is drawn from
"Highlander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265,”
Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, which is the official repository for the Highlander files of the period; "Highlander Folk School, Mss. 1811," 12 Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee;
the Highlander Research and Education Center Library which
is still processing documents of the period; and
testimony from former staff and students, especially Myles
Horton, Highlander co-founder and educational director
during the period under study. Additional resources are
"The Highlander Folk School: A History of the Development
of Its Major Programs Related to Social Movements in the
South, 1932-1961 ,"-1-5 "a History of the, Highlander Folk School, 1932-1941,"16 Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea
of Highlander,and numerous books and articles on workers’ education, most of which were written during
the period under study.
l^Aimee Horton (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1971).
I^h. Glyn Thomas (M.A. thesis, Peabody College, 1964). l^Frank Adams with Myles Horton (Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, Publisher, 1975). I 3
CHAPTER II
HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL AND THE SOUTHERN
LABOR SCENE
Introduction
In 1929 a series of violent and, for the most part, spontaneous strikes occurred in the southern textile industry. They are important- because they were the "first genuinely serious labor revolt the South had ever known,"1 and because they were a failure.
In 1930, these strikes and their ramifications were the topic of consideration in a now-famous collection of essays by George and Broadus Mitchell entitled The Industrial Revolution in the South. This work is structured around the theory that industrial development always passes through three stages (1) a period during which attention is solely devoted to the technical problems of establishing industry,
Iwilbur J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), p. 345. 14 (2) a period during which workers "recoil” against the
exploitation naturally fostered during the first phase,
and (3) the final stage, industrial maturity. The 1929
strikes signalled that southern industry, particularly
textiles, was in the second stage. Thus, the focus of
the essays is on the need to establish a progressive
relationship between the southern worker and industry.
An analysis of the current situation identifies the
persistence of traditional attitudes and behaviors on the part of management, workers, and the general public as
the major obstacle to obtaining a desirable relationship.
The South is referred to as "bewildered" by the "tremendous and sudden" economic changes effected by
industrialization because adherence to the past is preventing an adequate critical analysis of a new situ- 3 ation. The need of the moment, therefore, is education in reality. "The eccentric mirrors which by indirect reflections pictured the South to itself are being discredited."42 * School involvement and curricula designed to elucidate the present situation are one remedy for the
2 Broadus and George Sinclar Mitchell, The Industrial Revolution in the South (Johns Hopkins Press, 1930; reprint ed., New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 293. ^Mitchell and Mitchell, p. 276. ^Mitchell and Mitchell, p. 296. 15 problem. Such programs will result in public awareness of economic reality, which in turn, will invite a realistic approach to internal social problems, particularly that of the relationship between the southern worker and industry.
Throughout their essays the Mitchells see the organization of labor as a pre-requisite of industrial maturity and believe the South's adherence to the past is particularly detrimental to the life of the southern worker since it keeps him at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. The education they advocate includes creating an awareness of the situation and this situation's potential for the worker so he will act in his own best interests.
Highlander Folk School was established in 1932, two years after the publication of The Industrial
Revolution in the South. Statements which appear in the initial fund-raising letter read as if they were written in answer to the Mitchells' plea for education.
^Mitchell and Mitchell, p. 297. 16
Our project is the organization of a Southern Mountain School for the training of labor leaders in the southern industrial areas. The southern mountaineers who are being drawn into the coal and textile industries are completely lacking in understanding of the problems of industry and the necessities of labor organization. . . . The objective in general is to enable those who otherwise have no educational advantages whatsoever to learn enough about themselves and society, to have something on which to base their decisions and actions whether in their own community or in an industrial situation into which they may be thrown.6
These three events, the 1929 strikes, the publication of The Industrial Revolution in the South, and the founding of Highlander Folk School comprise a microcosm of a crusade which was beginning in the South and in the nation as a whole. As America entered the great depression, a floundering labor movement was supported by a group of intellectuals through books, articles, and speeches; and by a group of educators work ing in private, independent institutions devoted to the needs of the worker. At this time, the CIO was non existent, and the AFL was a rather weak organization of unions. Furthermore, unionization, from the viewpoint of those cited above, was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The desired end was a "reconstructed society” which accommodated the changes caused by
^Initial Fund-Raising Letter, 27 May 1932, Highlander Folk School, Mss. 1811, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee. 17 industrialization and provided the benefits of a
democracy for all. Most, if not all, of those involved
in this branch of the labor movement identified with
goals commonly labeled progressive and with the philosophy
of pragmatism. The thinking and methodology of this
group pervaded that branch of the labor movement which
was devoted to workers' education. One very significant
aspect of their thinking was that each situation
possesses unique characteristics which must be appreciated
before the situation can be comprehended.
The situation in which Highlander Folk School
was established can be understood by exploration along
two avenues. First, it is necessary to examine pertinent
environmental conditions such as the status of southern
industry, the nature of the average southern worker, and
obstacles to labor organization. The second important
element in the overall situation is the philosophy and methodology of Highlander Folk School. Highlander was an
institution devoted to workers' education and was a private, independent institution.
The Southern Labor Scene
The 1929 strikes were in the textile industry, which is actually a group of industries including cotton goods, woolen and worsted goods, rayon and silk, hosiery, 18 dyeing and finishing of goods, and carpets and rugs.?
Textiles are the foundation of southern industry, and the
South is the nation’s leading producer of textiles.
Originally textiles were concentrated in New England, but the shift south reached its greatest momentum in the Q late twenties and early thirties. The reason for it was greater profit. . *>■ Several factors were involved, each of which is important to an understanding of the nature of southern industry. The first and most important was cheap labor, which, even before the depression, was more than plentiful. Coupled with cheap labor was the absence of unions or the presence of unions with little power as compared to those in the North. Locating a mill in the
South usually reduced transportation costs since the material to be processed, such as cotton, was produced in the region and, consequently, did not have to be transported any great distance to the mill. A fourth factor was lower taxes. Communities often offered tax breaks as inducement to manufacturers to locate a
^Walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A His tory of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 "(Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press'^ I960) , p. 330. o Calvin B. Hoover and B. U. Ratchford, Economic Resources and Policies of the South (New York: MacMillan Co. , 1951) , p.“kt: 19 plant in their area. Finally, since the southern plants were newer, they offered the opportunity to use more modern, trouble-free equipment, thus increasing production
Q efficiency. These factors and the greater profit they provided gave the southern manufacturer a distinct advantage over his northern counterpart. Competition between the two was always severe, and it worsened in
1923 when a recession in the industry hit the North much harder than it did the South.
The 1923 recession gave an additional advantage to the South. The northern manufacturer, in an attempt to regain lost ground, introduced a technique soon to become a characteristic of the industry as a whole, and which, when introduced in the South, precipitated the 1929 strikes. This technique was the stretch-out.H
A stretch-out, or to use the synonymous term, speed-up, means more productivity per worker with no increase in pay.12 jn the textile industry this could
9 F. Ray Marshall, Labor in the South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press ,—T96'7) , p. 80. 1 ^Marshall, p. 103.
^Marshall, p. 104; Cash, p. 344.
^Florence Peterson, American Labor Unions: What They Are and How They Work, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1952), p. 269. 20 be accomplished in a number of ways, the most infamous
of which involved the machines. A textile worker often
operated or supervised machinery which did the actual work.
A stretch-out might require a worker to tend three or
four machines whereas previously he had tended only
one or two. Other methods employed were raising the
worker's production quota and speeding up the machines.
The effect on the worker, no matter what the method, was
greater job pressure with no pay increase. Side effects
were lay-offs, wage-cuts, plant shut-downs, and, for the manufacturer, greater profit.
The southern worker, by this time accustomed to
wage-cuts and shut-downs, could not tolerate the abuse
of the stretch-out. It reduced him to the status of one 13 of the machines he tended, and he walked out. Un
fortunately, he had no idea of what to do after walking
out and his efforts were futile. The mill owners kept the plants operating by employing strike-breakers drawn from
the South's over-abundant labor force,and the strikes
failed. The stretch-out became a characteristic of the
industry, and the 1929 strikes symbolized the futility and stupidity of any effort on the part of the worker to
l^cash, p. 345. ^Marshall, p. 133. 21 improve his condition. Public opinion rested soundly on the side of management and in favor of preserving the status-quo.
Thus, southern textiles, which dominated southern industry maintained an economic advantage over the northern branch of the industry by preserving the status- quo, the two most important elements of which were cheap labor and the absence of unions. This condition alone was enough to hinder any type of labor organization, but the nature of the southern worker and the traditional general attitudes referred to by the Mitchells were additional factors working against organization.
Textiles were a predominantly low-wage, unskilled industry whose workers were drawn from the common labor force. In the South this population in the thirties was almost entirely native bom and was definitely rural.
It was during this period that the major southern pre occupation was to move from agricultural to non-agricultural jobs. According to Bureau of Census figures, 50.9 percent of the population in 1920 was employed in agriculture as compared to 34.9 percent in 1940. This is significant because many of the textile workers were "fresh from the farm" so to speak and, as stated in the Highlander fund raising letter, ignorant of the complexities of industry.
Their likelihood of remaining ignorant was great due to 22
the low educational level of the South. In 1940,
66 percent of the total population twenty-five years of age
and older had less than a ninth-grade education,
Since this statistic represents the total population, the
educational level of the average laborer can be assumed to have been much lower.
Not only was the labor force rural and uneducated, it was also plentiful and to a certain extent kept in flux by changes occurring within the southern industrial scene. First of all the depression effected changes in southern industry similar to those occurring throughout the nation. The situation in the South, however, was more perplexing because the period saw the growth of the textile industry while witnessing the death of other natural-resource industries such as coal and forest products. This aspect of the southern industrial scene and its effect on the worker can be appreciated by using developments in the state of Tennessee as an example.
Forest products represented 31.4 percent of all manufacturing in Tennessee in 1904 as compared to 8.3 percent in 1937. During the same period, the percentage of textile manufacturing grew from 17.4 in 1914, to
l^Hoover and Ratchford, pp. 29-34. 23 29.4 in 1929, to 42.3 in 1937.^^ Such a change when
looked at from the viewpoint of the laborer made an
unstable situation even more unstable. This would be
particularly true with respect to older workers--those
with families to support. A man who had worked in and
watched the forest industry die would probably be un
comfortable in and apprehensive of other industries.
The effects of the depression would only intensify his
attitude toward getting and keeping work. This fear,
coupled with an ignorance of industry and lack of
education, made the southern worker very susceptible to
manipulation by those who had jobs to offer.
In short, the life of the southern worker offered
little in regard to job security, and, as illustrated above, the position which industry occupied in southern society did much to prevent him from increasing his sense
of security. Industry's well-being depended upon
"keeping the worker in his place." The tragic irony of
the situation is that the worker himself unconsciously
accepted those beliefs which were most detrimental to his
social and economic advancement.
16paul Barnett, "Industrial Development in Tennessee: Present Status and Suggested Program," Study No. 11 of the Bureau of Research, School of Business Administra tion; The University of Tennessee Record, vol. 44, no. 4, July 194T, p. 29. 24 The 1929 strikes were not an indication that the
southern worker was ready to take steps to improve his
condition. Reacting to the stretch-out, he simply
indicated he did not want things to get worse than they were.^ The worker shared beliefs and attitudes held by
the total population which were obstacles to his improving
his situation. One such belief was that labor organization
was not in his best interests and was, in fact,
detrimental to the South as a whole. This general belief
was supported by others, most of which made up what
W. J. Cash has referred to as the "mind of the South."
The first of these, pertinent to this research, was
sectionalism. . ...
Antagonism toward the North was one obstacle to
labor organization. Unions were a "northern idea" and,
as such, constituted a second northern invasion. The
desire to resist northern influence was intensified by the
fact that northern capital supported much of the textile
industry. Unionization would mean the mills were owned
and operated by the North. In fact, northern ownership, by itself, produced two special fears: fear of importation of northern workers to replace the Southerners, and the fear of the mill "moving on" further south. The latter
17Marshall, p. 130. 25 fear was justified by fact. It was common knowledge the
mills had moved south to begin with, and the general
public was often informed that conditions adverse to
profit would force the mills to move to a more hospitable
region. Such action was not uncommon because there was
always a community somewhere which promised lower taxes,
cheaper labor, and no unions. "Moving-on" was a reality.
There is no known incident of northern workers
being imported to replace Southerners, but this threat
was often used and was effective because of the general
belief that the northern worker was faster and smarter than
his southern counterpart. Associated with this fear was
a general feeling of distaste for immigrants who were
thought to populate the northern mills. Foreigners were not welcome in the South. While there were no real
grounds for the fear of being replaced, the fear can be
explained. One of the problems of a young industry is
developing capable and experienced leadership, and
northern management, because of experience, was more able
than southern. Thus, southern mills often had northern
management and were often visited by northern experts. The worker could have reasoned that northern management would soon be followed by northern labor. Both northern and
southern mill owners and managers were aware of the fears 26
engendered by sectionalism and used them to manipulate
the worker and the general public.
Another attitude which prevented labor organization
was fear of Negro equality. Blacks could do mill work as
easily as whites. The fear of being replaced by Yankees
was a myth, but being replaced by blacks was not because,
at times, blacks were hired as strike-breakers. In
addition unionization meant being in a group with
"niggers," and the majority of whites was decidely against
any such association. Perhaps the best way of summing up
this attitude is to say the black man was at the bottom of the southern social ladder, and the poor white laborer who was but one rung above him by virtue of color was determined to preserve his social status. Pro-union was pro-black.
A third traditional attitude which worked for the status-quo was the perpetuation of class roles established during the plantation era--specifically the master-slave relationship. In essence this relationship set the accepted pattern of "behavior of dominant whites toward poor men, whether white or black, namely, exploitation and patronage."20 Poor men existed for the benefit of
l^Cash, pp. 298-99; 353.
l^Cash, p. 353.
^Mitchell and Mitchell, p. 7. 27 their betters. By their nature, they were intended to
be used and, at the same time, taken care of. "Their
rights were defined in terms of responsibility of those who had for those who had not."21 The poor were not supposed
to think or act on their own; they were supposed to work
for the boss, and, when they got in trouble, he would take
care of them. The image of the mill owner or manager,
then, was that of benefactor. He was a father to his
employees--even though he asked them to work in terrible conditions and paid them starvation wages.22
The boss was not only a benefactor to the worker,
he was also benefactor to his community, his state, and
the entire South. Industry was the symbol of progress;
it was the means by which the South could regain the
dignity and status it had lost during the war. Thus, the
southern manufacturer replaced the planter and the
Confederate officer as the leader on whose shoulders the
fate of the region depended. Accompanying this vision of
the manufacturer as leader, and industry as the means to progress, was the knowledge that industry prospered because of cheap, unorganized labor.23 And, after all,
2lMitchell and Mitchell, p. 7.
22Mitchell and Mitchell, pp. 7-8.
22cash, p. 297. 28 as indicated earlier, the worker’s purpose was to benefit his betters.
Seen in this light, a strike or an attempt to
organize constituted a class-revolt, threatened the father-
child relationship, and endangered the future of the South
and everyone in it. In addition, "it was widely felt in
all classes that the strikes constituted a sort of
defiance of the will of Heaven.The'South has long
been recognized as a region in which fundamentalist
religion flourishes. Associated with this type of belief
is a very harsh determinism which, when applied to the labor situation, suggested that the status-quo was the will
of God. Management and labor were already getting what
they deserved. If God wanted things to be different, He
would do something about it. It was not unusual to hear
evangelists preaching against unions and union organizers during the period.25
If these attitudes and beliefs were not enough to prevent labor organization, there was one other belief which could be relied upon to preserve the status-quo: unions were pro-Communist. As Cash states, "common people 2 *
24Cash, p. 350.
25cash, pp. 350-351. 29 wholly, and even upper-rank Southerners largely, lumped
all aliens indiscriminately together as carriers of the Communist seed."26 The union organizer, even if he came
from the town down the road, was an outsider and, as
such, was influenced by Communism. The term "outside
agitator" which was so common during the civil rights era
was equally common with reference to the labor movement
in the thirties.
Although it is true there were efforts on the
part of the Communists to infiltrate labor unions in
the South, their activities in no way justified the
red-baiting which occurred in the region during the
period. A better explanation of the cry of
"Communist inspired" may be found in the fact that the
status-quo was so entrenched in southern life and belief
that any attempt to change it, especially for the
betterment of the poor, must have been a tremendous shock
to those dedicated to its preservation. The southern manager and general public must have found it very
difficult to believe the local poor, to whom they had been so kind, were trying to change the system. It was a good system, it had worked for years. However, by attributing cause to an outside source, and to one as
26 Cash, p. 297. 30 terrible as Communism, the unthinkable became thinkable.
The local poor, who were not very bright anyway,
could easily be swayed by outside and/or foreign
agitators intent on robbing the South and on destroying
its traditions. Thus, the charge of "Communist inspired"
may have often resulted from feelings similar- to those
of a parent who is convinced the child next door made
son John throw a rock through one of the school windows.
The southern worker, as noted earlier, was also suscep
tible to thè attitudes and beliefs of his region. As a part of him, they had to be overcome before he could better himself.
In summary, the attitudes and beliefs to which
the Mitchells referred as obstacles to organization include sectionalism, fear of Negro equality, the perpetuation of traditional class-roles, the South's belief in progress through industrial development, fundamentalist religion, and fear of Communist influence.
These affected not only the upper and middle-class
Southerner but the worker as well.
A picture of the environmental situation in the
South with regard to labor indicates clearly that the area was in the midst of the depression, and the labor force was plentiful, unskilled, uneducated, and un organized. Industry was young and predominantly textiles. 31
The faith of the region was placed firmly in the develop
ment of industry as the cure-all for its problems; and
cheap, unorganized labor was the foundation on which
industrial development depended. In addition, the
South was a tradition-bound region, and many of its
attitudes and beliefs were ones which strongly supported
the maintenance of the status-quo.
Workers1 Education and Highlander Folk School
Highlander Folk School was established to work
with the southern worker in the southern situation. At
the same time the school was representative of several
nationwide, private, independent institutions devoted to
the problems of the worker. All of these schools shared
a common philosophical basis: pragmatic progrèssivism.
The American progressive movement began in the
late nineteenth century and, in one form or another, has been present ever since. Progressivism denotes dedication to meeting the problems created by industrialization, specifically those relating to economic and social democra cy. One of the primary concerns of progressives was the fate of the individual as the nation moved from a simple
7 7 The foregoing discussion of the intellectual history of the South relies mainly on Cash's The Mind of the South, and upon the Mitchells' Industrial Revolution in the South. A similar discussion many be found in Tindall's The Emergence of the New South which is cited in subsequent pages. 32 agrarian society to an urban mechanized society. In
the transition the individual was being replaced by the collective whole.28
Pragmatic progressivism advocated the
"reconstruction of society" so as to
provide the individual with a collective environment that dealt with the social and economic problems of an industrialized society while maintaining a framework conducive to his self-development.29
The key term is reconstructed, or to use the synonym,
transformed. The present society and its institutions must be reconstructed or transformed to meet the needs
of the new situation created by industrialization. This,
it was beleived, could be accomplished by a society of active, informed, responsible individuals, and the place in which these individuals were most likely to be developed was the school. In the field of education, the movement supportive of this theory was progressive education, and its chief spokesman was John Dewey.
The school as an institution in the present society was to be transformed into Dewey's new school
2&Gerald N. Grob and Robert N. Beck, eds., Ideas in America: Source Readings in the Intellectual History of the United States (New York: Free Press, 1970), pp. 249-254. 29Grob and Beck, p. 281. 33 which would be a "lever for social change"3^ and an
institution which would refute the dichotomony of indi vidual versus society. "He ^Deweyj wanted schools to
inculcate habits that would enable individuals to control their surroundings rather than merely adapt to them."31
Education was
that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experienced2
Highlander and other workers’ schools were, in
effect, models for the new school. Before discussing
how they exemplified the new school, one must differentiate
their positions in the field of workers' education. This
is important because the group of schools under
consideration maintained a broader perspective than
other organizations, and this gives them their unique
identity within the field of education as a whole and justifies their being called models for Dewey's new school.
30LaWrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf\ 1964), p. 119. 31cremin, p. 123.
32Cremin, citing Dewey's Democracy and Education, p. 122. 34
Most, if not all, workers' education programs originated from one of four types of sources: local, state or federal governments; unions; already existing organizations and institutions such as churches, women's groups and universities ; and the private schools. Of the four, the private schools' programs had the opportunity to be the most innovative because the originators, on the surface at least, owed allegiance to no one. Thus the programs developed by these educators were the least conservative and the least organization centered.
Because of their nature, the private schools could more easily become levers for social change, and they were also more free to work with any and all groups which suited their needs and the needs of their students. Not being committed to current conventions and organizations enabled the faculty of these institutions to maintain a broader perspective of society if they wanted to. In essence, they were free to envision and work toward a new society. Thus, the nature of their origin invited the private, independent workers' schools to become models for Dewey's new school.
Workers' education differed from the general adult education in four important ways. The programs were based on the realization that the majority of the students were severely lacking in formal education. Secondly, one 35 major goal was to prepare and motivate the students for social action, the nature of which varied according to individual school or group philosophy. Attempts to accommodate these two factors led to a third difference: subject matter was presented within the framework of the student's everyday experience, which at that time was primarily work-related. Classes therefore were generally informal and were designed to elicit student discussion and participation. The fourth important difference was an attempt to interest the worker-student in the arts as a means of life enrichment.
In 1934, Education and the Worker-Student was published by the Affiliated Schools for Workers, the official organization of the private workers’ schools.
Written at the request of the Office of the Specialist in
Workers' Education of the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, the book recommended a curriculum which would provide the worker the opportunity for:
(1) discussion of current social and economic problems as a basis for intelligent action; (2) the building up of a background for these problems through material from the fields of economics, history, philosophy, ethics, literature, social psychology, and science; (3) the attaining of greater proficiency in the use of English as a tool for understanding and expressing ideas accurately and effectively; (4) an appreciation of a richer life through the creative arts; 36
(5) instruction in basic principles of mental and physical health with special attention to workers' problems.33
The flexibility inherent in this proposal makes
it difficult to outline a typical curriculum, particularly
since all were directed toward the needs of the moment.
Generally, however, courses fell into two categories: tool
and background. A tool course was one geared to meet
specific requirements of the time. Public-speaking was
a common tool course in the early thirties. Later in the
decade the existence of many newly organized union locals
created a need for instruction in parliamentary law.
Background courses provided foundation material in history,
literature and government. Labor history and economics were also typical background courses.34
In general, the typical workers' education program can be described as one aimed at giving students information and skills necessary to enable them to function effectively and to better themselves in society.
33Jean Carter and Hilda W. Smith, Education and the Worker-Student: A Book About Workers' Education Based Upon the Experience of Teachers and Students (New York; Affiliated Schools for Workers, 1934),p. 16, 34Aiice Hanson, "Action and Study: Some Representative Examples of Workers' Education Programs," Workers' Education in the United States: John Dewey Society, Fifth Yearbook (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 138. 37
Highlander's policies and methods went beyond these since the school attempted to provide not only information and skills but experience as well.
The social philosophy on which Highlander was founded envisioned a society which brought "the greatest happiness to the greatest number."35 At the time of the - * school's inception, the major perceived obstacle to this goal was "centralization of the economy into the hands of a few," ° which, in effect, amounted to centralization of decision-making power. Therefore, economic democracy, achieved by economic and political organizations of the masses, was a primary social goal.^7 Labor, which was considered to embrace "white collar and professional oo workers as well as manual laborers,provided the base for a movement toward economic democracy. Thus, the labor movement was a means to an end. Furthermore,
35"interview with Myles Horton conducted by Aimee Horton, 1966," Highlander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, p. 8. (Typewritten.) ^"interview, Horton by Horton," Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 28. 37Myles Horton, "The Community Folk School,” Samuel Everett, ed., The Community School (New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1938) reprinted in New Schools Exchange Newsletter, 136: November 1976, p. 3. 38"interview, Horton by Horton," Wisconsin State Historical Society, pp. 8-9. 38
included in the rationale which is associated with
Highlander was a realization an organization in itself
does not accomplish anything. Accomplishment depends
upon the individuals who compose the organization. For
this reason, the Highlander program focused on tapping
those leadership qualities inherent in the individual. In other words, Highlander operated on a very pragmatic
premise: individuals could form organizations Which could
promote a better societv--if the individuals acted.
Given such a premise the primary task was one of
reaching the individual and promoting effective action
on his part. The school responded to this task by adopt
ing a two-fold plan. First, it worked with groups of
individuals who had a common problem or problems.
You can only develop leadership qualities of people when they are involved in something, people in motion. Then, you can get your educational ideas across.39
Secondly, the solving of the problems was approached
from the students' level of experience. Education was "dealing with people's problems based on their
39Myles Horton, quoted by Aimee Horton, "The Highlander Folk School: A History of the Development of Its Major Programs Related to Social Movements in the South, 1932-1961" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1971), p. 60. 39 experience."49 In short, the Highlander idea is that the
individual will respond to a program which concerns
issues important to him and which is structured at his
experience level. The methodology employed to reach the
student’s experience level was that of creating or
using environments similar to those faced on an everyday basis.41
The worker-students who came to Highlander faced
common problems, and it was these problems which the
school's program aimed to meet. Furthermore, approaching
the problems within a situation familiar to the student placed emphasis upon student action--upon the student solving the problem. The teacher's role was that of discussion leader, guide, and consultant--not that of problem-solver.
Thus the educational philosophy, theory, and methodology for which Highlander is known can be said to rest on two basic principles: (1) the function of education is to help people with current problems and prepare them to deal more effectively with future problems, and (2) people can learn from experience. While some might argue
49lnterview with Myles Horton at the home of Mrs. Charles Wolfe in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 24 September 1977. 41Myles Horton, "The Community School," p. 5. 40
with the first principle on the basis it is too limited,
it is a clear statement. The second, however, is not and
needs further explanation. Two aspects of this statement
need to be discussed: What is meant by experience?
How can people learn from experience?
Experience when used as an educational concept in
this research means total human involvement. This defini
tion can be appreciated when it is remembered many of the
principles coming out of progressive, education were a
reaction against past principles. Education-by-experience
was a reaction against approaching students strictly on
an intellectual basis. Instead, the progressives maintained,
students should be led to experience material emotionally
and physically as well as intellectually. In this manner, the whole person is educated. Examples of
techniques used to achieve this goal are discussions
rather than lectures, and projects rather than papers.
The emphasis is upon doing, which includes thinking, rather than just intellectualizing. Therefore, Highlander
students learned how to organize picket lines by visiting and participating in picket lines. Furthermore, when a real-life situation was not at hand, an attempt was made to create one by means of improvisation. Information and skills were "experienced" whenever possible. This is not to say Highlander did not have formal classes, because they 41 were a regular part of the school’s format, but class methodology was focused on experience--on the physical
application of theory and concepts. As will be seen later, one means of giving students experience was by improvisation and dramatization.
People can learn by experience if the experience and the processes, or principles, involved in it are understood. The act of solving a current problem can be preparation for dealing with future problems. This idea paraphrases Dewey's definition of education
as that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.^2
Obviously the experience of solving a .current problem will be meaningful to those involved. The critical point is that of increasing ability to deal with future experience. According to Myles Horton, co-founder and educational director of Highlander during the period being examined, people learn from experience only if they understand it. 3 Highlander's technique of placing students in situations similar to those they faced in
^2cremin, citing Dewey's Democracy and Education, p. 122. “ ¿^Horton interview, 1977. real life was one means of promoting understanding. The
students were more likely to understand because the level of experience was their level.
There is, however, another aspect of experience which must be considered if learning is to occur. There is momentary experience, and there is experience which occurs over time. A student may understand what is happening each moment but fail to grasp the overall development or the process or principles involved in it. This failure, accord ing to Mr. Horton, is why people do not learn from their experience: "people don’t understand process."44 Therefore,
Highlander was very concerned with making students aware of the process or principles involved in the solving of a prob lem since this was essential to preparing them to meet future problems. One of the first steps in such an effort is to make students aware of the concept of process.
Dramatics at Highlander provided a means of acquainting students with process.
As an institution devoted to workers' education, then, Highlander supplied its students with information and skills thought necessary to enable the worker-student to function effectively and to better himself in society. In addition, the school attempted to achieve more complete learning by having the students actually experience material
44Horton interview, 1977. 43 Highlander Folk School also advocated the
establishment of a society in which the majority made the
decisions and shared the wealth. The labor movement
provided a means of reaching that majority. Work toward
the desired social state was directed by the very pragmatic
realization that such a society could exist only if the
individuals who composed the majority were capable of
taking effective social and political action. Therefore,
emphasis was placed on reaching the individual on three
different levels: (1) subject matter, by working with
problems currently faced by the individual; (2) environ mental, by placing him in situations very much like those he faced on an everyday basis; and (3) experience, by having the student actually experience the process of
solving his problems. It was hoped the student's experience at Highlander would carry over and affect his actions after he left the school. Thus, it was with this approach that the school hoped to activate the southern worker. Looking back at the entire situation which consist ed of a then ultra-liberal institution establishing itself in an ultra-conservative environment, one wonders how the school was able to survive, let alone become nationally known. Before offering a speculative answer to this question, one should note survival was not easy. 44 Highlander's right to exist was attacked by the general
community in which it was situated; by anti-labor factions
in the state; by the state press, the majority of which was an anti-labor faction in itself; and by the Dies
committee, to name a few. Hearing the charge of
"Communist-inspired" has almost become a tradition for
Highlander. A visit to Highlander Center uncovered a recent letter from an anonymous writer telling the
"Commie's" to leave the country. But Highlander did survive and by 1947 had reached nearly 20,000 people through its resident sessions, extension classes, and institutes.^5
Why was Highlander successful? The frankly speculative answer offered here is that the. Highlander approach was the most appropriate for transforming the situation in which the school existed. The idea of trying to reach the whole individual through experience which involved emotion as well as intellect seems most fitting when it is realized most of the obstacles to the progress of the southern worker were emotional in nature.
Antagonism toward the north, fear of black equality, the fear of change fostered by fundamentalist religion,
¿^Highlander Fling 6 (January 1947), p. 4. 45
the persistence of the master-slave class roles, and even
the seemingly fanatical dedication to progress are
products of emotion, not intellect. When the school was
established in 1932, the emotions of the people, including
the worker, were already directing their actions. The
success of Highlander may be attributed to the school’s
approach which took these already operating forces and
re-directed them.
Highlander's educational philosophy and theory
remained constant throughout its association with workers'
education, but the school's program changed to meet the
needs of an expanding labor movement. A brief survey
of developments over a seventeen-year period will give
some indication of how the needs varied. Pertinent
developments are (1) supportive labor legislation and programs, (2) changes in organized labor at the national
level, and (3) union membership growth. A fourth topic which must be dealt with separately is those changes in the field of workers' education which resulted from increasing membership and the increasing power of unions.
A final event which needs only to be mentioned, but which had enormous effect on the labor movement and workers' education, was the economic boom produced by World War II.
It, in effect, created a new industry in the South, as well as the nation--the defense industry. 46 Legislation and programs of the New Deal provided strong support for the labor movement. The National
Industry Recovery Act of 1933 maintained workers had the
right to organize and bargain collectively. This law
was replaced by the National Labor Relations Act
(Wagner Bill) of 1935 which required companies to recognize
and bargain with unions chosen by workers and licensed
the National Labor Board to administer the provisions of
the new legislation.Both of these acts gave a strong
impetus to the labor movement. An example of a sup portive program is the Works Progress Administration which provided work for the unemployed. Since WPA jobs were open to strikers, they provided economic relief and, in some cases, effected the’prolongation of a strike AO until worker demands could be met. In addition, the
"stimulus of Federal aid" provoked all Southern states to provide unemployment insurance and public employment services by 1940.^9 As a result a more favorable
^Sanford Cohen, Labor in the United States, 3rd ed. (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, Publishing Co., 1970), p. 102. 7Cohen, p. 109.
^Frank Traver DeVyver, "The Present Status of Labor Unions in the South," Southern Economic Journal 5 (1933-1939), p. 496. ¿^George Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), p. 531. 47 climate for labor was established on the state and local levels. Thus, federal legislation and programs promoted the growth of the labor movement during the period.
The decade of the thirties also saw a tremendous reorganization and rivalry in labor on the national level.
At the beginning of the decade, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was the principal national organization.
One of the major controversies of the era was whether organization should be by craft or by industry. The AFL was primarily craft-oriented, and by 1935 the desire for industrial unionism led to the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization headed by John L. Lewis. This organization evolved into the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO, in 1938.50 The latter half of the decade was marked by rivalry between the two groups, one consequence of which was intensified organization by both.51
A major target for both the AFL and CIO was the southern textile industry, which had long withstood unionism. The latter part of the thirties and early forties saw several drives to organize southern textiles.
50cohen, p, 102,
51-DeVyver, p. 495, 48 The first of these was in March of 1937 when the United
Textile Workers of America and the CIO joined to form the
Textile Workers' Organizing Committee (TWOC) and spent
over two million dollars trying to reach the southern
textile worker. This campaign was followed by an AFL campaign in 1939 and by another CIO campaign in 1940.^3
The frequency of these drives suggests none was as suc-
cesful as hoped, but, generally speaking, the CIO had the
most success. It was not until World War II that the AFL f- / became significant in southern textiles.3 In 1946,
the AFL and CIO both instituted campaigns in what has
become known as Operation Dixie. At this time, according
to Marshall, only 20 percent of the southern textile
industry was organized as compared to 70 percent in the
North. J The statistics are not impressive, but textile
unionism had become a fact by 1946. "Meeting union S ft standards became a common tactic to keep the union out."
In effect, changes in organized labor on the national level provided the worker with a greater choice
32Marshall, p. 169. ^Marshall, pp. 171-173.
^Marshall, p. 172.
^Marshall, p. 246.
56Tindall, p. 521. and a greater opportunity to become organized. And while
the increase of southern textile union membership does
not appear significant, the increase of southern union
membership as a whole does. Frank DeVyver in 1938
stated the southern labor movement had reached a point
where it could be considered part of a national move- 57 ment. It has been estimated there were between 400,000 and 500,000 union members in the South at this time.^8
By 1948, the estimate was 1,000,000.59 Thus, it can be
said that during the period under consideration, southern
labor organization began, came into its own, and doubled.
The growth of the labor movement was naturally
accompanied by an increase in workers' education programs, many of which were union sponsored. Pre-existent schools
shortened terms and offered special sessions and weekend institutes in order to accommodate more students.60 The subject areas of workers' education were greatly expanded by the need for instruction in maintaining newly
^^DeVyver, p. 493.
58Tindall, p. 521.
59Tindall, p. 522.
^Eleanor G. Coit, "Progressive Education at Work," Workers' Education in the United States, 1941, p, 155. 50
established locals. As one educator phrased it, workers'
education was "faced with the double problem of getting new members and training those who had joined so the union could function."63 This quotation is not only an accurate assessment of the situation but is also an indication of a shift of emphasis in the labor movement during the period
The emphasis is on members for .the union and on keeping the union functioning--an emphasis different from that of
Highlander and the other private workers' institutions.
The writer cited above, who was affiliated with the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, defined workers' education as supporting the "energies and wants of or ganized labor."62 Another union affiliated educational director wrote workers' education
aims at equipping workers with the kind of tools that will enable him (siqj to become a better wage earner, and this means to make him a union member and ever a better union member.63
The emphasis here is on the organization rather than the individual, an emphasis which contradicted the
6lAlice Hanson, "Workers' Education on the March," American Teacher 29 (April 1939), pp. 15-18. 62nanson, Workers' Education in the United States, 1941, p. 115.
63j. b. s. Hardman, "The Challenge and the Opportunity," Workers' Education in the United States, 1941, p. 7. 51 basic intention of Highlander, and which eventually precipitated the school's break with labor.
During its association with the labor movement
Highlander developed a three-fold educational program
of community, resident, and extension activities. The
focus of this research is on the resident term because
it provided opportunity for the most intensive dramatic activities, but community and extension activities are relevant because the three programs were interrelated,
in keeping with Highlander's determination to utilize actual situations and provide experience for its students, as well as its attempts to meet the needs of the current situation. Prior to World War II the school generally offered two six-week resident terms each year. During and after the war, the regular resident term was often replaced by shorter specialized terms lasting from one month to one week. The number of students attending resident terms varied; generally speaking, terms before 1937 show fewer than twenty, with 64 those afterwards enrolling twenty or more. The school staff, which usually numbered around seven, worked with all three programs. 6
64Aimee Horton, p. 347. 52 A general overview of the development of High
lander's workers' education program is given by Aimee
Horton's dissertation, "The Highlander Folk School: A
History of the Development of Its Major Programs Related
to Social Movements in the South, 1932-1961." Mrs..
Horton divides the program into five phases. Interspersed with the outline of the program development is a brief history of the school's connection with the CIO. As might be expected, Highlander was very much in favor of industrial unionism and formed a strong association with the CIO at its inception. During the late 1940's, however, the conservative nature and organizational goals of the CIO became so far removed from Highlander's liberal nature and individual-directed goals that the association became severely strained. Shortly thereafter,
Highlander devoted its energies to civil rights.
The first phase of development of Highlander's workers' education program was between 1932 and 1934.
At this time the resident program was small and the school was struggling to establish itself. The general aim was to prepare soon-to-be-needed local leadership for the anticipated labor movement. The resident student was very active in the community program and made occasional
"strike-supporting" field-visits to nearby areas. 53
During the years 1935-1937, as southern labor began to move, the entire program was shifted toward extension activities. The resident student was often involved in field activities.
In 1937, Highlander devoted the majority of its resources and energy to helping promote the TWOC organizing campaign. As a result, strong ties with CIO affiliates and officials were formed. Consequently, even though the school continued to work with other organiza tions and groups, an increasing number of its students were sympathetic to or affiliated with the CIO.
The workers' program entered its third phase in
1938 when the number of newly organized locals in the
South and their need for local leadership caused a shift of emphasis back to the resident term. In this phase the majority of the students were union-affiliated and were, consequently, more experienced and sophisticated with regard to industry than those of previous terms. The business of building and maintaining unions became more prevalent in the curriculum during this period, which lasted until 1942. It was also during this phase that
Highlander students were most active in dramatic activities. '
Midway through this phase, World War II produced a fourth change. The school expanded its extension work to 54 meet the needs of a rapidly developing southern defense-
related industry, and large-scale extension programs
situated in various cities employed a substantial amount
of the school's energies between 1940 and 1944. For the
most part, the resident students did not participate in these programs in other cities.
By 1943 the labor movement had become largely institutionalized, and the general resident term was superseded by special terms for special groups.65
Highlander became known as the CIO School of the
South in 1944, when it was asked to help the CIO conduct
its first annual southern school term on the school
premises. Several annual CIO schools were held at Highlander even though relations between the two organiza
tions became strained. By this time the CIO had developed
its own education department, and the social philosophy
advocated by Highlander was not conducive to the image the CIO wished to project.65 The situation worsened until
1949, when the CIO temporarily broke thé relationship because of alleged "left-wing Communist influence" at the school. Even though Highlander did continue some
65Aimee Horton, pp. 98-99.
56Aimee Horton, pp. 179-180.
6?Frank Adams with Myles Horton, Unearthing Seeds of Fire : The Idea of Highlander (Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, 1975), p. 86. 55 workers' education activities after this, it soon focused its energies and resources on what was then a budding
Highlander Folk School was a private, independent
institution dedicated to helping the southern worker
improve his life in an environment where a desire to
preserve the status-quo was detrimental to this objective. The school operated on a philosophy of pragmatic
progressivism which led to a belief in education-by-
experience and which produced a highly flexible and
experimental curriculum.
Dramatic activities were an organic part of Highlander's curriculum since drama, a cultural approach
to education, was a means of providing experience. The development of Highlander's dramatics program illustrates the flexibility and the experimental nature of the total curriculum. When drama, an educative tool, no longer met current needs, it was replaced by other techniques which did. CHAPTER III
THE HIGHLANDER DRAMATICS PROGRAM 1932-1942
Introduction
In the foregoing explanation of the educational
philosophy, theory, and methodology for which Highlander
Folk School has become known, attention is not given to
the general process of growth and maturation which any
established institution undergoes. This process must be cited because it affected the development of the school's dramatics program. As an organic part of the
school's curriculum, the program's development reflects
and parallels developments within the school's overall
educational program. Thus, an acknowledgement of a process of growth and maturation as well as an under standing of its nature are essential elements in an explanation of the development of the Highlander dramatics program.
Highlander's basic educational philosophy and theory remained constant throughout its association with the labor movement, but developing the best techniques with which to realize them required time and experimenta tion. When the school was first established, its staff 57 was composed of a group of young, educated idealists with a common social philosophy. Their experience level was drastically different from that of their intended students, uneducated southern workers, and the first crucial tasks these young educators faced were understanding and learn ing to relate to the experience level of their students.
Highlander staff had to learn how to structure programs and activities at the experience level of their students before they could achieve their educational and social goals. During the school's early years, techniques and methods which proved effective were maintained while those which did not were discarded. Staff meeting minutes ' consistently provide summaries of evaluations of teach ing and program effectiveness.
The Highlander dramatics program at any given time, therefore, reflects the school's degree of success in presenting material at the experience level of the student. Another aspect of the dramatics program which must be considered is the flexible nature of the school's total curriculum. Since Highlander was concerned with providing a curriculum which met the current needs of the labor movement, its curriculum was a dynamic one. Therefore,
•’•Staff meeting minutes and miscellany file, Highlander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. 58
while staff members were endeavoring to discover the most effective teaching methodology, they were also adjusting
subject matter to meet the needs of a changing situation,
the southern labor movement and the worker-students who were a part of it. Also, the way in which the dramatics program met the needs of the situation and of the
students was, to a great extent, determined by the
interests and training of the individual or individuals who supervised the program. These determining factors were variables. The effect of their influence was conditioned by what can be called the major determinant of Highlander’s dramatics program: the educational theory which made dramatics a part of the curriculum. Education and experience were synonomous terms at Highlander.
Dramatics was a part of the school's curriculum because it was a way of providing education-by-means-of-experience.
Dramatics was a cultural approach to education. An understanding of what is meant by a cultural approach to * education is gained by quickly examining Highlander's concept and use of culture.
Culture at Highlander Folk School was, not surprisingly, predominantly folk culture. The school's cultural activities included music and folk-dancing as well as drama. Both of the former arts received national and international recognition during the school's 59 involvement with the labor movement. The folk-music
program was directed by Zilphia Horton, who published
several collections of workers' song during the period.
Also, Mrs. Horton and folk-singer, Pete Seeger "modified the words and tune slightly" of a song brought to
Highlander by two union members from Charleston, South Carolina; the song became "We Shall Overcome."2 Folk
dancing reached its peak at Highlander under the direction
of Ralph Tefferteller, and in 1938, Highlander folk-
dancers appeared at the National Folk Festival in
Washington, D. C. International recognition of the
school's activities in folk-music and dancing was achieved
in 1936 when a program of "ballads, workers' songs'and native folk dances" was broadcast from the school to
England.At first glance, it may seem strange to see a pragmatic institution such as Highlander be so energetic in its pursuit of cultural activities. Explanation lies in Highlander's concept of the educational value of cultural activities.
2Frank Adams with Myles Horton, Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander (Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, Publisher, 1975), pp. 75-76. ^"Report on Highlander Activities, 1938," Highlander Folk School, Mss. 1811, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee. ^H. Glyn Thomas, "A History of the Highlander Folk School, 1932-1941" (M.A. thesis, Peabody College, 1964), p. 52. 60
Cultural activities have great potential as educative tools because they entail total human involve ment, physical and emotional as well as intellectual, on the part of participants. In other words, singing, dancing and dramatics are activities which demand a complete personal involvement rather than a strictly intellectual one. This is significant because the total involvement of cultural activities is identical to that ideally sought by educators who believe learning-is best achieved when a student experiences subject matter. Since High lander's educational theory was based on experience, cultural activities were one means of providing students with educational experience. To employ Myles Horton's terminology, cultural activities were a means of "non-verbal" education. Non verbal education and education by experience were synonomous to Mr. Horton, as illustrated by an example he used to explain non-verbal educational techniques employed by the school: While at Highlander, resident students lived in a society representative of the one projected by the school's social philosophy. Believing the way in which the school's program was conducted and the way in which the students lived were more important than any verbal statements, the Highlander staff structured and controlled a social situation at the 61 school which mirrored the Highlander philosophy of social
and economic democracy. As Mr. Horton said concerning the school environment:
We literally put the student in a situation. We controlled the set-up. That made the living a demonstration of what we believed. We didn’t have to talk about things because the situation was such.
It was in this non-verbal manner that Highlander students were led to experience what their teachers felt was the desirable society,.
Cultural activities such as dramatics were another means of providing experience. Involvement in dramatics was total and provided the opportunity for content to be experienced internally. Ideally, internalization of content would make it a part of the student, much in the same manner as native culture is internalized. Such internalization of content is a necessary and crucial concept because it denotes the way in which dramatics activities must be conducted if they are to be effective educational tools.
The degree of meaningful experience achieved by participation in cultural activities is determined by how closely the activities relate to the experience level of
5Interview with Myles Horton at his home in New Market, Tennessee, 19 July 1976. 62
the participant. For example, a performance of an Italian
opera would have been meaningless to the average American
worker in the thirties. Cultural activities structured at
an inappropriate experience level, especially when the
goals are educational, could cause a culture shock on the
part of the participant and spectator. Workers’ theatre,
on the other hand, needed to consist of plays about workers
by workers, and for workers in an attempt to make the
experience as meaningful as possible. Thus, the level of
learning sought corresponds to that level at which innate acquired knowledge such as native culture exists. This concept of education is most prevalent today as illustrated by the special educational programs designed for blacks and other minority groups who have grown up in ethnic cultures. The success or failure of a cultural approach to education depends upon how closely the experience level of the activities involved corresponds to the experience level of the student.
In summary, the nature of the Highlander Folk
School dramatics program was determined by five factors:
1. Highlander's theory of education-as-experience and a concept of dramatics as a means of providing experience.
2. Highlander’s consistent dedication to present ing subject matter at the student's experience level. 63 3. The needs of the labor movement.
4. The nature of the student body.
5. The interests and training of the individual(s)
in charge of dramatics. .
Consideration of the ways in which these
determinants affected the Highlander dramatics program at
any given time leads to an explanation of' the development
of the dramatics program which reflects the perspective of
those who were actually involved. There are three
justifications for this approach. First, continuity is
given to a discussion which would otherwise be a collection
of data. Secondly, an understanding of some of the most
interesting aspects of Highlander's dramatics program--why
certain activities were undertaken, the purpose of the
activities, and the results of their implementation--is
gained. Finally, such an approach suggests the process
of growth and maturation undergone by the institution as a whole and illustrates how it affected the dramatics
program. Since the following chronological explanation is
lengthy, it is necessary briefly to examine and discuss
the way in which the five factors listed above influenced
dramatic activities at Highlander. The results of such
an examination are a partial overview of the development of the program and an indication of how the five
determining factors are utilized in discussion. , 64
Drama has the potential of providing two basic
types of experience: experience-as-spectator and
experience-as-participant. While any conventional theatre
Z'- . activity naturally entails both types, Highlander generally
emphasized one of the two. Insight into the meaning
fulness of the use of drama as a means of educating
spectator and participant is gained by examining how
closely the dramatic activity related to their experience
levels. When the goal is education-by-experience-as-
spectator, content is an important factor. For example,
a play about teachers would be closer to the experience
level of teachers than would a play about chemists.
Content is also important when the goal is education-by-
experience-as-participant. In this type of experience, however, the way in which the experience is achieved must be considered. The experience of participating in a play written by someone else is different than participating in an original play. The latter endeavor will most likely be closer to the experience level of the participant and, consequently, will be more meaningful. Therefore, the types of activities used in Highlander's dramatics program are discussed with regard to whether they provided education-by-experience-as-spectator and/or education-by- experience-as-participant, and with regard to how they related to the experience level of those involved. A 65
consequence of this approach is an awareness of the
maturation process undergone by the dramatics program and
the school during the period.
Some understanding of why certain types of
activities were employed at any given time is obtained by
discussing the needs of the labor movement, the nature of
the student body, and the training and interests of the
individual instructor. Of the three, the former is most
significant. Aimee Horton's phases of Highlander's over
all workers' education program is relied upon to provide
information concerning how the school responded to these needs. Supplementary explanation of current events and
developments in the labor movement are included when necessary.
During the period, Highlander students progres
sively became more sophisticated and informed about the labor movement. Thus, the varying needs and experience level of the student body, in general, determined the types of dramatic activities employed by the school. The importance of considering the training and interests of staff is illustrated by the work of Zilphia Horton.
Previous to Mrs, Horton's becoming director, the dramatics class passed through several hands. After 1936, when she assumed the supervision of the program, Highlander dramatics as an educative tool reached maturity. Thus, 66
together, the needs of the labor movement, the nature of
the student body, and the training and interests of super
visory staff provide an explanation of why certain types
of activities were conducted at specific times.
Dramatic activities at Highlander were a means of
educating by experience. The following chronological
discussion of the resident dramatics program examines the
types of activities, provides a description of their nature as an educational means, gives some consideration
to their effectiveness, and offers an explanation of why
a particular activity was utilized at a given time.
1932-36: Education-by-Experience-as-Spectator
During the first four years of Highlander's existence, the emphasis of the dramatics program was upon educating the spectator. The period was also one of experimentation during which the possibilities of dramatics as an educative tool were realized even though staff turnover and an unstable labor movement prevented a continuous development and implementation of the educational possibilities.
Highlander Folk School was established in November of 1932, in Summerfield, a small community on Monteagle Mountain in southeastern Tennessee. The location was ideally suited to Highlander interests because
Summerfield is within a day's travel of industrial centers 67 such as Chattanooga, Knoxville, Atlanta, Huntsville,
Nashville and Louisville. Summerfield is also in Grundy
County, which was listed as one of the eleven poorest
counties in the United States in the 1930's. The land
in the area was too poor to farm, and the labor force depended primarily upon coal mining and the timber industry for employment. Jobs were very scarce, particulary since the area's timber and coal resources were practically depleted. The people of the community were southern mountain people: poor, uneducated, independent, and proud. Unions had made little headway in the general region, especially in the textile industry which was rapidly developing. The first few years of
Highlander's existence were devoted to establishing the institution as a reliable source of help, developing a three-fold workers' education program, and learning how to relate to the worker-student.
1932-34. Highlander's educational goal for the years 1932-34 was to prepare "would-be local leadership for a role in the anticipated labor movement"7--anticipated because the concept of a nation-wide labor movement and its
6Adams, pp. 27-28.
^Aimee Horton, "The Highlander Folk School: A History of the Development of Its Major Programs Related to Social Movements in the South, 1932-1961" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1971), p. 98. 68 benefits were unknown in the general area. Past negative
experience, such as the 1929 textile strikes, and general
ignorance and suspicion necessitated a program which would catch the attention of workers as well as inform
them of the positive attributes of labor organization.
During this period the community, resident, and extension programs were closely related. Structure at the school was extremely informal, and the only requirement for admittance during this period was a desire to learn.
Resident students, staff, and community members generally participated in all activities, including dramatic activities.
The first year's report on school activities states "Jonnye West led a young people's dramatic group Q and produced several labor plays." Jonnye West was a sister to Don West, co-founder of Highlander. There is no evidence to indicate she had any theatre background, and it is very likely she was given the responsibility for the drama group simply because she expressed an interest or Q was available. Little is known about the group's activities, but available evidence indicates evening
^"Highlander Folk School, The First Year," Tennessee State Library and Archives, p. 1. (Mimeographed.) ^The Wests left Highlander in 1934. See Adams, p. 44. 69 performances for audiences composed of resident students, community members, and staff. ■’■^ Cast members probably
included representatives from all of these groups as well
as young people. The plays produced were most likely
selections from the then-standard labor repertoire.
Highlander files contain a letter, written around four months after Highlander opened, from Louise McLaren,
Director of Southern Summer Schools for Women Workers in
Industry, to Myles Horton. Mrs. McLaren's letter is, in part, an answer to a request for plays and information about plays because, apparently, the Southern Summer
School provided lending library services. Titles of plays mentioned include the League of Industrial Defense
Plays performed during a West Virginia Chautauqua in 1931;
Tom Tippet's What Price Coal performed at Brookwood;
Vassar's Experimental Theatre's Can You Hear Their Voices; plays from the Carolina Players at the University of
North Carolina; and plays available in Commonwealth College's publication, Fortnightly.H All of these titles and references are regularly included in labor play
■’■^Aimee Horton, p. 98. ■’■■’■Louise McLaren to Myles Horton, 22 February 1933, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 70 bibliographies of the period, 12 Therefore, it is very
probable the first dramatic presentations at Highlander
consisted of performances of conventional labor plays.
The most meaningful conclusion to be drawn from
this data is dramatics was considered important enough to
be included in the original school program. No definite
answer can be given as to why. A possible reason for the
performances of the plays is the novel appeal going to see
a play would have for the mountain-folk. Doing a play
would have been a very effective way of getting people to
come to Highlander, involving them in the school's
activities, and providing a forum for discussion. In
addition, whether by deliberate intent or not, the plays
were educational. The content of all labor plays, regardless of title, was supportive of labor organization.
Furthermore, the plays informed the audience of the
existence of other groups in other places who faced
similar problems and situations. How badly information
of this type was needed can be appreciated by examining another Highlander undertaking during the school's first
year. In addition to making contact with the community and
offering a resident term, Highlander also began extension work during its first year. Classes were begun for
32gee; Jean Carter, Annotated List of Labor Plays (New York: Affiliated Schools for Workers, Inc~ 1938). 71 textile workers in Knoxville,-’-8 and assistance was offered
to nearby strikers.
One of the first strikes in which Highlander was involved was the coal strike at Wilder, Tennessee. Due to
the strength of the United Mine Workers in the South, the miners, at Wilder were organized. Nonetheless, Wilder was
a company town, which meant, among other things, employers
owned the workers' homes and controlled conveniences such as utilities and the company store. Patronage of the
latter was assured by payment of wages in company scrip redeemable only at the' store. The strike began in the
summer of 1932, when workers were given a 20 percent pay- cut, and lasted for a year during which the National
Guard was called in, men were murdered and wounded, homes were dynamited, and children died of starvation.
Highlander assisted by getting food and clothing for the strikers and by having students and staff generally support the strike. During this period of assistance, an attempt was made to bomb the school, the lives of staff members were threatened, and Myles Horton was arrested for "coming here Qzo Wilde^ and getting information and going back and teaching it."^ The strike was broken
18"Highlander Folk School for Workers in Knoxville," 1933 flyer, Wisconsin State Historical Society. l^Adams, p. 33. 72
in the early summer of 1933 after the leader of the local
union was murdered and the company began to evict workers
from their homes.Frank Adams provides an account of
the murder of the local strike leader, Barney Graham. He
. . . was shot in the back as he went to fetch a doctor for his ailing wife one Sunday evening about sunset. Ironically, he fell in front of the company store. Witnesses later testified his killers bashed in his head and stood guard over his body refusing to let anyone take it away until about 10:00 P.M.16
Situations such as the Wilder strike, and the
violence and terrorism accompanying them, were not un common in the lives of Highlander staff and their intended
students. Thus any play which featured a positive view
of labor organization and which implied that others were
in situations similar to Wilder could have had a
tremendous impact upon the mountain people, who, because of their lack of education and their isolation, probably relied heavily upon their immediate surroundings for information. Therefore, the presentation of the labor plays during Highlander’s first year was a means of education-by-experience-as-spectator.
l-^Adams, pp. 30-34; Thomas, pp. 67-72.
l^Adams, p. 34. 73
Education-by-experience-as-participant was also included in the first year's program although it was more or less adapted on the spur of the moment. Myles Horton remembers being unable to explain the difference between feudalism, slavery, and capitalism to a group of students in an economics class. He resorted to having the students act out the concepts in order to make them under stand. According to Mr. Horton, the class spent an entire day improvising the process which occurs when a society 1 7 passes from feudalism to capitalism.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, both types of dramatic activity must be viewed as experimental rather than as deliberate attempts to utilize the educational potential of dramatics. The continued inclusion of dramatics in the Highlander program suggests these experiments produced results which were considered positive and which paved the way for further experimentation The summer term of 1934 is an important one because it provides evidence of resident class dramatics which were deliberately educational. Several factors account for this development: the school's growth and experience, increased labor activity in the area, a more advanced group of students, and an instructor who had a
■^Horton interview, 1976. 74 theatre background and great interest in Highlander’s work.
By 1934, the size, training, and experience of the
Highlander staff were sufficient to enable the school to
execute its programs more fully than before. For example,
Elizabeth Hawes, a graduate of Vassar and former student at Brookwood Labor College, joined the staff in the fall of 1933. Ms. Hawes was an organizer for the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) and did extensive organizing work in the area around Highlander. Her classes at the school were directly related to her personal experience in the field, and, since her work was nearby, students in her classes learned by studying and examining 18 situations with which they were familiar. Another example is Mac Chisholm, a "wrought iron worker, an artist, a maker of marionettes, and a writer of plays," who also joined the staff late in 1933. •’■9 He came from
Chattanooga, where he had worked with the little theatre and had made marionettes and marionette stages for the
■’■^"Highlander Folk School Summer School Report and Summary of Reports of Other Educational Activities, September 1933-1934," Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 1. (Mimeographed.) ^Highlander Fling 1 (December 1933), p. 1. 75 20 Junior League. Chisholm was an activist and remained at the school for a little over a year before obtaining a position as a writer for a group of radical papers 21 and going to Europe. He was killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War in July of 1937.22 at Highlander, he supervised the dramatics program for the community and, in the summer of 1934, taught the drama class in the resident session.
An increasing amount of labor activity in the area, generated by other groups as well as Highlander, promoted a greater interest in and awareness of the labor movement, which in turn drew a more interested and advanced group of students to the school. The student body for the summer of 1934 was composed of three students, two teachers, two farmers, two textile workers, two laundry workers, a librarian, a nurse, a secretary, a mechanic, a truck driver, a painter, a housekeeper, and a labor organizer. As these various occupations suggest, two groups were represented: one which was interested in
9 fi Chisholm obituary in Chattanooga Free Press, 3 August 1937, Clipping file, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 91 Letter from Mac Chisholm to his mother, 10 March 1937, Wisconsin State Historical Society.
9 9 Chisholm obituary. 76
helping to organize and promote the labor movement, and
one which was just becoming aware of the labor movement.
Of the two groups, the latter was composed mainly of
students from the immediate area, while the former contained representatives from Alabama, New Jersey,
Connecticut, and New York. The education level of the entire group ranged from fifth grade to a college degree, with the lower spectrum being made up primarily of the 23 students from the local area. Highlander attempted to meet the diverse needs of the group by providing afternoon tutoring sessions devoted to instruction in reading and writing and to clarifying class concepts for those who needed them.It is possible the dramatics class was utilized to meet the special needs of those who had difficulty with regular class work. The resident drama class under the supervision of Chisholm, constructed an outdoor stage on which they performed scenes and a one-act play, titles unknown.
Students also gathered material on the Wilder strike and 25 began writing a play about it. Elsie Pearl Wolfe,
23"HFS Summer School Report, 33-34," P. 9.
'24"HFS Summer School Report, 33-34," P- 2.
25"HFS Summer School Report, 33-34," P- 1. 77 nee Horton, then eighteen, was at Highlander during the
summer session and, as a member of the Horton family, was
a regular visitor at the school until her marriage in
1936. She participated in and remembered the school's dramatic activities during the summer of 1934. According
to Mrs. Wolfe, the resident class dramatic activities were always concerned with demonstrating a point or conveying a message. "It was all for a cause or purpose; it was a fun thing you understand, but it wasn't for the 9 fi dramatic part itself; it was for a point."
The lack of specific titles makes a discussion of the content of the plays impossible, but theatre to demonstrate a point is most assuredly an example of education-by-experience-as-spectator and, possibly, by experience-as-participant. With regard to the latter, the drama report for the term provides some additional information. The one-act play was performed by three students from a nearby community. Of the three, one had a high school education, and the others had fifth and sixth grade educations. The question which comes to
2 6 Interview with Elsie Pearl Horton Wolfe at her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 24 August 1976. This and all subsequent statements attributed to Mrs. Wolfe. 27"HFS Summer School Report, 33-34," p. 1. 78 mind is why were these students chosen to perform the play when the data on the student body suggests more able
actors were readily available? The performance of the one-
act play may have been an extension of the afternoon
tutoring sessions and, as such, would have been education- by-experience-as-participant. This possibility becomes more probable in view of the notation of students collect ing material on the Wilder strike and beginning a play about it. The situation at Wilder was one which provided many labor topics for study, and since immediate situations were being utilized to teach students about the labor movement, the beginning of a play on the Wilder strike is probably an example of education-by-experience- as-participant. Thus, it appears serious consideration was being given to utilizing drama as a means of educating participants. At the least, the beginning of the play is a sign of dramatic activities being structured at the student's experience level. One thing, however, can be conclusively stated: education was the primary objective of the resident dramatics class of the summer of 1934.
Furthermore, the nature of the dramatic activities for the community during that summer proves resident class activities were deliberately educational.
One part of the community program for the summer was making and producing puppet shows. According to 79
Mrs. Wolfe, anyone was free to participate in any aspect
of the puppet shows, but she remembered the participation
of the mountain children most vividly. She described them
as very bright and imaginative but totally isolated from
the outside world. Puppet shows were one way of informing
the children and their parents about the outside world.
Mrs. Wolfe's memories also suggest the puppet shows were
a means of enabling members of the community to work
together to accomplish a goal. Children and adults made the paper mâché puppets, the ladies of the community
costumed them, and the plays, often original, were performed
in the community room of the school. Themes of these
productions, according to Mrs. Wolfe's memories, were
related only to entertainment and cultural enrichment.
Thus, by the summer of 1934, Highlander's dramatic
program had evolved into a two-fold one. The general
community dramatic activities were geared toward entertain
ment and cultural enrichment while the primary purpose of
the resident activities was to educate. In the drama
class, emphasis was upon educating the spectator even
though available data suggest educating the participant was given serious consideration. Highlander response to
developments in the labor scene during the next two years resulted in an even stronger emphasis on drama as a means
of educating the spectator. Activities geared toward -• , 80 educating the participant, however, were also a part of the program. -
1935-36. By 1935, the anticipated southern labor movement was a fact. One of the prime indicators of its existence was the general textile strike in September of
1934, sponsored by the AFL-affiliated United Textile
Workers (UTW), in which an estimated 200,000 southern workers participated. The strike lasted for three weeks and was acclaimed a great success by UTW officials even though, in reality, it was a failure. As a result, the southern worker, who was not deceived about the outcome of the strike, lost interest in the UTW and in unions in general as supportive organizations.23 Ironically, the next year brought the establishment of the CIO and the enactment of the NLRA to replace the NIRA, two events which provided great impetus to those supportive of labor organization. The labor organizer, however, had the initial task of re-convincing the southern textile worker of the worth of organization. This situation, along with
Highlander's early success in extension work, was probably the primary cause of a shift of emphasis in the resident
23ceorge Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), pp. 509-512. 81
program in 1935. Whereas previously the resident student had only occasionally participated in extension activities,
the resident format in 1935 became one which stressed
"interactive resident and extension programs with a signif
icant part of the students’ learning experience growing out
of their participation in extension activities. 7
One type of extension activity in which Highlander students participated was a labor chautauqua, a traveling variety show, whose purpose was to inform worker-audiences about the benefits of labor organization. According to the
1934 Handbook of Adult Education the labor chautauqua
"provided a new use for an old American institution 30 combining as it does entertainment and education." The best known chautauqua of the period was produced by Brookwood Labor College. A period flyer advertising their production provides a statement of purpose for this type of entertainment. Stressing a program which offered
"plays for workers, by workers, about workers,"
^^Aimee Horton, p. 121. ^"Workers' Education," in Handbook of Adult Education in the United States, Dorothy Rowden, ed. (New York; American Association for Adult Education, 1934), p, 301. - 82
chautauquas were justified
. . . partly because many people feel no need of the education to be secured from good lectures, and partly because all of us can understand problems acted out before us more easily than we get ideas from books or lectures. There is also a deep emotional appeal in the dramatic portrayal of ideas.31
Brookwood's production was relevant to Highlander's because Elizabeth Hawes had been a member of the Brookwood
troupe before coming to Highlander, and, according to
Myles Horton, Ms. Hawes brought the idea of a chautauqua
to Highlander. Thus, the Highlander chautauqua was, to a certain extent, modeled on that of Brookwood.
The Highlander program was primarily directed toward textile workers and other closely related groups with whom the school was working. Elizabeth Hawes was organizing for the ACWA, and the school was very active in supporting the efforts of the American Federation of
Hosiery Workers (AFHW). In fact, Highlander support of the
AFHW led its regional director to send students to High- lander sessions beginning in 1935. In addition, the school was promoting the efforts of the International
^■’■"Labor Chautauquas: Plays, Mass Recitations, Songs; By and For Workers" (Katonah, New York: Brookwood Labor College, n. d.), Wisconsin State Historical Society. 32Horton interview, 1976.
33Aimee Horton, pp. 160-161. 83
Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGW). Mark Starr,
educational director for the ILGW, was a visiting speaker at Highlander.34 Another concern of the staff was the
weakness of the UTW. In a letter making preliminary
arrangements for a Chautauqua performance, a Highlander
staff member wrote:
All of us have the job of transforming the United Textile Workers into a strong militant union, and this will have to be done from the ground up, by the rank and file, through building strong class-conscious locals. They £the workersj must be made to see that, in spite of raw deals and lack of attention, it is their union and many other textile workers in many other places are fighting the same battle.35
Mac Chisholm left Highlander before the chautauqua
was organized, and supervision of the dramatics program
passed to Rubert Hampton, a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan
College and of the School of Music at Union Seminary in o £ New York. Mr. Hampton's primary interest was music. He left Highlander in February of 1936.37 Highlander's
chautauqua was one of two summer projects undertaken in
^"Report on Highlander Folk School, 1935," Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Typewritten.) o c James Dombrowski to Coy Fulton, 17 April 1935, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 36"Highlander Folk School, First Year's Report, 1933," Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 3^0ur Verdict 4 (13 February 1936). 84
cooperation with the international Student Service 3 8 (ISS). Students sent to the school by the ISS assisted 39 with the dramatics class, and later in the term Helen
Fichandler from Rebel Arts Players in New York came to help with chautauqua preparations.^ Rebel Arts, an affiliate of the New Theatre League,was apparently interested in helping to promote workers' theatre since a
1935 edition of New Theatre announced the group in this manner: "a Socialist cultural organization, . . . plans a school, announcing an ambitious project of teaching theatre, dance, art, and puppetry.
Debut performances of Highlander's chautauqua were given in August in Atlanta, under the sponsorship of the
ILGW, and in Huntsville, under the sponsorship of the UTW.
Since these performances took place after the end of the
1935 summer session, the cast was composed of staff members
38"Summer Projects for College Men and Women," Highlander Fling 6 (February-March 1936), p. 2. 39"Report on Summer Activities, 1935," Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Typewritten.) 40"Report on HFS, 1935." ^-’-Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 225. 42"shifting Scenes," New Theatre (November 1935), Theatre Collection, New York Public Library, p. 28. 85 and ISS students who had remained at the school.
Reports on school activities indicate eight performances were given during 1936.4344 In general, information
concerning the chautauqua is random and lacking in detail.
What is available, however, is sufficient to provide a
general description, of the program, which, in turn,
permits observations about the chautauqua as a means of
educating the spectator.
Program format of the Highlander chautauqua varied.
An early flyer lists two plays, country dances, labor
songs, mountain ballads, and pictures of a recent local 45 strike in which Highlander was involved. Reports of actual performances, however, reveal a program consisting of labor plays, puppet plays and singing. Square dancing is mentioned once.4^ Puppet plays were probably included
because of Chisholm's work at the school and because of
Rebel Art emphasis on puppetry. Specific plays most often mentioned in connection with the program are two puppet plays: "Recruits, a play against the use of militia in
43"Report on HFS, 1935." 44"Highlander Folk School, A Report for the Year, 1936," Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) ^Attachment to Dombrowski to Fulton.
46"Dramatics," Typed sheet apparently a summary of dramatic activities intended for use in another report. Tennessee State Library and Archives. 86
strikes; Labor1s Shield, a play built around the union label; and a one-act play, Mopping It Up," which depicted 47 "an actual situation in a textile mill." According to
Myles Horton, performances were adapted to the local
situation and involved local people whenever possible. A
discussion of the local situation followed the program.
This approach indicates an attempt to reach the experience
level of each particular audience. Furthermore, infor
mation available about the content of the program
demonstrates content was very relevant to the current
labor scene and was presented in a way which elicited
strong audience identification.
Of the three scripts listed above, Mopping It Up
is mentioned most often in performance reports. This
script is also usually listed last, which implies it was
performed last or, more importantly, implies its per
formance immediately preceded discussion. Fortunately, a
copy of Mopping It Up is in Highlander files. An
examination of the script’s content and setting reveals why this play was so often included in the chautauqua
^^ciipping from Huntsville, Alabama newspaper. Clip ping file, Wisconsin State Historical Society; "Program Sponsored by Union,” Our Verdict 4 (13 February 1936); "Report on Workers’ Education Conference," February29- March 1, 1936, Roanoke, Virginia. Wisconsin State Histori cal Society. ¿^Horton interview, 1976. 87 performances, and why it was probably presented immediately
before discussion. The extant copy of Mopping It Up
reveals a serio-comic, twenty minute one-act play in two
scenes, with music. Written by Elizabeth Hawes, the play
is about the NLRA (Wagner Bill). The message presented is:
provisions of the Wagner Bill will be realized only if workers organize and force manufacturers to comply. In
one scene, a manufacturer, Mr. Grab-It All, confronts a
government inspector and tells him he is "sick and tired
of this union business." The inspector's reply contains
the theme of the script:
Well, you'll just have to get used to being tired of it, Mr. Grab-It All. The rights of labor are recognized by law. I guess you've heard of the Wagner Bill. You employers chiselled on the NRA but the workers learned their lesson and they intend to become powerful enough to make the Wagner Bill work for them instead of you guys. 7
The Wagner Bill was enacted only a month before Highlander instituted its chautauqua, and Mopping It Up was a means of informing workers about the new legislation and about action which had to be taken if the law was to be effective. As noted earlier, Highlander staff were very aware of worker apathy caused by the bungled UTW strike of 1934. In addition, while the Wagner Bill required employers to bargain, there were no requirements about
^Mopping It Up, Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 2. (Typewritten.) 88 reaching agreements. Bargaining could and did stretch out over long periods of time. Thus, from the viewpoint of those supportive of labor, the situation in which the
Wagner Bill was enacted was a very crucial one which could be resolved only if workers organized and took action. The validity of this concern is shown in Tindall’s note:
"there was little compliance with the Wagner Bill until the Supreme Court upheld the act in 1937."59
By placing Mopping It Up last on the program,
Highlander staff were preparing their audience for a discussion of one of the most crucial labor issues of the day. Furthermore, the setting of the script, a southern textile mill, placed the content at the experience level of the worker-audience. Dialogue contains references to cheap, contented southern labor, to the company union, and to the company town. However, it is'the character of the manufacturer-boss which most typifies the southern scene. One of the obstacles to organization previously discussed was the employer-worker relationship, an extension of the master-slave relationship of the plantation era. This relationship is part of the characterization of the boss, Mr. Grab-It All. In the second scene,
50'Tindall, p. 513. 89 he addresses the workers:
I come to you as a father. Yes, as a loving father whose great concern is for his children. . . . Think of the good times we_have had on our fish- fries and barbecues . . . . ->1
Mr. Grab-It-All never varies his appeal and never discusses
the issues, one of which is workers standing in six inches
of water while on the job, from whence the playss title.
Mr. G.’s approach was a familiar one to workers, and
placing him within the same context as information about
the Wagner Bill very likely made the legislation and its^
potential much more meaningful to the worker-audiences.
Thus, Mopping It Up, because of its content and setting, was a way of preparing worker-audiences for an educational
discussion about new legislation supportive of labor,
about action necessary to utilize the legislation, and
about one of the major obstacles to action, the employer- worker relationship. All Highlander chautauqua perform- ances may not have been structured in this or a similar manner, but the probability they were is strengthened by the history of Mopping It Up, which shows Highlander was becoming very expert in its use of drama as a means of educating the spectator,
53-Mopping It Up, p. 4. 90
The Wagner Bill was passed by Congress on 27 June
and signed by President Roosevelt on 5 July. Until then,
the NIRA was in effect, and its labor provisions were c o administered by the National Labor Relations Board.
The first mention of Mopping It Up is found in a proposed
chautauqua program dated 17 April, two months before the
Wagner Bill was enacted. This listing plus a report of
the play's performance at Highlander prior to its inclusion
in the chautauqua, suggests the extant copy of Mopping It
Up is a revision and, furthermore, indicates the original was supportive of the NIRA. The 25 June edition of the
Highlander Snag carried a story entitled, "Labor Play a Success."34 in this article, Mopping It Up was attributed to Elizabeth Hawes and was scheduled to be performed for a group of textile workers in Chattanooga within the next week. The lead sentence of the news article provides clues concerning the nature of what was apparently the original play; it reads, "a battered Blue Eagle flapped its expiring wings over a crackling little labor play. ..." There is no mention of or reference to a Blue Eagle in the extant version of the script. Reference to a Blue Eagle in the
^Nicholas S. Falcone, Labor Law (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1962), p. 192. 3*3 Dombrowski to Fulton. 34"Labor Play a Success," Highlander Snag, 25 June 1935, p. 2. 91 news article is significant because the emblem was a symbol
of support of the recovery effort, and withdrawal of
permission to display it was one of the few ways the
National Labor Relations Board could penalize manufacturers who did not comply-with the labor-supportive measures of
the NIRA. The statement is even more significant because
the board had recently revoked the Blue Eagle display of
the nearby Harriman Mills on the ground "that the owners had refused to grant workers the right to bargain col lectively ."55 Since Elizabeth Hawes and other Highlander
staff had supported the Harriman workers, it is very
likely Mopping It Up was orginally written with the
Harriman situation in mind, especially since it represented a local situation in which the worker had won. Both laws supported the worker's right to organize and bargain, and the revision required to make the original script support the Wagner Bill would be relatively minimal. The very act of revising, however, demonstrates a belief in the effectiveness of drama as a means of educating the spectator, as well as suggesting Highlander was dedicated to utilizing this potential. If this were the case, it seems unlikely the staff would not take
55john Dean Minton, "The New Deal in Tennessee, 1932-1938" (Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1959), p. 210. 56"hfs Summer School Report, 33-34," p. 6. 92
complete advantage of the educational opportunities offered
by a chautauqua. It seems probable all of the chautauqua
performances were structured in a way similar to the one
outlined above. The program format was designed to prepare an audience, by providing them with essential information,
for a discussion of their local situation.
One other characteristic of Mopping It Up should be
mentioned since it is relevant to Myles Horton's state
ment about efforts to relate a performance to the local
situation. The script was written in such a way as to
make "on the spot" adjustments relatively simple. With
the exception of the boss, none of the characters was
named. Thus, the names of local labor leaders could be
used for characters in the play as a quick and very
effective way to relate the performance to the local
situation. Another equally effective on the spot adjust ment would consist of changing a phrase in a line. For
example, in the extant copy of the script, one of the workers remarks, "Not all the manufacturers in a bunch
could make a dozen pairs of hose!" Changing the latter
part of this line to "run a machine!" would have posed
little difficulty and would have made the performance more meaningful to an audience of non-hosiery workers. There is no evidence to indicate changes such as these were made
other than Myles Horton's statement, but the nature of the 93 script invites them, and they represent easy and quick ways
of relating a performance to a specific audience.
Some indication of the effectiveness of High
lander's attempts to educate the spectator during the period is given by requests the school received for help
in forming dramatic groups. Late in 1936, the Workers
Education Committee of the Central Labor Union of Knox
ville requested Zilphia Horton's assistance in the
development of their education program. Mrs. Horton, who was at this time in charge of Highlander dramatics, started three drama groups in Knoxville^2 and while there
received a request to start a group in Alcoa, Tennessee.58
These requests indicate Highlander's efforts with dramatics were successful and suggest others were beginning to realize the educational potential in dramatic activities.
The need for this type of activity is suggested by remarks attributed to one worker during the period. In addition to starting the drama groups, Mrs. Horton also assisted in preparing for Knoxville's Labor Day Celebration of 1936, at which AFL president William Green was the featured speaker. One of the festivities included in the celebration was the election of a Labor Day Queen. In an * 5
5?"HFS Report, 1936."
58Zilphia Horton to Myles Horton, 23 September 1936, Myles Horton personal files. 94 interview conducted for the Knoxville News SentInel, the
following remarks are attributed to the Labor Day Queen:
I belong to Local 90, but I forget just what big branch of labor that is. I can't remember the name. I attend a union meeting every now and then. Mostly when they’re having some sort of entertainment.59
These remarks, in addition to indicating a need for
education, illustrate the potential of educational
activities such as dramatics.
The emphasis of Highlander's dramatic program in
1935 and 1936 was on utilizing drama as a means of educat ing the spectator, but activities which emphasized education-by-experience-as-participant were also a part of the program. In fact, one of the most unique dramatic activities of the period was implemented to help students understand labor's national organizational structure and to prepare them for impending changes on the national labor scene.
Shortly after the 1935 AFL convention refused to endorse industrial unionism, John L. Lewis led a group of defectors which formed the first CIO. In February of 1936,
Highlander conducted a mock re-enactment of the 1935 convention. Convention minutes were obtained and studied
59"QUeen Lena of Labor to Meet AFL Chief Who 'Read Her Out'!" Knoxville News Sentinal 6 September 1936, p. 1. 95 fif) to make the presentation as realistic as possible.
Staff and students impersonated the actual participants in
the re-enactment, the purposes of which were to provide an
understanding of the structure of a national convention
and, more importantly, to elucidate the issue of industrial unionism. Features of the mock convention included
President Green's opening address, the appointment of convention committees and their subsequent reports, the election of officers, and President Green's closing address. Industrial unionism was debated and defeated during the report of the resolution committee. A school newspaper account of the mock convention indicates very intense student involvement. One of the participants became so involved with his role he added "physical force to verbal argument in attacking the position of the miner's delegate."°-L Thus, Highlander students learned about impending changes in the labor scene by the experience of participating in a re-enactment of one of the events which effected the changes. In addition, students were required to use parliamentary procedure and employ techniques of effective public speaking. Records report mock conventions during the summer term of 1936 and the
^Horton interview, 1976.
61”afl Convention, Our Verdict 5 (20 February 1936), p. 1. 96 62 fall term of 1942. Apparently this technique proved to be very effective.
During the first four years of its existence, although Highlander Folk School placed the emphasis of its dramatics program on educating the spectator, there were activities aimed at providing educational experience for the participant. Beginning in 1937, the emphasis shifted to the participant. This change was in response to developments in the labor movement and to student bodies whose needs and abilities were different from those of students in previous terms.
1937-42: Education-by-Experience-as-Participant
In March of 1937 the CIO and UTWA signed a contract for an organizing campaign to be conducted by the Textile
Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC). In the South, the
TWOC wanted to use a non-militant approach stressing the respectability of unions and their value to workers and the general public. One part of their plan was to use southern organizers whenever possible. Backing the TWOC
62.'hps Report, 1936"; Leon Wilson, "Notes on dramatic class, taught by Zilphia Horton," 13 September 1942, Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 1. (Typewritten.) 97
drive were the ACWA, AFHW, ILGW, and UMW as well as ft 3 others. Highlander not only had a strong interest in
these unions but had considerable experience in working
with them. Therefore, the school devoted its energies to
supporting the organizing campaign. Such action was
actually a continuation of the school’s emphasis, beginning
in 1935, on extension activities. The situation in 1937 was different, however, because of the existence of locals which had been organized over the last few years. High
lander felt a responsibility to respond to the educational needs of these newly organized locals. The school's ef
forts to meet both types of needs is illustrated by staff
commitments during the summer of 1937. Myles Horton and
Elizabeth Hawes organized in. North Carolina and South
Carolina, respectively, while Zilphia Horton was in
La Follette, Tennessee, working with an educational program r a for a newly organized local of the ACWA. Due to the absence of So many staff members, Highlander did not offer a resident term that summer. Thus, the year 1937 was a year of transition during which Highlander participated in a rapidly changing labor movement and assessed its 6
63F. Ray Marshall, Labor in the South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, TV67), pp. 169-170. 64See: "Highlander Folk School, Confidential Memo randum for the Staff," 6 August 1937. Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Typewritten.); Aimee Horton, p. 132 98 needs. Beginning with the winter term of 1938, the
emphasis of the workers' education program was shifted
back to the resident term for the purpose of strengthening fi5 and developing leadership in the newly organized locals.
The students who attended these resident terms
were more able and more sophisticated than those of
previous terms. As Aimee Horton notes, the student body,
beginning with the winter term of 1938 and thereafter, was
composed mainly of "local organizers, officers, and members of the CIO unions."66 One way of generally comparing
Highlander students of 1938 and after to earlier students
is to think of the former as active participants in the
labor movement, whereas many of those of the early thirties
were, in effect, only spectators. In the early thirties,
Highlander had trained for union membership; now the task
was to train union leadership. Thus, part of the school's
task was to teach these potential leaders how to teach
those who were still spectators.
Education-by-experience-as-participant now becomes
a doubly meaningful term with regard to the emphasis of
Highlander's dramatics program. Students were learning
content by their experiences in dramatics; but, at the
G^Aimee Horton, p. 145.
^^Aimee Horton, p. 145. 99 same time, they were learning how to utilize drama to
educate spectators- The development of the dramatics
program in the late thirties and early forties illustrates
how these two Highlander goals were parallel. This
development was possible because of the ability and
determination of Highlander dramatics director, Zilphia Horton.
Zilphia Johnson came to Highlander as a student
for the winter term of 1935. A daughter of an Arkansas
coal mine owner, she had studied music at the College of
the Ozarks. She married Myles Horton in March of 1935.
Even though Mrs. Horton's training was in music, she
became interested in dramatics and, after her marriage,
went to New York to study workers' theatre at the New
Theatre School, which was established in 1935 as a result
of an "informal association of members of the Group
Theatre with the Theatre Union and the Theatre fi7 Collective." The school was a part of the leftist move ment in theatre which by 1935 had become popular front theatre. According to McDermott, the New Theatre School was unique because it "represented one of the first
attempts to impart a cultural education to the average
^Douglas McDermott, "New Theatre School," Speech Teacher 14 (1965), p, 282, 100 r o worker in this country."00 The curriculum placed special emphasis on directing since the lack of trained directors
was considered to be the major weakness of workers’
theatre. Stanislavski, as he was understood, provided the 69 school with its theoretical base.
Mrs. Horton attended the school during the winter
semester of 1935. At that time the complete program
consisted of eight courses spread out over two semesters.
Courses offered were: Acting, Stage Technique, Play
Analysis, History of the Theatre as a Social Factor, Stage
Make-up, Playwriting, Directing, and Theatre Management
Mrs. Horton took all of the courses except Theatre Manage
ment during her one semester at the school. In a letter
to Myles Horton, shortly after her arrival at the school,
she wrote concerning her studies, "it’s considered a very heavy course, but I finally talked them into it."^-’- In a
later, undated letter, she wrote that the Play Analysis and
Stage Technique courses were very interesting but wondered
^McDermott, p. 285. ^McDermott, p. 283.
7 ^New Theatre School Catalogue 5 (March 1936), Theatre Collection, New York Public Library, pp. 13-14. 71-Zilphia Horton to Myles Horton, 6 November 1935, Myles Horton personal files. 101 whether the directing course was going to be too impractical.72
Zilphia Horton's dedication to practical implemen
tation of workers' theatre was evident when she assumed the
supervision of the Highlander dramatics program in the
summer of 1936. While continuing the extension-directed
chautauqua format of the program, she also began to teach
students the "why" of workers' theatre. A school news
article about the dramatics class that term reports:
The first thing stressed in the class was the importance of being able to present labor problems in the form of entertainment making them much more effective than when printed in the newspaper. 7~>
The foregoing sentence may be taken as one of the guiding principles of Mrs. Horton's philosophy of workers' theatre.
For the next six years, under her supervision, students
in Highlander's resident program dramatized vital labor
issues. In the process, they gained a better understanding of these issues and learned basic workers' theatre tech niques. During this period Highlander students continued
to present their plays to groups outside the school, but the emphasis of the dramatics program was upon educating the participant.
72norton to Horton, 6 November 1935.
73"vFhat' s Taught--A Class Review," The Lookout 1 (7 June 1936), p. 1. 102
The Highlander dramatics program between 1937 and
1942 was, as in previous years, an experimental one. Three major types of development can be cited as results of
experimentation: class activities became more closely
related to the experience level of the student both in
content and in manner of execution, class activities
structured around group work were replaced by activities which placed more responsibility on the individual, and
class activities were designed better to prepare the student to establish and supervise a local dramatic group.
This latter development was the result of a felt need on the part of Highlander staff to enable students, on returning home, to use dramatics as a means of educating the spectator.
1937-Spring 1940. Beginning in 1937 and through the spring term of 1940, the major exercise in Highlander's drama class was the creation and production of original plays by the class as a whole. Within this time period, play content became more closely related to the students' experience level and more directly associated with content in other Highlander classes. Also, there was very likely a change in the way in which the plays were created. This research examines only the original plays which were published by the school. While there are other original 103
plays, extant data about them are not sufficient to permit
meaningful discussion. The first original published Highlander play was
Gumbo, a product of the winter term of 1937. The script is
worthy of examination, not only because it was first, but
also because of the ways in which it differed from sub
sequent Highlander plays. The nature of these differences
suggest Gumbo was more of a learning experience for
Highlander staff than for Highlander students.
The student body consisted of twelve students,
eleven of whom were in some way affiliated with a union.
Three of the eleven were connected with the Southern Tenants Farmers Union (STFU),7^ and their presence at
Highlander was probably a result of a teaching position
Myles Horton held in an STFU institute in Arkansas during the previous December.75 Their presence and possibly Mr.
Horton's earlier teaching assignment inspired the creation of Gumbo, which is about sharecoppers' attempts to organize. Two of the STFU students were credited with providing the "historical" material in the play
7^"Summary of Students, Winter 35--Winter 37," Wisconsin State Historical Society, pp. 4-5. (Typewritten.) 75"HFS Report, 1936.”
"Gumbo on Tour of Unions," Highlander Fling 10 (Spring 1937), p. 1. 104 This play differs from later Highlander scripts 7 7 in three important ways. First, it has a poetic tone
suggestive of Paul Green's work. This was effected mainly by the use of black sharecroppers, black spirituals, and a
final scene depicting the funeral of a black sharecropper murdered by white landowners because he was working with
the STFU. The second difference was in the way racism was handled. In showing blacks and white working together for the common good of both, Gumbo was too far ahead of its time, a fact attested to by the way in which it was produced. Black and white characters were in the cast, but the blacks were played by whites in blackface. 7 8
This treatment of racism was responsible for the final aspect of Gumbo which differentiates it from subsequent Highlander scripts. The play had little relevance for the audiences who saw it, and there is some question of its relevance for the students who created and produced it.
Performances were given in Atlanta under the sponsorship of the ILGW and the UAWU; in La Follette,
Tennessee, under the sponsorship of the ACWA; and in nearby communities under the sponsorship of a Lime-Workers Union
^^See: Gumbo (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, n. d.). Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) ^^Lee Hays to Zilphia Horton, n. d. Wisconsin State Historical Society. 105
and a Hod-Carriers Local. 79 Although it is possible
some audience members had sympathy for the plight of the
sharecropper, it is also highly probable the audiences were all white and had great difficulty sympathizing with the play's statement on race relations. The student body was all white. One of the STFU associated students was Lee Hays who later, in a letter to Zilphia Horton
concerning the creation and production of Gumbo, wrote:
... I would suggest also that Gumbo was not an authentic play, either in dialect or characterization. Why? Because one had only an academic source for the material of the play. Did your group last year go so far afield for its material? And did that group produce a more honest picture than we did this year? If the whole world were thinking about sharecropping, would we have the right to add our two-bits worth in dramatic form if we had not the basic interest through the group most concerned, the players.80
Thus, Gumbo was apparently more of a learning experience for Zilphia Horton than for the students, and subsequent scripts reflected lessons learned from this first attempt. The poetic tone was replaced by a more straight-forward one, and script content became more relevant to students and audiences. These changes
79 "Gumbo on Tour of Unions."
80Hays to Horton . 106 appeared in the next published Highlander script, Labor 81 Spy, the product of the winter term of 1938.
8^There is some confusion regarding the leadership of the drama class during the winter term of 1938. The drama staff is identified as Zilphia Horton, Gwyn Roe and Dr. Ruby Turner Norris. Dr. Norris is credited with supervising the writing and producing of Labor Spy. ("Highlander Folk School, Summary of Activities, January-October, 1938," Tennessee State Library and Archives.) The following series of events appears to have led to Dr. Norris being given responsibility for the production. Apparently plans for the term were made on the belief Zilphia Horton would not be present. A term preview states Gwyn Roe will be in charge of dramatics. ("Dramatics," Highlander Fling No. ll(j)ecember 193/3 , p. 2.) However, Ms. Roe sent a telegram saying she could not accept the teaching assignment. (Staff meeting minutes, 26 December 1937. Wisconsin State Historical Society.) When the telegram was received, Dr. Norris had been at Highlander for two weeks. (Staff meeting minutes, 12 December 1937. Wisconsin State Historical Society.) Since she was on leave, for one term, from Vassar's Economics Department and sub sequently taught classes in Labor Current Events at Highlander and at a special session in Nashville during the term, ("Mrs. Norris Discusses Her Experiences at Highlander Folk School for Labor," Vassar College Miscellany, 23 February 1938, Clipping file, Wisconsin State Historical Society.) Dr. Norris probably assumed duties of the drama class upon receipt of Ms. Roe's telegram. However, Ms. Roe did come to Highlander after the term had begun. (Staff meeting minutes, 27 January 1938, Wisconsin State Historical Society.) To complicate matters, Mrs. Horton was also present for part of the term. (Staff meeting minutes, 24 January 1938, Wisconsin State Historical Society.) Thus, Dr. Norris was the only one of the three instructors who was present for the entire term. At the same time, it seems the confusion surrounding leadership for the class permits the conclusion that the class activities in the winter term of 1938 were more than likely conducted in the manner of drama classes in the past under the directorship of Zilphia Horton. 107
Labor Spy is based on Leo Huberman’s Labor Spy
Racket (1937). The preface to the book states most of the material is taken from hearings held by the Subcommittee
of the Committee on Education and Labor of the United
States Senate, known as the La Follete Civil Liberties
Committee. Since the committee's report amounted to eight volumes, the purpose of the book was to provide an easily accessible and complete account of the portion of 82 the report which concerned labor espionage. According to Huberman, there were 230 agencies in America which could be hired by industrialists to provide information about union activity in their plants for the purposes of preventing organization and of destroying already established locals. He estimates 80 million dollars per year was spent 83 on this type of investigation.
Labor espionage was particularly effective because the agencies secured agents from among the plant employees. The process by which they did so is referred to as the "gentle art of hooking." In essence, an un suspecting worker was tricked into providing apparently harmless information about general plant operations and,
g^Leo Huberman, Labor Spy Racket (New York: Modern Age Books, 1937), preface, Q O ° Huberman, pp. 5-6. 108 then, on threat of exposure as a spy, was forced to provide specific information concerning labor activity.^4 Labor
Spy is about the process of hooking.
A student publication of the term contains a section on the work of the drama class. According to this report, the writing of the play was preceded by a study of Huberman’s book.
The material in it was familiar to many of them £the studentQ, to some more than others. Several had actually participated in the same situations described in the book.
The report also credits the writing of the play with giving students an opportunity to
. . . use their own experiences toward an end and a purpose that will inform other workers about the spy racketeering that goes on in every union. It taught them how the process of writing a play and acting it is carried on and it gave them a great deal of specific information on the subject of spying.
The content of Labor Spy is relevant to all workers since labor espionage was directed toward all union activity. The play was made more relevant to students and audiences by its setting, a southern textile mill with
34Huberman, pp. 50-51.
^Highlander Folk School Review, Winter, 1938 (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, 1938), Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 109 a CIO-TWOC sponsored union. Furthermore, the quotation
above suggests students gained a better understanding of
labor espionage and received an introduction to workers'
theatre technique.
To this point there has been no mention of the way
in which students wrote plays because there was no
reference to this aspect of the drama class in early term
reports. Beginning in the summer of 1939, however,
information on how plays were created was included. Students
composed plays by improvising and did not record them until
after their performance. Improvisation was a part of
Highlander dramatic activities from the beginning of the
school's existence, but the degree to which it was used to
create earlier scripts is unknown. Creating plays by means
of student improvisation was an experimental approach
Zilphia Horton became interested in as early as the summer
of 1937 but was not able to implement fully until the
summer of 1939. The use of this methodology is highly
significant to a theme of education-by-experience-as- participant, because it is a methodology which places class activity specifically at the student's experience
S^Labor Spy (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, n. d.), Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 110
level. Motivation for this approach can be seen in the
following example.
In 1937, Frontier Films, "a non-profit organization
devoted to the production of realistic films of American life,"37 filmed The People of the Cumberlands, a social
documentary concerning the struggle of the mountain
people of Tennessee to achieve economic independence and
Highlander's attempts to help them. Elia Kazan directed
the film, which was shot at Highlander and in the
surrounding area. According to Myles Horton, two-thirds of the film's cast were Highlander students, and the film's action was made up either of improvised or of actual scenes. Kazan views the film as an experience in which he learned to get effective results from non-professional actors: I got great confidence in my ability to go into an environment and get drama and colour and enter tainment out of the most ordinary people. I was able to make them act and dance and that encouraged me later ... to go into the streets and not use actors: very often later I did not use actors because of this early experience.°°
87 Lewis Jacobs, "From Innovation to Involvement," in The Documentary Tradition : From Nanook to Woodstock, intro, and ed. by Lewis Jacobs (New York: Hopkinson and Blake, Publishers, 1971), p. 74. 88 ° Michel Ciment, Kazan on Kazan (New York: Viking Press, 1974), p. 23. Ill
Kazan's improvisational techniques inspired Zilphia Horton
to do more experimentation, according to Chouteau Dyer
Chapin, co-director for the drama summer class of 1939. "Through Gadjet Kazan she'd (Mrs. Horton] got an urge to
learn more of the improvisational approach to acting." 89
In fact, as will be explained later, Mrs. Chapin's own
interest and experience in improvised social theatre was
responsible for her coming to Highlander. Mrs. Horton,
however, began experimenting with improvisation before the
summer term as indicated by her class notes for the winter of 1939.99
The notes are incomplete since they cover only one week of a six-week term, but fortunately they are out
lines for the first week's class periods and represent
Mrs. Horton's plans for class structure and content
throughout the term. The notes describe a class in which
students engaged in two types of activity: writing and performing mass chants, and planning and directing group improvisations. Both types of activity were introduced on the first day of class, and a portion of each meeting
89chOuteau Dyer Chapin to Anne Petty, 21 February 1977, letter in response to a written interview. Qf) ■Zilphia Horton, "Dramatics Class, January 11- January 16, 1939," Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten with handwritten notes.) This and all sub sequent statements about the winter term of 1939 unless otherwise specified. 112
thereafter was devoted to each. Mass chants were devised
by having students read and work on an example while writ ing an original one based on the then current Tom Mooney 91 case. For this project, the class was divided into a writing group and an acting group. Improvisations, on the other hand, were not written; they were planned by director-led groups of students. After being introduced
to improvisational technique, students were given an improvisation planning model consisting of six elements to be considered in the creation of an improvisation outline: message, situation, time, place, characters, and climax of ending. The latter term calls for an action scenario. A different group was appointed each day to plan an improvisation for the next class meeting.
An end-of-term student publication provides additional information about class work. Students produced 92 Lolly Pop Poppa, a musical farce, by Zilphia Horton,
^In 1918 Tom Mooney was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted for the 1916 San Francisco Prepardness Day bombings. Mooney proclaimed himself innocent and his case received a great deal of attention from organized labor, radicals and groups interested in civil liberties. In 1939, Culbert L. Olson, newly elected governor of California, ordered Mooney’s release from prison. See: Richard H. Frost, The Mooney Case (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, T^K). ^Chouteau Dyer, "Drama Workshop Report," in "High lander Folk School Report to William Roy Smith Memorial Fund," Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 6. (Typewritten.) 113 about a boss's paternal attitude toward his employees in a textile mill, and The Struggles of Wild Nell, a western melodramatic musical pantomine by an unknown author.93 No reason is given for the production of the latter, which is lacking in educational content. Its production would, however, be a good way of "loosening up" stiff or shy actors. The publication makes no specific mention of improvisation but includes a statement which implies plan ning and performing improvisations were a continuous feature of the term. Dramatics is defined as a means of helping students learn "how to put over a particular point without having to bore our audiences and ourselves with a long speech that may be difficult to understand."
Furthermore, "it doesn't take money to put on skits. We made up our own and did our own directing and originating in general." 94 These remarks are almost certainly made with regard to class improvisations because beginners would have great difficulty trying to direct the two musical productions done during the term, and the mass chant required a great degree of precision. In addition,
93"Dramatics," in We the Students, Winter, 1939 (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, 1939), Tennessee State Library and Archives, p. 11. (Mimeographed.) ^"Dramatics , " p. 11. 114
subsequent emphasis on creating scripts by improvisation
suggests a very positive result from the experimental
efforts of this term.
The winter term of 1939 was thus one in which improvisation was found to be a very effective way to have
students create plays. Furthermore, by using this
technique, students were working directly from their
experience level. The term's work also shows a continued
dedication to the goal of preparing students to supervise
and direct drama groups after leaving Highlander.
Creating plays by means of student improvisation was fully implemented in the resident term of the following summer. The drama class of the summer of 1939 was the most prolific with regard to script production during the school's history. The term must also be regarded as one of the most successful in Highlander's attempts to use dramatics as a means of educating the participant. Subject matter dramatized was very important and relevant to students, and the utilization of improvisa tion assured a meaningful experience of the subject matter. In addition, students were introduced to various workers' theatre techniques which better prepared them for leadership of drama groups. Three things contributed to the success of the drama class: an additional member on the drama staff, an above-average student body, and a more 115 closely coordinated total curriculum in response to
school assistance from the William Roy Smith Memorial Fund.
The summer term of 1939 featured a workshop
conducted with the cooperation of the William Roy Smith
Memorial Fund, one composed of interrelated classes in journalism, visual aids, and dramatics. Although these
classes were not new to the Highlander curriculum, the staff made an increased effort to coordinate class activities. In addition, much of the work in the drama class was "based on discussions of economics and unionism" in other classes.95 Dramatizing content from other classes was also not unusual at Highlander because of the school's desire to have students experience subject matter, but there was apparently an intensification of these efforts during the summer term of 1939.
The educational level of the student body was higher than usual, and all but two of the sixteen students were affiliated with a union. In addition, these students had had extensive experience in the labor movement; five were officers in their locals, and others expressed interest in becoming organizers or educators.96
Introduction," in "Report to the William Roy Smith Memorial Fund," 1939, Wisconsin State-Historical Society. (Typewritten.) ^Dyer, pp. 1-2. ■ 116 The final factor which contributed to the success of the drama class was the presence of an additional drama
instructor whose enthusiasm and dedication were equal to
Zilphia Horton's. Chouteau Chapin, nee Dyer, was a professional theatre artist who had studied in London and who had observed the Russian theatre during two visits to the USSR. Previous to coming to Highlander she had been a member of the New York Henry Street Settlement experimen tal theatre group,97 which was noted for its work with drama improvised on social themes.93 Subsequent to her work at Highlander, Mrs. Chapin worked for and with Erwin
Piscator at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School in New York.99 a proper perspective on Mrs. Chapin's role as co-director for the summer drama class is gained by considering her as a specialist in a type of theatre technique which Zilphia Horton wanted to pursue. The effect of these two women working together as a team can not be over estimated. Under their supervision, Highlander students created and produced four short one-acts in a
97chapin to Petty.
...... 98jean Carter and Jess Ogden, Everyman's Drama : A Study of the Noncommercial Theatre in the United States (New York : American Association for Adult Education, 1938), pp. 108-109. 99chapin to Petty; "Chouteau Dyer," Clipping file, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 117 six-week term. The class also gave three performances of
Lolly Pop Poppa and spent the last week of the term
recording and compiling their plays into a booklet which
was published by the school. Following is a discussion
of play topics and their significance, and a brief description of how the class was conducted.-’-90
Sectionalism, a prolonged strike in Dalton,
Georgia, the speed-up, and the need to pay union dues
were topics chosen for dramatization. Early in the term, the president of the United Rubber Workers spoke at
Highlander. In his speech, "Labor and the South," he
explained how sectionalism was used by northern and i m southern manufacturers to retard labor organization.
This theme was the topic of the drama class's first play.
Another factor which influenced selection of this topic
was a heated argument among members of the student body,
which contained representatives from both northern and
lOOpyer, passim. This and all subsequent data on the summer class of 1939 unless otherwise specified. Due to the length of the report, quotations will be footnoted; see also: Five Plays About Labor (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, n. d.). Included are North-South; Look-Ahead Dixie; Lolly Pop Poppa, included at the request of the students; Stretch-Out-; and Dues Blues. Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 191"Labor and the South," by Sherman Dalrymple. Typed manuscript of a speech delivered 4 July 1939, at Highlander Folk School. Tennessee State Library and Archives. 118 102 southern states. Thus, the content of the first
production, North-South, was very relevant to the students
and to the current national labor situation.
One of the students was a textile worker from
Dalton, Georgia, where 1100 workers were out on a six- week old strike. His strike experiences provided the material for Look-Ahead Dixie, the second class under
taking. At the time, the Dalton strikers’ position was
threatened by the outcome of an impending hearing on an injunction against them. The drama class took their play to Dalton and gave performances for audiences totalling 600 spectators.103 a comparison of the script to Dalton press accounts reveals a striking degree of accuracy and detail. A good example is the scripted version's dialogue for the character of the judge, which is peppered with references to foreign agitators. A news article quoting one of the judge's addresses to the grand jury contains three references to agitators within the space of three sentences.104
lO^Horton interview, 1976.
103"Highlander Group Presents Programs for Unions, Makes Extension Trips During Summer Session," Highlander Fling 2 (September 1939), p. 1. lO^Gompare: Look-Ahead Dixie in Five Plays About Labor to Dalton News and Dalton Citizen, June-August^ 1^39, Dalton, Georgia; see especially, "Mitchell Cites Strike Laws in Charge to Grand Jury," Dalton News, 27 July 1939, pp. 1-2. 119 Look-Ahead Dixie is especially interesting for
two reasons. First, the dramatization of a current situation illustrates one of the purposes of workers'
theatre, attaining group solidarity. Unfortunately, past misuse of the term has given it very negative connotations for many, but group solidarity was a powerful emotional force very much needed by those involved in the labor movement. W. J. Cash's explanation of the southern scene during the period enables one to imagine the alienation and helplessness felt by the southern worker and, perhaps, to gain an intellectual appreciation of the need for group solidarity. A visit to Dalton, Georgia, for the purpose of investigating the 1939 strike gave this researcher more than an intellectual idea of the tremendous power inherent in emotional forces directed against the worker during the thirties and, consequently, an increased respect for and appreciation of the need for a feeling of group solidarity.
Dalton residents' memories of actual detail had dimmed greatly over a lapse of thirty-five years, but emotional memories had not. It is not possible to write a description of the tone in which a retired textile worker said "we would never have had anything if it hadn't been for the union." Nor is it possible to describe the hostility encountered on inquiring about union activity of some individuals who were or had been connected with business 120 interests. The emotional forces present during the Dalton
strike must have been enormous. Chouteau Chapin, in response to a question concerning the number of perform ances given by Highlander players in Dalton wrote,
"I can't be sure. I think just one performance. In any case the ride into town into that atmosphere of hostility has dimmed details of the performance."335 Those representing the business interests involved had the sup port of the socio-economic system. The worker, at the bottom of the socio-economic system, had little supporting him other than a feeling of group solidarity.
Look-Ahead Dixie was a means of increasing group solidarity. The Dalton worker-student is quoted as saying to his classmates, when asked about performing the play for the strikers:
I think it will be a fine thing for the workers to see. Maybe some of them have forgotten everything that's happened during the strike and even if they haven't, they'll like to see it all in a play and I think it will give them courage to carry on their fight down there. Because we certainly are having a tough time.106
Highlander students and their audience learned little from the content of Look-Ahead Dixie, but they may
Petty. 3°6Dyer, p. 17. 121
have learned a great deal from the experience of present
ing a dramatization of a current situation for an audience
composed of those involved in the situation. Dramatics,
as a cultural activity, had the ability to weld people
together. This was one of the intended purposes of
workers' theatre, to promote and stimulate group solidarity
The second reason why this production is interest
ing is the possibility that involvement in the Dalton
situation led to Investigation of the topic of the next
class play, Stretch-Out. The Dalton strike was precipi
tated by a company request for a 12 percent wage cut and a production stretch-out which would eliminate 195 jobs.1^7
A school news article refers to Stretch-Out as a product of the drama class "based on knowledge which they had gotten in economics class. "1^8 yhe question which comes to mind here is of the chicken-egg variety. Did an encounter with the Dalton strike provide an occasion for discussion about the economics of a stretch-out in economics class and lead to the production of the play, or did the economics class always discuss stretch-outs?
Regardless of the answer to this question, the proximity of the events in time shows class correlation with events
107"65q Workers at Cotton Mill Idled by Strike," Dalton News, 1 June 1939, p. 1. 108"H£ghiander Group Presents Program for Unions. . ." 122
and establishes the relevance to students of the subject matter which was dramatized.
The last production created by the drama class was Dues Blues, which explained exactly how national and local TWOC-CIO dues were spent. Activities in the drama and in the visual aids classes were closely coordinated in this production by using a large circular graph depicting the percentage distribution of each dollar of union dues. Dues were a controversial issue because monthly dues were one dollar, "a high rate for textile workers." Although income from member dues was not substantial due to the TWOC policy of postponing payment until a contract was negotiated, union expenditures of almost two million dollars between March 1937 and March 1939 made the collection of dues essential. •’■99
The subject matter dramatized by the summer class of 1939 was very relevant to the situation the students then faced, and the method by which the plays were created was one which insured meaningful experience of the subject matter. An estimated average of eight hours in class preparation was devoted to each production before performance. The productions were spontaneous group
199waiter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935^T941 ^Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press^ 1960) , p. 330. , 123 creations which evolved out of carefully conducted class discussions and student improvisations. The discussions and the manner in which they were conducted appear to have been very crucial to this type of dramatic activity.
First of all, the discussions were actually discussions, and the class report indicates students did most of the talking. Teachers were discussion leaders, and they led, primarily, by asking questions. Remarks attributed to both teachers signal an ability to ask the right question at the right time. Students were approached at their level of experience and guided, not pushed, in their work with dramatics. The process by which students were exposed to various and increasingly difficult acting techniques shows the way in which the class was conducted.
According to the class report, which was written by Mrs.
Chapin, the instructors
. . . deliberately planned at the beginning of the term to start the students on realistic improvisa tions , to work towards as much variety of technique as they could learn and accept. That was because we felt it important that the class should realize there were no set rules for good labor drama, but that they should be acquainted with a number of devices, techniques, and forms to use as they later saw fit. We did not outline this plan to the class because we assumed that the technique was our concern, not theirs. Moreover, it would have bewildered and bored them. HO
110pyert p, 7. 124 On the first day of class, students began learning about
improvisation when they were asked to "imagine" a
situation with which they were all familiar, a strike
situation. The next question, "Now what people would you
have, to show it is a strike?," was sufficient to get the class involved in an improvisation.m
The first two productions required only the most
basic acting techniques, with the farcical nature of the
second play perhaps requiring more expertise than the
straight-forward tone of the first. Before beginning work on Stretch-Out, the third production, students performed
Zilphia Horton's Lolly Pop Poppa. As a musical farce which contains passages in recitative, Lolly; Pop Poppa
required more precision and better timing than the previous
two productions. The musical was also an excellent preparation for the requirements of Stretch-Out, which is a narrated pantomine employing expressionistic acting techniques. The final original production, Dues Blues was probably a culmination production, the nature of which was significantly determined by work with the visual aids class. During work on Dues Blues, "the students con tributed much more; rehearsals went faster. The performance was smooth. "H2
1UDyer, p. 12. 112Dyer, p. 30. 125 Thus, by moving from the simpler to the more complex, Highlander students experienced a variety of
acting techniques. Some indication of the success of this
approach is given in comments which conclude the term's drama report:
Now, at this writing, September first, we have some reports from the students at home. Hazel, Elizabeth, Katherine directed Stretch-Out and Lolly Pop Poppa with their local unions and performed for strikers in Cincinnati. A letter from Brandeau says he is directing Lolly Pop Poppa in Dalton.
The success of this group resulted in a firm commitment
to improvisation as a means of creating plays. This methodological decision, along with the goal of training students to direct drama groups, led to change in the
drama class of the fall of 1940. Before discussing this
change, we must consider the activities of the drama class
in the spring term of 1940.
School accounts tell of two original plays being 1 1 o created by the spring class. J Only one title is mentioned, and there are no other references to the existence of a second play. South of the Ballot received a good deal of attention because it was about the poll tax which had become an issue in Tennessee during the 1938 gubernatorial election. When the play was created, the
H-3"Busy Spring Session Completed at HFS; Many Visitors and Speakers Participate," Highlander Fling 2 (May 1940), p. 1. 126
Civil Rights Committee of the Southern .Conference for
Human Welfare was attempting to bring the Pirtle case before the United States Supreme Court.H4 Henry Pirtle was a resident of Grundy County, and Highlander staff had helped initiate the case.H5 The way in which South of the Ballot was created was slightly different from the method of the previous term: The drama class decided that the Poll Tax was one of the most important problems to southern workers--important enough to dramatize. After getting enough facts and figures, the entire class discussed the problem thoroughly: why it is a problem, what should be done about it, and why and how certain forces fight to maintain the poll tax, and a possible solution. Then we planned a series of scenes or episodes which would portray the problem as we had discussed it. When characters and action had been decided upon, we went into improvisations of the scenes--no written words. 116
Students in the previous term had not engaged in research to the degree suggested here. The extant script, which was "rehearsed and performed for six
114Frederic d Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1958), pp. 193, 273. 115"poii Tax Fight Gains National Attention: Case Arose in Grundy," Highlander Fling 2 (March 1940), p. 2. H6"Introduction," South of the Ballot (Monteagle, Tennessee, Highlander Folk School, 1940), Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 127 different audiences"before being recorded, uses a
format similar to a "living newspaper" and in a very
simple but effective manner refutes three arguments used
against the repeal of the poll tax: repeal of the poll tax
will effect a closing of the public schools, repeal of
the poll tax will effect Negro control of the government,
and those in favor of repeal of the poll tax are traitors
to America. These and similar arguments against other
attempts to pass progressive and/or liberal legislation
have been used repeatedly in the South as part of a
traditional conservative filibuster for years. Thus, by
considering them, South of the Ballot dealt directly with those issues which were probably most relevant to
the southern worker.
The Tennessee poll tax was finally abolished in
1953 by the adoption of a state constitutional amendment.
By this time, due to various state legislative maneuvers,
the tax was, in effect, null and void; and the adoption of the constitutional amendment was in reality a necessary unnecessary act. In spite of this, "a majority in fifteen of the ninety-five counties voted against the repeal amend ment. These counties were small, predominantly rural, and
-I -I Q located primarily in east and middle Tennessee."x
H7"lntroduction," South of the Ballot. -’■-’■^Ogden, pp. 198-199. 128
Grundy County, the home of Highlander, and a small, poor, predominantly rural county in east Tennessee voted for the repeal of the poll tax.-’--’-9
Fall 1940-1942. According to the drama report for the 1940 fall term, improvisation was "the most successful drama technique used" during the previous five years.
However, the way in which it had been employed did not satisfactorily develop directors, and since Highlander aimed "to give the students something of a practical nature that they can take back to their home organizations and put into use," the way in which the class was conducted was changed to one which specifically attempted to prepare students to develop and lead drama groups at 120 home. During this and subsequent terms individual rather than group work was emphasized.
Class format was very similar to the one used for improvisation for the winter term of 1939, except students were initially given more guidance in the selection of topics for improvisations. The reason for supervision is found in the class report;
H9"Eieetion on Proposed Constitutional Amendment," Na shvi1le Bahner, 4 November 1953, p. 9.
120 "An Experiment in Developing Directors at the Highlander Folk School," Fall, 1940, Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten.) This and all sub sequent data on the class unless' otherwise specificied. 129
Since familiarity with theme, action, and characters is the first essential of improvisation, much group discussion is taken for granted and class time is alioted. However, to save time, and to more closely correlate the classes, improvisations were built around the specific discussions of the previous class which was "Union Problems" class, thus, they [the students^ would come to drama class having spent one full period discussing some problem vital to all of them.
This method of problem selection was used during the first
two weeks of the term, which were devoted to familiarizing
the students with the techniques of improvisation. At the
end of this period, students
. . . were told that each was to consider him or herself a director, working with the organization in his or her home town. The improvisation he was to create and direct should concern a problem important to his specific group.
For the remainder of the term, students came to class with
an outline for an improvisation, chose a cast from class members, spent five to eight minutes outlining the improvi sation to their cast, after which they gave a performance.
Class criticism followed, and the improvisation was repeated if the class believed it needed work. As the student directors gained experience, they discontinued an original practice of stating the problem before performance because they desired "a more accurate test of presentation."
The outline which students prepared previous to coming to class contained decisions concerning the 130
following: statement of problem, intended audience,
characters needed, designation of time and place, and
events which were to comprise the action. This class
format and planning outline were employed because they were thought to be the most practical and realistic way
to simulate situations the students would face at home:
"in a majority of instances, workers can be expected to do no more than arrive at a union meeting a few minutes early in order to rehearse." The class report recommends continuing this format "over a period of three or four years with checking and rechecking of the students after they have returned to their organization" before drawing any firm conclusions about its effectiveness. The report does, however, acknowledge a greater degree of "creative activity" than that of previous groups and greater development of individual talents than in previous terms.
There .is no evidence of an attempt to contact past students for the purpose of evaluating the effectivenss of the class. There is, however, evidence of continu ation of the same methodology until 1943, when the emphasis of Highlander’s overall workers' education program was again changed. Only three general resident terms were held during 1941 and 1942, and dramatics was 131
offered at each term. Students at the summer term of
1941 created and produced "We've Got Work to Do! a play
supportive of the proposed Murray Defense plan, highly favored by the CIO.-’-22 However, a school account of
a week-end conference for United Automobile Workers
during the term implies student-directed improvisâtions were a very important part of class work.8-23 Thus, it
appears the format of the drama class did not change
significantly during 1941 and 1942. Student-directed
improvisations of union problems continued to be the major dramatic activity.
During 1937-1942, the emphasis in Highlander's
drama class was on education-by-experience-as-participant.
As in previous years, the program was an experimental one.
Group work was replaced by individual work. Class content
and activities became more directly related to the
individual student's experience level. During this period students not only learned from their own personal
121see: The Year 1941, Ninth Annual Report of the Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, 1941), Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.); "Annual Report, 1942," Highlander Fling 5 (February 1943), p. 2. l22Galenson, p. 619; see also untitled typed manuscript of We' ve Got Work to Do !, Tennessee State Library and Archives. 123"Quick Order Drama, UAW Style," Grundy Grouch 1 (13 September 1941), p. 1. 132
experience in dramatics, but they were also trained to
utilize dramatics as an educative tool. -r 1943-: A Period of Maturity and Transition
The field of workers' education began to undergo
significant changes in the late thirties in an attempt to
accommodate needs created by the growth of the labor move ment. New educational programs, many of them union or
university sponsored, appeared. Existent programs, such
as Highlander's offered shorter regular terms and special
terms geared to the special needs of individual groups.
Examples of special Highlander activities were weekend
institutes for individual unions, a two-week writer's
school under the auspices of the League of American
Writers which offered courses "in the short story, poetry, drama, radio writing, and labor journalism," and a junior union camp.124 jn addition, Highlander's policy of offer ing two six-week terms per year was changed after 1940, a year which saw the beginning of another change in the emphasis of the school's workers' education program.
This change was a shift of emphasis from resident terms to extension work. Begun on a modest scale in 1940,
l^^See, respectively: "Summer Conferences Planned," and "Writers' School is Scheduled for August," in High lander Fling 2 (June 1939), pp. 1-2; "Kids Union Camp Planned Here," Highlander Fling 2 (May 1940), p. 1. 133 the school’s commitment to extension work was intensified
by the educational needs arising from the organization
of a rapidly growing southern defense industry in the
early forties. Thus, between 1940-44, Highlander developed
"a series of large scale extension programs in New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta and Knoxville."125 An indication of how these extension programs differed in scope from earlier extension work is given by noting that the New Orleans program lasted for nine months.
In addition to increased labor organization, other factors promoting the change of emphasis were a war- induced staff shortage and the inability of workers to leave defense jobs. Thus, Highlander's announcement of its 1943 program included the following statement:
Instead of workers coming to the school, the school is going out to the workers, ... we are giving up the six-week term for a series of two-week sessions that will supplement our work in the field.126
Resident sessions continued to be offered for the remainder of Highlander's association with the labor move ment, but they were significantly different, in nature as well as in length, from earlier terms. Although
Highlander had often offered special short sessions for
125Aimee Horton, p. 164. 126"Highlander in 1943," Highlander Fling 5 (February 1943), p. 2. 134
particular groups, the six-week resident term of the
thirties and early forties was always a general workers'
term. It was true that beginning in the late thirties,
students attending general workers' terms were required to belong to or be sponsored by a union, but the student
bodies contained representatives from various unions even
though most were CIO-affiliated. The resident terms
offered after 1942, however, were, more often than not,
terms structured to meet the needs of a particular union-
affiliated student body. For example, between 1943 and
1946, according to annual reports in the Highlander Fling,
twelve resident sessions were offered for workers. Of the
twelve, which ranged in length from one week to one
month only two were general workers' terms. These sta
tistics are highly significant because, as Aimee Horton
repeatedly emphasizes in her research, the southern labor movement during the 1940's became increasingly institu
tionalized. Special terms for special groups were naturally designed to meet the particular needs of those
groups, and their representatives often participated in
the planning and implementation of the terms. One result
of this difference in the type of term offered was the absence of a drama class. Although the two-week general workers' term of 1946 advertised a course in dramatics which emphasized the "dramatic presentation of grievances, current events" and the "use of this technique in union 135 meetings to educate members,' 127 there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest the presence of a dramatics class
in any of the special resident sessions, including the one-month annual Southern CIO Schools which were held at
Highlander beginning in 1944.
A discontinuation of the drama class did not, however, signal a complete end of the use of drama as a means of providing education-by-experience. There is evidence of drama sporadically being used to educate both spectator and participant after 1943. The data concerning these drama activities is included simply for the purpose of documentation. Following is evidence illustrating how Highlander continued to stress the educational value of drama in extension publications. Nothing new is revealed by this material, but it is important because of its relevance to a discussion of factors which caused the removal of a class in drama from the school's curriculum and a consequent de-emphasis on dramatics as an educative tool. In the summer of 1942, Highlander began developing a program to train college students and graduates to work
127n-^£ghiander General Session, 1946," flyer, Tennessee State Library and Archives. 136
ITO with the labor movement. The first real session was held in the summer of 1943 and lasted for three months.
During this period college students learned about the labor movement by participating in other sessions at
Highlander, one of which was a two-week general workers' term, and by attending classes especially designed for them. 129 One of the courses was a labor problems class taught by Myles Horton. An account of the class reads as follows:
The students set up a hypothetical local, with Myles Horton doubling as organizer, "boss" and grievance committee chairman. They thrashed out realistic union problems. . . . "Visiting Congressmen" spoke to the "union" on their policies affecting post-war planning.130
Teaching students about the realities of a local union in this way is reminiscent of the mock labor conventions conducted as a means of familiarizing worker-students with national labor structure and organization. Another example of dramatics being utilized as a means of education-as-participant is found in a report on a weekend institute for hosiery workers in which students "learned
128"Highlander Folk School, 1942," Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten.) 129njiFg seminar to Train Students for Jobs in Labor Unions," Highlander Fling 5 (June 1943), p. 1. 130"Summer Students Study Labor," Highlander Fling 3 (September 1943), p. 1. 137 about parliamentary law and the handling of grievances by
acting through a union meeting and by actually arguing grievances."131
The final example is actually out of place in this
research because it concerns a Desegregation Workshop
conducted in 1955. It is included, however, because the
explanation of why drama was a part of the workshop
sounds very much like those written in the thirties and forties.
Evening programs were built around the problems and ideas expressed in the morning sessions. A combination of music, films, improvisations, and dance were used to present these ideas in more dramatic form. . . . Some people, unaccustomed to discussion, can be quite vague as to the nature of the problems brought up in the sessions. Dramatizations of them, made up by groups of students during some free time in the afternoon, made clearer to everyone what they were talking about.132
Highlander continued to rely on the technique of having students dramatize subject matter as a means of increasing their understanding of it.
In 1944 a group from Highlander identified as the
Highlander Puppeteers presented two puppet shows to a newly organized laundry-workers local in Chattanooga. Before
131"AFHW Mixes Fun With Study," Highlander Fling 5 (November 1945), p. 2, reprint CIO News, 16 July 1945. 1 32 Synopsis of Program Workshop on Desegregation, July-August, 1955," Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Typewritten.) 138
performing, the puppeteers talked with the president of
the local and obtained information about the labor
situation faced by laundry workers. These data were
incorporated into their performance "to make the problem
of company unionism and inflation," the theme of the
plays, "more immediate" to the audience. This is
basically the same approach used in chautauqua performances
during the thirties.
One of the major themes of the 1945 special CIO term at Highlander was wage and price control as it related
to employment and the standard of living. Edith
Christenson, Women’s Advisor to the Labor Division of the
OPA, was a visiting speaker and in her speech asked
"organized labor to strengthen and extend the work of the OPA."334 The term ended on 3 June, and Highlander files
contain a script entitled "The Fall and Rise of the OPA, or Flirtie Gertie, the Wench at the Bench,335 dated 2 June,
and attributed to a current Highlander staff member. A banquet, which included entertainment in the form of
"Highlander Puppeteers," Highlander Fling 5 (June 1945), p. 1. . ^^^’’Labor' s Role in Government," Highlander Fling 5 (June 1945), p. 1. 13 5 Lois Fahe Timmins, The Fall and Rise of the OPA, or Flirtie Gertie, the Wench at the Bench, 2 June 1945, Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten.) 139 student singing and skits, always concluded each Highlander term, and it is possible this play, which explains the
importance of the OPA, was part of the banquet entertain ment . Such a performance could have been a means of summarizing OPA discussions held during the term.
Other examples are a skit on grievance settling performed by Highlander alumni at a three-day institute conducted in New Orleans in 1942, and a play on the atomic bomb acted by the Highlander staff at a reunion banquet in 1945. The latter performance was followed by a round of "Atomic Information Please," a game designed to provoke discussion and provide information.
In addition to utilizing drama as a means of educating spectators and participants, Highlander also continued to emphasize the general educational values of drama when training union leader-educators. Two publica tions written after 1943 by extension director Mary
Lawrence Elkuss attest to this fact. In the first, a forty-four page booklet on workers' education entitled
Education Unlimited, Mrs. Elkuss refers to dramatics as "one of the simplest and most interesting methods of presenting information to the membership." She briefly
■’-36gee> respectively: "Institute Typifies HFS War Work," Highlander Fling 5 (February 1943), p. 1; "Reunion Banquet," Highlander Fling 6 (February 1946), p. 2. 140
outlines the Highlander method of creating plays and
improvisations and warns the reader of the difficulty
in stimulating interest and of trying to work with actors
who are not informed about the technicalities of union "I O'? problems.
The second publication, They All. Came to the
Meeting j Simple Educational Programs to Build Attendance
at Union Meetings, was written in or after 1947. Dramatic
presentations and quiz programs are discussed as ways of
creating interesting and educational programs to increase
attendance at union meetings. There is no mention of
creating group plays in the booklet, but great emphasis is placed on improvised skits. According to Mrs. Elkuss,
skits can be used to illustrate just about every union problem. . . . But you must remember, the success of this method of education depends on 'actors' speaking from experience.138
The method suggested for creating the skits is very similar
to the one used in Highlander drama classes when students
created individual improvisations. Both publications are
intended for readers who are interested in some aspect of
workers' education.
137^ary Lawrence, Education Unlimited (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, 1945), p. 37.
190 ...... Mary Lawrence EIkus s, They All Came to the Meeting! Simple Educational Programs to Build Attendance at Union Meetings, n. d., Tennessee State Library and Archives, PP. Z(Mimeo gr aphe d.) . 141
Thus, the absence of a drama class in the school
curriculum did not signal a total change of mind concerning
the worth of drama as an educational technique.
Highlander no longer regularly offered a class in
dramatics after 1943 for several reasons. Changes in the
emphasis of the overall workers’ education program and
in the :type of resident sessions offered were certainly
factors which contributed to the discontinuation of a
class in dramatics. However, these two factors alone do
not provide a sufficient explanation. Highlander’s drama
class has been described as an organic part of the total
curriculum and as a means of providing education-by
experience. Furthermore, the drama class survived changes
equivalent to those cited above during the ten years it
remained a part of the curriculum. Therefore, there must
be other factors which contributed to its discontinuation.
Following is a speculative explanation of other factors
which contributed to the removal of the drama class from
the school's curriculum and to a consequent de-emphasis
on drama as a tool for learning. Dramatics at Highlander was first and foremost an
educative tool, a means to an end. Highlander staff never entertained the idea of having drama for the sake of drama.
During the period when resident terms were six weeks long,
drama was a very effective educational tool. But, when 142
shorter terms became necessary, drama proved to be less
effective, because creating plays and improvisations takes
time. Highlander staff found and began to utilize other
techniques which were as effective as drama but which took less time.
Alexander Liveright’s book on union leadership training is based on personal observation of workers' education programs throughout the country. He explains various educational techniques and describes the way in which the techniques were utilized at specific schools to add clarity to his discussion. Liveright visited High lander after the general workers’ term had been replaced by special terms for special groups. The Highlander program is described as "outstanding in several important respects," one of which is the staff.
All staff members have had considerable experience in running leadership training programs. But they are ready to vary their approach and to use new techniques and methods. Techniques listed as used by the staff are workshops, quiz programs, and bull sessions.139 These educational techniques are capable of achieving the same results as experience in drama, in less time. Following is a
...... 139Aiexander A. Liveright, Union Leadership Training: A Handbook of Tools and Techniques (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1951), p. 21. 143 summary of Liveright's explanation of them and their
educational advantages. All are theoretically consistent with a belief in education-by-experience.
Quiz programs are games in which students play experts and audience. One of the most popular,
"Information Please," was used by Highlander staff in
1945 to generate discussion on the atomic bomb. High lander personnel obviously were very expert in this technique because Liveright quotes Mary Lawrence Elkuss's explanation of how to conduct quiz programs. The explana tion in his book is a condensation of what Mrs. Elkuss wrote in They All Came to the Meeting! Educational advantages listed for quiz programs are arousal of interest, provision of information and instigation of discussion, and creation of an awareness of a need to learn.340
In workshops, small groups of people "work together and try to reach a common solution to a problem." This type of activity gives students a chance to apply what they have learned in class in a practical setting.341 Bull sessions are exactly what the name suggests, informal discussions in which class topics are thoroughly explored
340Liveright, pp. 153-157.
34lLiveright, pp. 157, 165. 144 for the purpose of promoting in-depth understanding on the
part of the student. Taken together, these three
techniques encompass all of the advantages entailed in
experience in dramatics, and they require less time. Thus,
their successful implementation provides one reason for
the discontinuation of Highlander's drama class.
Another reason can be found in the consistently
experimental nature of Highlander's dramatic program.
One of the continuous goals of the dramatics program was to
discover the most effective way to utilize drama as an
educative tool. Drama class had been a laboratory in which this objective was pursued. In fact, the develop ment of the dramatics program can be described as a process
during which Highlander excluded all those aspects of
theatre which were superfluous to its educational needs.
At the end of the ten-year period of experimentation, improvisation was found and, perhaps, proven to be the most effective way to utilize drama as an educative tool.
Thus, there was no„reason to continue an experimental drama class. Furthermore, the examples of dramatic activities conducted after 1943 and their similarity to activities in the thirties and early fotties suggest
142Liveright, pp. 156-157. 145 Highlander staff had learned how and when to use specific dramatic activities best to promote learning.
The only other benefit derived from continuing a drama class would have been to teach students about workers' theatre. This need, if it existed, was probably very minor.
The student who came to the special resident terms during the period had considerably more experience in the labor movement than his predecessors. This student was, in most cases, a labor veteran. Highlander had taught drama and had helped start drama groups for ten years. In addition,
Highlander publications explained the nature of workers' theatre and gave directions on how to use it. Thus, it is very probable students who attended these specialized terms were already acquainted with workers' theatre; they did not need to be taught the basics. ■ ■
In summary, two reasons can be given for the discontinuation of Highlander's drama class.’“ First, .the time pressure of shorter terms created a need to replace a time-consuming educational technique with others which were equally effective but were faster. Secondly, there was no need to have a drama class to serve as a laboratory for experimentation with dramatics or to teach students the basics of workers' theatre. Other factors may have contributed to the removal of drama from Highlander's curriculum, but these two, along with the changes in the 146
overall program, were certainly very significant ones.
Discontinuation of Highlander’s drama class was accompanied
by a de-emphasis on dramatics as an educative tool because
dramatic activities became one.of several educational
techniques which could be used, if and when they were appropriate.
In a summary of the preceding explanation of the
development of Highlander’s dramatics program, four state ments need to be made:
Dramatic activities were included in Highlander's program because of the institution's commitment to education-as-experience.
Dramatic activities were relied on as a means of providing educational experience for both spectators and participants.
The Highlander dramatics program was an experimental one devoted to learning how best to utilize drama's educational potential to meet the needs of the Highlander student.
The Highlander dramatics program was part of a flexible curriculum designed to meet the needs of a changing social movement.
The next chapter examines another and different way
in which Highlander dramatic activities may have provided
an educational experience for students. One of Highlander's primary educational goals was that of helping students learn how to solve problems. Subsequent discussion is
devoted to an examination of the appropriateness of High
lander dramatic activities as an instrument for teaching problem-s olving. CHAPTER IV
HIGHLANDER DRAMATICS AND PROBLEM-SOLVING
1939-
Introductlon
Highlander Folk School attempted to prepare students for dealing with future problems by helping them to solve current ones.
All life is solving problems. . . . Education is dealing with people's problems based on their experience. . . . All learning is an extension of a person's experience.* At first glance, these three statements by Myles Horton, taken together, may suggest people automatically learn how to solve problems by solving them, but as Mr. Horton carefully explained in an interview, this inference is not a valid one. Experience entails learning if, and only if, it is meaningful. The experience of solving a problem becomes meaningful when people are able to analyze it and understand the process involved.
Interview with Myles Horton at the home of Mrs. Charles Wolfe in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 24 September 1977. This and all other statements attributed to Mr. Horton unless otherwise specified. 148 Answers to three questions provide information
necessary to understanding the Highlander approach to
teaching problem-solving: (1) what are Myles Horton's
beliefs about teaching problem-solving? (2) What is
the process involved in solving a problem as he sees it?
and (3) What methodology did Highlander employ to realize
problem-solving teaching goals? Since he was Highlander's educational director during the period, Mr. Horton's
opinions represent those which guided the school's program.
First, what are Myles Horton's beliefs about
teaching problem-solving? The following statements are
conclusions drawn from an interview with Mr. Horton and
from study undertaken during this research. Actually,
Mr. Horton never emphatically states problem-solving can be taught. In fact, he never says people do not know how to solve problems. On the contrary, he appears to believe people can and do solve problems, but they often do so in an unconscious and, perhaps, accidental way.
When problems are solved unconsciously, problem-solving skills remain dormant. The act of solving one problem has little if any effect upon the way in which the next problem is approached. Myles Horton is most concerned with the way in which people solve problems and wants the experience of solving one problem to increase the ability 149 to deal with future problems. He wants people to under
stand the process involved in problem-solving; and this
understanding, he believes, can be gained by an analysis
of problem-solving experiences. • The teacher's task,
therefore, is to evoke an awareness of principles, or of
the process, of prob Tern-solving. ->- ? . '
This leads to the second question: What is the
process involved in solving a problem, or, on what problem
solving theory does Mr. Horton rely? Again, he never explicitly states a belief in one and only one theory of
problem-solving, but the one he refers to and uses for
examples is the scientific method. He speaks of formulat
ing hypotheses, devising theories with which to test the
hypotheses, conducting a period of testing, combining results, and continuing the process until a conclusion is reached.
In addition, the experience of solving a problem can be described and analyzed by utilizing the scientific method as a process model even though the problem may not be initially approached scientifically. Mr. Horton believes the use of the scientific method as a process model to analyze a problem-solving experience can lead to its utilization as a process model in approaching future experience. Following is a hypothetical example which illustrates how use of the scientific method to analyze 150 past experience could lead to its implementation in future experience.
A group of strikers face the problem of keeping scabs from crossing their picket line. After several abortive attempts and a prolonged encounter, the pickets are successful. Their success and failures in this experience can be explained by using the scientific method as a process model. If the strikers take the opportunity to examine the encounter in this way, it should become more meaningful for them. An understanding of why some attempted solutions did not work while one did should better prepare them for maintaining the next picket line.
It is, also possible an analysis of past experience will promote pre-action analysis of a future experience. Pre action analysis could eliminate the implementation of possible solutions whose effects would be detrimental to the overall purposes of the strikers. Myles Horton would have people understand and use the scientific method in this way. Highlander staff wanted students, while at the school, to analyze their problem-solving experience and gain an understanding of the process involved. This know ledge of the process would "hopefully carry-over" and help the students to solve future problems more effectively and efficiently. 151
What methodology did Highlander employ in attempt ing to achieve these goals? Mr. Horton discussed two methods. Students were involved in actual problematic situations wholly or nearly similar to ones they faced in everyday life. Their action in the field was accompanied, or followed up, by analytical discussions concerning what was done and why as one means of attempting to help students gain an understanding of the process involved in solving a problem. Another method was improvisations.
Students improvised problematic situations. This act forced them to create situations drawn from their own experience. By so doing they gained a perspective of their experience and were forced to analyze it. Further more, when improvising, students were forced to go through a process.
According to Highlander’s theory of teaching problem-solving, involvement in actual situations accompanied by analytical discussions of action taken seems to be a very appropriate methodology for evoking an aware ness of basic principles of problem-solving. The use of improvisation, however, is puzzling. As indicated in the preceding chapter, improvisation was the major theatre technique utilized in the drama class in the late thirties and early forties. During this period, class, emphasis was upon education-by-experience-as-participant, and class 152 activities were centered around creating, by means of
improvisation, group plays and individual improvisations
concerning vital labor issues. In most cases, the plays
and improvisations offered solutions to problems. The
question which arises about the use of these activities
to create an understanding of basic principles of problem
solving is, exactly how such an understanding could have been obtained?
Extant drama class reports indicate students talked about specific problems, formulated possible solutions, and dramatized them; but there is no evidence to suggest class discussion of how a particular problem was solved. In other words, there is no evidence of discussion during which students were led to analyze and understand their experience. Yet, Mr. Horton states problem-solving experience is meaningful only if an understanding of the process involved is obtained. He also refers to impro visation as a means of providing students with meaningful problem-solving experience. This seeming contradiction needs to be examined. Were the Highlander dramatic activities an appropriate means of teaching problem-solving? A partial answer to this question may be gained by returning to Mr. Horton's remarks concerning how impro visation related to Highlander attempts to teach problem solving. When students improvised problematic situations, 153 they were forced to create a situation drawn from their
experience. This activity gave them a perspective of their
experience and forced them to analyze it. In addition,
improvisation forced students to go through a process.
What do these statements mean? John Dewey provides a
theoretical basis for an explanation of them in his essay,
"Qualitative Thought":
When angry we are not aware of anger, but of these objects (in the particular situation) in their immediate and unique qualities. In another situation, anger may appear as a distinct term, and analysis may then call it a feeling or emotion. But we have now shifted the universe of discourse ... we are making anger an object of analytic examination, not being angry. (italic and parenthesis added)2
When one is actually involved in and is subject to the
feelings of a particular situation, one may find it very difficult to step back and rationally analyze the situation.
Yet, this type of analysis is necessary to effective and
efficient problem-solving. Dewey implies an environment
conducive to analysis can be created by making the
original situation a part of another situation. When
Highlander students relied on their experience to improvise
scenes and plays, they, in effect, made their personal
subjective experience a part of another situation--that of
2John Dewey, "Qualitative Thought," ed., Richard J. Bernstein, On Experience, Nature, and Freedom-. Representative Selections (New York: Bobbs-Merril Co., Inc., 1960), p. 183. 154 putting on a play. Consequently, they saw their personal
experience in a different perspective.
In addition, the complexities involved in making
their plays effective ones forced the students to analyze
their experience from this new perspective. For example,
a student could create a scene which depicted a problem he had‘had with his plant foreman. To do so, he would have to analyze his and his foreman's behavior in a way which was more objective than that required when he normally encountered the foreman at the plant. Further more, by completely acting out a scene between himself and his foreman, one in which the difficulty was resolved, the student could gain an understanding of a process he could implement to solve his problem when he returned home. In like manner, creating a play about the poll tax, or sectionalism, or any other problem would give students an analytical perspective of these problems along with an awareness of a process of action to be implemented in attempting to solve them. Creating dramatizations which offered solutions to current problems was meaningful experience because this activity gave students an analytical perspective of the problematic situations dramatized and created an awareness of processes to be utilized in attempt ing to solve these problems in the future. But, is this type of experience meaningful problem-sbiving experience as defined by Myles Horton? 155 When Myles Horton speaks of teaching problem
solving in general, he stresses the importance of using the
solving of one problem as a means of preparing students to solve future problems. Did the act of creating a group play or individual improvisation about a specific problem help prepare students to solve other problems? Yes, but it did so because the act of creating a dramatization provided students with two types of experience. The first, previously discussed, occurred when students discussed and formulated solutions to current problems for the purpose of dramatization. This was meaningful experience for the reasons cited above. However, High lander students learned about the general process of solving any problem by means of the second type of experience afforded by the drama class. Concurrent with discussing and formulating a solution to a specific problem for the purpose of dramatization, Highlander students were also engaged in solving a distinct problem: creating a group play or individual improvisation. This process of creating a dramatization, regardless of its content, provided Highlander students with the opportunity to gain an understanding of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving which could be applied to any problem. Since this was the case, subsequent evidence and arguments support the following thesis: . 156
During the late thirties and early forties when the emphasis of Highlander's dramatic program was upon education-by-experience-as-participant, and when the major theatre technique utilized was improvisation, dramatic activities were an appropriate instrument for teaching problem-solving because these activities provided students with the opportunity to develop an implicit under standing of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving.
This thesis contains certain limitations which
need to be clearly specified". First, a lack of evidence
indicating Highlander alumni were more proficient in
solving problems prevents any attempt to prove, from an
empirical viewpoint, that the students learned how to solve
problems in drama class. Furthermore, even if this
evidence existed, a greater proficiency in problem-solving could possibly be attributed to student involvement in
actual problems rather than to their work in drama class.
For these reasons, this research is concerned only with
explaining how the class provided an opportunity for
students to learn basic principles of problem-solving.
Secondly, the type of understanding students could have acquired must be referred to as an implicit rather
than an explicit one. Two aspects of the learning
situation make the use of the word implicit mandatory:
Highlander students never thought of the complete act of improvising a group play or individual improvisation as one of solving a problem, and, other than Myles Horton's comments, there are no oral or written Highlander 157
statements which equate the act of creating a dramatiza
tion with problem-solving. The first aspect is not at all
surprising because at Highlander education was derived
from experience, and the type of experience to which
students were exposed was often one which led to an
implicit understanding of concepts. Previous examples of
how students were led to experience Highlander's concept
of a desired social structure and various acting techniques
illustrate the school's attempts to evoke an implicit understanding of subject matter. These examples also
suggest Highlander staff thought implicit understanding was often more meaningful than explicit. The drama report explaining how various acting techniques were taught states . . . they {the students) should be acquainted with a number of devices, techniques, and forms to use as they later saw fit. We did not outline this plan to the class because we assumed that the technique was our concern, not theirs. Moreover, it would have bewildered and bored them.3
The lack of Highlander documentation which equates creating a play to solving a problem is another matter.
In other learning situations where implicit understanding was sought, evidence detailing teacher intent and method ology exists, but this is not the case with regard to
3chouteau Dyer, "Drama Workshop Report, Summer 1939, in "Report to the William Roy Smith Memorial Fund," High lander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, p. 7. 158
dramatics as a means of evoking an implicit understanding
of basic principles of problem-solving. How can this lack
of evidence be explained? As subsequent discussion
suggests, the basic principles of problem-solving implicit
in Highlander's drama class during the period.were so much
a part of the world-view of Highlander staff that there
was no need to write or talk about them. Furthermore,
helping people to deal more effectively and efficiently
with problems was a major objective of the school, one which permeated the entire curriculum. Thus, significantly,
the absence of Highlander statements or documents which
equate creating a play with solving a problem does not
mean the concept was foreign to the school's staff.
Finally, this explanation of Highlander dramatic
activities as an appropriate instrument for teaching
problem-solving rests upon Myles Horton's premise:
problem-solving experience is meaningful if people analyze
it and understand the process involved. Thus, two general topics are considered: the nature of the implicit problem-solving experience in the drama class, and reasons why it could have been meaningful experience.
During the period specified, the late thirties and early forties, Highlander's drama class represented a situation in which students were given a specific task and required to execute it in a specific way. Completion of 159
the task, as it was defined and in the manner specified,
amounted to attempting to solve a problem by utilizing
principles and following a process conducive to effective
and efficient problem-solving. Furthermore, the nature
of the product resulting from students' efforts, coupled
with the way in which the class was conducted, gave
students an opportunity to analyze their implicit problem
solving experience and, in the process, gain an under
standing of basic principles of problem-solving. Understanding was possible because student success or
failure was determined by whether basic principles used to
define the task, and essential to effective problem
solving, were adherred to. Thus, students in drama class
never talked about how to solve problems in general, and
it is very unlikely they could have written a paper on,
or given a speech about effective problem-solving; but
the total experience of the class was one which gave them
the opportunity implicitly to realize, and perhaps later utilize, basic principles, which will now be defined, essential to effective and efficient problem-solving.
Explaining how Highlander dramatic activities provided students with the opportunity to gain an under standing of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving necessitates an understanding of what is meant by problem-solving. Mr. Horton's comments on the 160 subject are thorough enough to provide a foundation for
understanding, but they are not specific enough to meet the needs of this research. Therefore, a grammar of
problem-solving compatible with Mr. Horton's views is
needed. This research will use John Dewey's definition
and theory of effective and efficient problem-solving.
The choice is appropriate because Dewey's and Highlander's
educational philosophies are very similar, and because
Dewey's definition and theory of problem-solving is based on the scientific method.4 Dewey's approach to problem
solving can be understood by examining three topics: his
definition of problem and how that definition carries over
into his thinking on problem-solving, basic principles
which make up his definition of effective and efficient
problem-solving, and the process he recommends for use in
solving a problem.
According to Dewey a problem is a uniquely human experience, and one which occurs whenever man is, to any degree, perplexed. At such times man is unsure about what to think, or believe, or feel or do. A hypothetical ex ample demonstrates the inclusiveness of this definition of a problem.
4The explanation of Dewey's theory and definition of problem-solving presented in this research is based on a study of resource material identified in the Bibliography. 161 A scientist works diligently all day because he
is unsure of the validity of a new hypothesis. When he
leaves his laboratory to go home, his car will not start,
and not being sure of how to repair it, he returns to the
laboratory to call a mechanic. Before calling, he
hesitates because he questions the integrity of the
mechanic who worked on his car yesterday. Fortunately, a
co-worker, an amateur mechanic, is able to start the car.
The scientist thanks him but is troubled by implications
of the co-worker's parting remark because the scientist
feels his co-worker may be trying to get his job. Since
he is late leaving work, he wonders if he should chose
an alternate route home to avoid the heaviest traffic. As he drives out of the parking lot, he forgets the alter nate route due to the puzzling and threatening maneuvers
of an approaching truck. Upon arriving home, he discovers
a jammed front door. He pounds on the door until he badly bruises his hand and finally enters his house by the back
door, after finding the extra key his wife had taped under the mail box rather than over the garage door where it was supposed to be. Entering the house, he sees his daughter, who tells him the dog is sick. He looks at the dog, which has just returned from the animal hospital, and vaguely wonders why his daughter did not hear him pounding on the front door. This extended example may or may not appear 162
ludicrous, but it suggests the infinite number and types
of possible causes of human perplexity, or, of human
problems. Human life is constantly beset with problems
of varying degrees and kinds, and Dewey’s definition of
problem includes them all.
Dewey's definition and theory of problem-solving
is as. inclusive as is his definition of problem. Any
problem, scientific or everyday, deemed worthy of serious
consideration can be approached in a general way. To return to the example above, Dewey would ask the scientist to respond to a jammed door in the same general way he
responds to problems in his laboratory research. Pounding
on problems rarely solves them. Yet Dewey believes man
often approaches the serious problems of everyday life
in just such a manner. This type of reaction is not
desirable because, as in the case of the scientist, it
often creates additional problems. The problems of every
day life should be approached in the same way as those in
the laboratory by utilizing the principles and practices
entailed in the scientific method. Such action leads to
effective and efficient problem-solving. Following is an
explanation of the basic principles and process Dewey would have man use in solving everyday problems. Six basic, interrelated principles form Dewey's definition of effective and efficient problem-solving: 163 1. The acts of defining problems and imagining solutions are greatly determined by the values of those involved. Even decisions of life and death ultimately rely upon the value placed on life or, as the case may be, death. Problem-solving is a value-directed activity.
2. The pre-requisite for solving a problem is the realization of the existence of a problem and a desire to take action.
3. A problem exists in, and because of, a particular situation. Thus, the solving of a problem consists of changing a situation. A situation and the changes it undergoes is the focal point of problem-solving.
These first three principles are the hub of Dewey's problem-solving technique. Inherent in them is a strong belief in man's ability to shape his life, which at any moment reflects a particular situation. If man assesses the situation and finds it unsuitable, he may take action to change it into a suitable one. The last three principles pertain to effectively and efficiently changing an unsuitable situation into a desirable one:
4. Problem-solving is not an activity directed toward the elimination of a problem. Instead, it is an activity directed toward the creation of a desirable situation. 164
5. Problem-solving is a process concerned with
formulating, testing, achieving, and applying the most
appropriate means to achieve a desired situation.
6. The most effective and efficient problem
solving activity maintains a cause-effect relationship between means devised and end desired.
Dewey is suggesting man's efforts at shaping his life can be more fruitful than they generally are because man often acts without thinking of the consequences of his action. Effective problem-solving creates desirable situations and is an activity directed toward achieving the means to an end. Thus, the primary governing principle is maintaining a cause-effect relationship between means and end. -
The process Dewey recommends for use in problem solving is inquiry. It is explained in terms of situational changes as a way of focusing attention on Dewey's strong beliefs in the need for action directed toward creating a desired situation and for maintaining a cause-effect relationship between means and end. ,
A feeling of perplexity signals the presence of an indeterminate situation, one which exists when a problem first arises and is felt emotionally before being intel- lectualized. Dewey uses the following additional adjectives to describe types of feeling associated with the 165 indeterminate situation: uncertain, unsettled, disturbed, troubled, ambiguous, full of conflicting tendencies, or obscure. The indeterminate situation is actually ante cedent to inquiry because it exists before a problem is intellectually recognized, before the decision to take action is made, and before inquiry is begun.
When inquiry begins, the indeterminate situation is transformed into a problematic one. At this point the recognition of a problem, as yet unnamed, has occurred and the need for inquiry has been felt. The remainder of the process of inquiry is devoted to transforming the problem atic situation into a determinate one or one in which action taken produces anticipated consequences. The pattern which pertains to this part of the process is as follows:
A. The problem is initially defined. This is an act which actually entails the formulation of a problem-solution.
1. The problematic situation is observed for the purpose of making a preliminary determina tion of the facts. Preliminary because what may first appear to be the facts of a situation may not even be relevant to the situation; and, at the same time, facts which are very relevant may not be initially observed. 2. Acquiring preliminary facts makes it possible to predict the consequences of action taken. Ideas of anticipated consequences are possible solutions since they project a future situation. That idea which represents the most desirable situation is adopted and an initial problem solving is achieved. 166 B. The proposed problem-solution(s) is tested to determine its viability and validity.
1. This is a period devoted to experimental action and observation of the consequences of that action. Facts and ideas grow and develop in relationship to each other,
2. Several problem-solutions may be formulated and discarded during this phase of the process.
C. Observation reveals the consequences of the implemented idea or problem-solution, are those predicted.
1. The process of inquiry is completed. 2. The situation is a determinate one.
The foregoing is an explanation of the basic principles and process Dewey would have man use to solve problems more effectively and efficiently. The most important aspects of his definition and theory are: (1) problem-solving should begin with a desired end in mind, and (2) operations should be regulated by attempting to maintain a cause-effect relationship between means and end. In the following, Dewey's thinking is used to explain how participation in Highlander dramatic activities provided students with the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of these two basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving. 167
Highlander Dramatics as Problem-Solving
Experience
In Highlander's drama class, students were given an assignment which, according to Dewey's thinking, amounts to problem-solving, no matter what it was called.
Furthermore, the way in which students were required to execute the assignment amounts to solving a problem by inquiry. Thus, even though students were creating group plays and individual improvisations, they were, at the same time, solving problems. Following is an explanation of how the creation of group plays and individual impro visations was problem-solving experience, as defined by
John Dewey.
First, however, one of Dewey's principles needs special consideration: the pre-requisite for solving a problem is the realization of the existence of a problem, and the realization of a need for action. Since students never thought of creating a dramatization as solving a problem, this principle is relevant to the present dis cussion because it demands proof of a general desire on the part of the students to create a particular play or impro visation. Class interest and participation can be assumed because drama class was a doing class and a fun class.
Creating a play was generally regarded as a desirable and rewarding activity for those involved. Also, this principle 168
of problem-solving contains other implications which will
be introduced later when they are most relevant and meaningful.
The assignment given to Highlander students in
drama class was equivalent to Dewey's definition of problem
solving because it was one which:
1. Required students to create a situation and
imaginatively carry it through indeterminate, problematic,
and determinate stages. Thus, the assignment required
students to focus on a situation and the changes it underwent.
2. Required students to approach the situation
with a desired situation and definite end in mind,
3. Required students to think of their work with
the situation as a means to an end.
4. Required students to maintain a cause-effect relationship between means and end. 5. Required students to consider a definite value
system when structuring the situation with which they were working. Significantly, these requirements and their natural ramifications also define the task of creating a group play or individual improvisation. Assignment specifications resulted from the nature of Highlander theatre and from the nature of drama. 169 The focal point of the students' work was a situation and the changes it underwent because a situation
is the focal point of drama. Also an audience perceives a performed drama by attending to the situation on stage and to the changes it undergoes. In addition, certain rules concerning how the dramatic situation could change had to be followed. Adherence to these rules is equivalent to procedure Dewey regards as essential when changing an unsuitable problematic situation to a suitable determinate one. The desirable situation is achieved by controlling and completing action initiated. Thus, appropriate problem-solving procedure entails completing a process, one directed by a controlled, completed action.
A drama is also a process because it is written to be performed in time, and, even though the focal point of a drama is situation, its energy source is some type of human action whose completion terminates the process.
Since most dramatists abide by a convention which specifies controlled development of the action, most dramas are processes directed by a controlled, completed action. All
Highlander group plays and improvisations can be placed in this category. Thus, because they were creating drama,
Highlander students were required to focus on a situation and take it through a complete series of controlled changes. 170
In addition, the special nature of Highlander
theatre required students to approach the situation they
created and developed with certain attitudes which
correspond to adherence to the other principles Dewey considers necessary to effective problem-solving.
Highlander theatre was didactic theatre; its purpose was to educate. Art for the sake of art was never a considera
tion of those involved. Plays and improvisations were
created to demonstrate a point or to convey a message.
Furthermore, the exact nature of the point or message
was decided before work on the play began. Thus, students
created their dramas with a fixed end in mind, and since
their work consisted of creating a series of changing
situations, they were, from the beginning of their efforts,
also working toward the creation of a desired situation.
Whereas the end of Highlander drama was fixed,
the means of achieving the end were not because Highlander theatre was improvisational. Through their improvisations,
students achieved a means to an end. In addition, since
all dramas were intended for performance, and, since the purpose of the performance was to educate an audience, a
successful drama was one which maintained a cause-effect relationship.
An explanatory observation is needed. A preceding paragraph defines student objectives as consisting of 171 creating a desired situation and achieving a definite end.
Two related but separate considerations are involved here.
Any individual drama about the solving of a specific problem forced students to formulate a final scene which reflected what they had previously decided was the most appropriate solution; the play's ending was the desired situation. However, the purpose of the drama as a whole also had to be considered. Obtaining a specific audience response from an audience composed of southern workers was a definite end toward which the students worked. This is important because, as explained later, Highlander plays and improvisations were evaluated from the viewpoint of whether they were an effective means to eliciting a desired audience response. This cause-effect relation ship may be termed primary. A secondary cause-effect relationship students had to consider will be referred to later.
Since Highlander dramas were constructed with a definite audience response in mind, Highlander students had to think about the values of their intended audiences.
Here again, the special nature of Highlander theatre was a factor. As theatre for workers, about workers and by workers, Highlander theatre was unique because playwright- actors and audience shared more common values than is normally the case. However, a conscious review of values 172
when preparing a performance was often necessary. The
student who came to Highlander during this period had a
greater investment in the labor movement than did the
average worker for whom the plays were designed. The general value system depicted in the plays was ¡one
supportive of the labor movement. But, as noted earlier, certain aspects of the general value system representative of the southern environment were detrimental to the growth of organized labor. Thus, the question of how to reconcile the two value systems was one encountered in creating Highlander drama. In fact, some plays such as
Gumbo and Nor th-Sotith, which contain themes on racism and sectionalism respectively, represent attempts to make the southern audience member re-think his values.
In Highlander's drama class, the assigned task of creating plays and improvisations was, according to
Dewey's definition, equivalent to attempting to solve a problem effectively and efficiently. The similarity between the two operations was due to the special nature of drama and of Highlander theatre. In addition to being given a task which was similar to solving a problem, students were required to execute the task in a manner very similar to inquiry. Examination of the method by which both group plays and individual improvisations were 173 created is necessary because of differences in group and
individual work. The creation of group plays is examined
first.
One of the first questions which comes to mind
when the creation of a group play is mentioned is how
could a group, especially in a short period of time,
create a play which had any continuity of action or
purpose? Continuity of action and purpose were maintained
in Highlander group plays because the drama class
instruetor(s), usually Zilphia Horton, acted as director.
This presents a problem since it raises the question of
the role the individual student played in the creation of
a play as a whole. Everything which has previously been written concerning the task of creating a play in High
lander's drama class has assumed that a considerable amount of responsibility for the creation of the play as a whole was placed on the individual student. The presence of a director challenges this assumption because, by definition, a director is responsible for the whole of a theatre production. Such delegation of responsibility could result in a total lack of understanding of the whole on the part of the individual student. In such a situation, the individual would not think of the play as a means to an end or even vaguely consider the necessity of maintain ing a cause-effect relationship between means and end. 174
The student would simply do as he was told, and the
implicit problem-solving experience inherent in the class
would be meaningless for him. This was not true in High
lander's class. The individual had to have some under
standing of the whole because of an external factor--that
is, the operation of the class, on a day-to-day basis,
depended upon the student's ability and willingness to improvise.
Improvisation which is to any extent successful, especially when amateurs are involved, seems to demand the existence of two conditions. ’The first is a rather complete understanding on the part of the actors of the situational framework within which the improvisation is to take place. Otherwise individuals will improvise blind ly according to their own personal whims of the moment or will do nothing. Evidence indicates Highlander staff were very much aware of the need for the type of understanding necessary to successful improvisation. In describing the technique of improvisational acting during the summer term of 1939, the drama report states: . . . no busy workers could be expected to memorize many lines, so they must become well acquainted with their parts and situations—then use their own words, never twice the same, to express themselves.3
3Dyer, p. 2. 175 Additional evidence is found in the introduction to
South of the Ballot, which was created by a class in 1940.
The introduction reads in part:
Then we planned a series of scenes or episodes which would portray the problem as we had discussed it. When characters and action had been decided upon, we went into improvisations of the scenes--no written words. It was not as difficult as you might imagine. We were so familiar with the characters, it was a simple matter to say and do what the characters would have done in real life. Both of these examples show teacher awareness of a need for student understanding of the whole, and they indicate students had this understanding. When plays had more than one scene, as was the case with Highlander group plays, a thorough understanding would include knowledge of how the parts fit together. Perhaps the urgency of the need for student understanding of the whole is found in the phrase indicating words used were "never twice the same." To state that any two performances of a Highlander play were never the same may be a gross understatement.
Yet, reports of performances and extant versions of the scripts which were recorded after several performances indicate the majority of performances were successful in accomplishing their intended purpose. Thus, the individual
6"Introduction," South of the Ballot (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk SchoôT, 1940). Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 176
student did have an understanding of the whole when work
ing on a group play.
The second condition required for successful
improvisation is student contribution to the whole.
Successful group improvisation seems to demand a working
atmosphere in which the individual feels free, important,
and appreciated. This type of atmosphere would be
especially essential when amateurs were involved. The
Highlander student was not only an amateur but, if class
reports correctly assess student feelings, most students
had a negative attitude toward theatre when they came to
Highlander. Without exception, reports on drama classes
indicate beginning-of-the-term sessions aimed at convinc
ing students of the worth of workers' theatre. Workers'
theatre was not regular theatre; it was a special type
of theatre for workers. In other words, the type of theatre Highlander students were asked to participate in was one which was defined as belonging to them. They,
therefore, had decision-making power. The significant result of this definition is found in how it affected the teacher-student relationship. Teachers were guides for student activity. This relationship promoted the encouragement and appreciation of student ideas, and it should have created a class atmosphere conducive to successful improvisation. 177 The need to maintain this atmosphere, moreover, provides clues as to how the actual structuring of a play had to take place. Attempting to let ten or fifteen students freely structure a play would probably result in much class time wasted, but the alternate approach of imposing a rigid outline of the play to be improvised would probably destroy the atmosphere necessary to success ful improvisation. Even though teachers had to take the responsibility for the structuring of a group play because a group was involved, they had to employ what may be termed a middle-of-the-road approach in obtaining an appropriate structure. This required a give-and-take attitude on their part. The drama report of the summer of
1939 class indicates teachers came to class with a play structure in mind and tried to lead the class to discover it by asking a series of questions. The report also indicates a high degree of flexibility on the part of the teachers and implies they had the ability to let ideas contributed in class develop and grow. This way of handling the class indicates the students' understanding of the whole was not an understanding derived from something which was explained to them. Instead, theirs was a type of under standing which occurs when individuals are actively engaged in and feel a part of a group endeavor. The two types of understanding are different, and the latter is 178 most desirable in activities such as those undertaken in
Highlander's drama class. An understanding of this type invites a strong personal involvement and a personal commitment to accomplishing the task at hand. When individuals are engaged in experiences of this type, the experiences are often meaningful ones.
Since all of the Highlander group plays under consideration were improvised, it seems very probable, in view of the instructional technique just cited, that the individual student did have an understanding of the whole when working on a group play. Furthermore, the class environment appears to have been one which encouraged individual involvement and promoted individual commitment to completing the play even though the responsibility of director was assumed by Highlander staff. The individual's opportunity and obligation to think of the play he was helping to create as a means to an end was not diminished by his teachers being responsible for structuring the play as a whole.
Students created group plays by going through a process similar to inquiry, particularly those phases indicated in the following series of steps;
1. A problem is initially defined, and a problem-solution is achieved. 179 2. The proposed problem-solution(s) is tested to determine its viability and validity.
3. Observation reveals the consequences of the implemented idea or problem-solution are those predicted.
The situation in the drama class became a problematic one when the theme or message of a proposed play was decided. However, attention needs to be given first to the previous action of topic selection and discussion because this was vital to the way in which plays were created. Students were very familiar with the subject matter with which they worked. For example, a considerable amount of time was spent in acquainting students with details of the Strike situation in Dalton, Georgia before they began work on what was to become Look-Ahead Dixie :
We went over the history of the strike once more while we watched for incidents, characters and scenes that would lend themselves to drama. First, we had all to become familiar with the actual course of events, so we could pick out the ones we wanted for the play.7
As implied in this quotation, knowledge of the subject was important because, once the play's theme was decided, this information was relied upon by the students in their efforts to formulate what Dewey terms a preliminary determination of the facts. In theatre terminology, the students relied on their knowledge of the subject to select events to be
7Dyer, p. 17. 180
dramatized. Thus, student understanding of the subject
was necessary for them to make suggestions as to what
characters to use, what situation to depict, and what
events to dramatize. It was in this way that the students
formulated a proposed problem-solution for each scene and
for the play as a whole.
Beginning improvisation was equivalent to testing
the proposed problem-solution to determine its validity and
viability. Although class discussion devoted to planning
reduced the time spent on experimental improvisation, each
scene was reworked and modified to make it as effective as
possible. To employ Dewey's terminology here, it was
during this period that facts and ideas grew and developed
in relationship to each other. In addition, trial
performances at Highlander usually preceded the official
debut of a play. This provided staff and students with the
opportunity to assess the play in terms of audience response. A reference to the trial performance of Look
Ahead Dixie indicates how results were utilizéd, as well as
the way in which a play developed. Some basic information about Look-Ahead Dixie adds meaning to the report on the
trial performance. The purpose of the production was to strengthen the morale of the Dalton strikers. Four scenes make up the play: the first depicts the bosses deciding to break the 181 strike by instigating violence on the picket line as a way
of obtaining a crippling injunction against the strikers,
scene two is on the picket line, scene three shows the hearing for the injunction, and scene four is one in which the bosses realize their injunction has not broken
the strike but has, instead, intensified the determination of the strikers to win. The play ends with workers, coming on stage and singing "The CIO's in Dixie," a popular union song of the period. Prior to the trial performance,
Highlander staff made a trip to Dalton and acquired additional information about the current status of the strike and obtained permission for the play's performance from Dalton labor leaders. This trip is referred to in the report which was written by drama co-director Chouteau
Chapin. Names mentioned are those of Highlander students in the drama class.
We'd set ourselves the deadline of Sunday night to put on at least the first draft of the show. The picket scene was practically complete. (We added the serving of the injunction and made that the climax and end, rather than the rout of the scabs.) The court scene was a tougher problem. There was little action and the players weren't familiar with the surroundings and procedure. Bernie had studied a little law, so he helped us with terminology! And a week-end visitor to the school, a lawyer, gave some helpful hints, to our extra curricular rehearsal Sunday morning. One thing we had learned in Dalton--that the court room had been packed with union members who, for the first days of the hearing at least, contributed volubly to the action of the hearing. That meant that we could use all the extra students as "audience" to the court procedure. Brandeau played the Judge, 182
ponderous, farcical, long-winded. Cecil, as the union attorney was positive, direct and glib; but his enthusiasm for presenting the union's case out ran his judgment of dramatic succinctness. In fact, it even outran our indulgent audience's patience. (This Sunday performance was simply presented to the staff and neighbors of the school.) One or two good bits of lively playing did come from the witnesses' testimony. We decided, after trying five, then four, to limit the testimony to three--two scabs, a man and a girl, and one girl union member. The latter, a self-contained and ordinarily rather phlegmatic young woman, burst the bonds of court propriety during one rehearsal when the scab girl was testifying to shout, "It's a lie! I never touched her first!" And Milis, the sheriff, who always played his parts disturbingly in character, intervened between the warring females to put the Union witness out of court. "But Milis," some practical body protested, "you can't really take Elizabeth off the stage. She still has to testify.” "Don't make no difference," the sheriff replied. "If she don't behave herself it's my duty to put her out. Arid I'm going to see to it that she goes out." We persuaded Elizabeth to "behave herself" sufficiently to be permitted to remain on stage to give her testirhoney; but the disturbance remained as a welcome relief to the tedious wordiness of the scene. There were, even in that performance, however, bright little indications of what the scene might be. . . . We devoted three class periods to it and were gratified, at the final performance in Dalton, to have the scene the most successful of all. Of course that was very largely due to the familiarity of the subject matter to the striker-audience.8
The quotation is lengthy, but is included because it is a good description of how a Highlander group play developed. The most appropriate means to an end was devised by going
^Dyer, pp. 23-24. 183
through a period devoted to experimental action,
observation, and more experimentation.
The last phase of inquiry occurs when observation
reveals that the consequences of the action taken are
those predicted. This event coincides with performance
before the designated audience. There is no way of
ascertaining whether the consequences of the performances
were exactly as predicted, but most Highlander scripts
refer to several performances previous to the actual
recording of the script. It is very unlikely a Highlander
performance, or any other performance for that matter,
came off exactly as expected; but there seems to have
been a very real effort to establish the credibility of
a play before recording it. It is also very probable
that run-throughs, where special attention was given to
any weak or troublesome scenes, were conducted before each performance.
The method by which a group play was created in
Highlander's drama class was equivalent to solving a problem by inquiry: (1) the instructor(s) proposed a
subject which was discussed for the purpose of obtaining class understanding of the subject matter involved, usually a problem and its solution; (2) discussion of the
subject was followed by discussion of "the central line of
the play, what dramatic statement it would make, what 184 solution would it offer to the problem posed. . . . 9.
(3) experimental improvisation of scenes was begun; and (4) staff and students went through a period devoted to improvising, observing the results, and making improve ments until the resultant play was deemed ready for performance.19
Creating individual improvisations required the student to go through a similar process, the major difference being the increased responsibility of the individual. Students chose the problems their improvisa tions would dramatize, and they were required to individu ally structure an outline for action before coming to class. Class records indicate two versions were required during the period. The first model reads as follows: message, good situation, time, place, characters, and climax of ending.11 The latter term refers to a scenario
^Dyer, p. 6. 19The plays under consideration are those of the 1939 summer term, South of the Ballot, and We've Got Work to Do! The main source of this description of the way in which group plays were created is the drama report for the summer term of 1939. However, the preface to South of the Ballot and a working draft of We've Got Work to Do 1 indicate the report provides an accurate' description of the way in which all group plays were created. Hzilphia Horton, "Dramatics Class, January 11- January 16, 1939," Typewritten outlines with handwritten notes. Wisconsin State Historical Society. 185 of the action but is phrased to stress the necessity of
having a definite ending for the action. The second model
asks the student to consider: problem, audience, characters, time, place, and curtain.^2 Curtain is
equivalent to climax of ending. Two interesting observa
tions are relevant here. First, the inclusion of
"audience" in the second model indicates an attempt to make students think in terms of audience response.
Secondly, the order of elements in both models is an order of thinking. With regard to the second model, the decision on the problem to be dramatized is thought of in connection with the intended audience. Then, decisions regarding characters, time, place, and action are made.
The order is equivalent to this sequence of questions:
What do I want to do? In what situation do I have to do it? Since that is the case, how exactly can I accomplish my purpose?
Students completed their outlines outside of class, and this homework was, in effect, the articulation of a problem and the formulation of a problem-solution. Class time was devoted to allowing the student to cast his improvisation, brief his cast in a five to eight minute
12"An Experiment in Developing Directors at the Highlander Folk School," Fall 1940, Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 1. 186 private session, and, then, watch his work performed. The
proposed solution was tested to determine its viability.
"Criticism followed the performance and if the class
thought it could be improved, the players again went into action."13 Presumably, the improvements made during class work-sessions resulted in a dramatization which was a more
effective means to its stated end, because as subsequent discussion will explain, this was the goal of the work-
sessions. Thus, the student came to class with a proposed problem-solution to be tested. If the proposed problem-
solution was not effective, another was achieved during a
class work-session, and it was, at least, more effective than the original. Since each student prepared an improvisation, each had an experience equivalent to solving a problem. Students also undoubtedly profited from watch ing and discussing the work of their classmates since the foregoing quotation concerning the weight of the class’s opinion suggests student criticism and ideas were invited and utilized.
The method by which group plays and individual improvisations were created was equivalent to solving a problem by inquiry. Furthermore, since both the way in which students executed their tasks and the way in which
^"Developing Directors," p.,2. 187
the tasks were defined conform to Dewey's description of effective and efficient problem-solving, Highlander's drama class did provide students with implicit problem solving experience.
In summary, the task given to Highlander drama students was one of devising a means to an end. In addition, students were aware of this requirement. They knew from the beginning exactly what each play or improvi sation was supposed to accomplish. Thus, even though it is highly improbable students were exposed to terminology such as means-end, or cause-effect, the reality and necessity of the relationships were a part of their think ing. Also, when the students' work was evaluated, the evaluation proceded from the viewpoint of whether or not there was a cause-effect relationship between their work as a means to the end they sought. Students therefore were given the opportunity to analyze their problem solving experience.
Highlander Dramatics as Meaningful
Problem-Solving Experience
Analysis of a problem-solving experience may or may not lead to an understanding of it. Of benefit here is a reference back to the two methods used to provide Highlander students with problem-solving experience. The first was involvement in actual problematic situations. 188 Examples of real situations in which students were involved
were picket lines, organizing drives and election campaigns.
All of these were highly emotional situations, and the first
two were often physically dangerous. Student participation
in these situations was accompanied and followed up by
discussions of how and why actions were initiated and how
and why they produced certain results. Attempting to teach problem-solving in this way is an enormous undertaking.
Leading people who are emotionally involved in a situation
to analyze it rationally and objectively is very hard.
When the difficulties inherent in this method of teaching problem-solving are realized, Myles Horton's definition of improvisation, as a technique which gave students a perspective of their experience and forced them to analyze it, becomes much more meaningful. Providing people with problem-solving experience is a relatively easy task, but provoking an analysis of that experience, and one which leads to an understanding of the process involved, is not.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Highlander dramatics as an instrument for teaching problem-solving is the way in which students were given the opportunity to analyze the implicit problem-solving experience afforded by the drama class. The type of analysis students were invited to pursue was one very conducive to making their 189 problem-solving experience meaningful for three reasons, each of which is examined below.
The means which Highlander students devised were unique because they had a corporeal existence. A play or
improvisation could be seen and could be manipulated. Weak
parts could be reworked and improved, or if necessary,
eliminated. Each time the play or improvisation was performed, both teacher and student could observe the results of student efforts. The play or improvisation was a mediating agent in teacher-student discussion of student work because its reality could not be denied. Both teacher and student had something tangible they could turn to in explaining their views. Thus, drama class provided the opportunity for analysis which was more concrete than that usually associated with discourse about a cause- effect relationship of means and ends.
The second reason why the type of analysis High lander students were invited to pursue was one very conducive to meaning is found in the nature of the form they employed when structuring their means. This form made a very precise analysis possible. Students consistently relied on one basic form, but slight variations in group and individual work make it necessary to examine the two separately; first the form utilized in group plays. 190
With minor variations, extant versions of High lander group plays follow a basic dramatic form. There is an opening scene in which a conflict, representing the problem to be explored, is introduced. The problem is then examined by means of a series of episodes in which different aspects of the problem and its solution are shown. Continuity and clarity of action are maintained by using the opening situation as a nuclear scene. After each episode, or group of episodes, the action reverts back to the opening situation for comments and exposition which leads to the next episode. When all pertinent aspects of the problem have been presented, the action again returns to the nuclear scene to sum up the effect of the investigation and to offer a solution to the problem.
North-South, a creation of the 1939 summer term, serves as an example. The way in which northern and southern manufacturers capitalize on feelings of section alism as a way of preventing southern labor organization is the problem with which the script deals. The purpose of the play is to make an audience aware of their feelings of sectionalism and of the evils inherent in them. Since
North-South was intended for an audience of southern workers, the nuclear scene is set in a southern town and features three characters: a northern textile worker who has come south looking for work after his mill was moved 191
south, a southern textile worker, and an observer. During
the opening the northern worker accuses the Southerner
of causing him to lose his job because the South offers
northern manufacturers the benefits of cheap, unorganized
labor. The Southerner objects, and the Northerner's
reply leads to the first episode which shows northern
workers being manipulated by the threat of their mill
moving south. After this episode, the northern worker
claims his mill would not have moved south had southern
workers been organized. The Southerner denies this charge,
saying southern labor organization would not help anyone
except northern labor leaders who are intent on robbing the
southern worker. The second episode follows and shows
southern workers being manipulated by the threat of north
ern foreign agitators who are allegedly coming south to
rob them. Following this episode, the observer enters
the action by asking the two workers: Who owns your mills?
When they can't answer his question, he explains that both mills are owned by one cooperation whose bosses are relying on and using sectionalism to deter significant labor organization in the textile industry. Episode three depicts a meeting of northern and southern mill managers discussing how to utilize feelings of sectionalism to prevent effective labor organization. The final scene is one in which the northern and southern workers shake hands 192 and agree to work together to build a strong labor organization in the textile industry.-’-^
The dramatic form employed here is an adaptation
of one associated with conventional drama. Conventional
scripts, realistic in style, feature an action line which
entails the resolution of a conflict. In this type of drama, the audience’s attention is centered on how the
conflict will be resolved, and two conventions are
generally associated with its resolution. First, the manner of resolution should be interesting, suspenseful
and somewhat of a surprise. Secondly, the resolution of
the conflict must, within the confines of the playscript,
be logical and probable. There must be a cause-effect
relationship between the events which occur in the play.
As these conventions imply, great emphasis is placed on
plot, and playwrights often use a standard plot formula
which upholds the requirements of the conventions.
Structured from the viewpoint of the audience, the
formula, in essence, is as follows:
1. There is an opening situation in which, by means of exposition, the audience is familiarized with the dramatic world of the play. This situation may be thought
of as an introduction, or as a prologue to the action, then
1 ¿‘'North-South in Five Plays About Labor (Monteagle, Tennessee: Highlander Folk School, n~ d.) Tennessee State Library and Archives. (Mimeographed.) 193 2. There is an event, termed an inciting incident, which introduces conflict and upsets the previously calm situation. The action begins, and the audience becomes concerned with the outcome of the action as
3. The characters engage in attempting to resolve the conflict, and go through a series of complications or minor conflicts, the purpose of which is to maintain audience interest and/or build audience suspense regarding the outcome of the action, until
4. An event occurs, the effects of which determine the outcome of the action. This is known as the climax of the action, and it is here that a resolution of the conflict is achieved
5. The climax and its consequences are followed by a period of explanation in which the new situation brought about by the resolution of the conflict is clarified for the audience and loose ends are tied up. This last stage of development of a conventional drama is known as the denouement and is a period devoted to explanation of the play’s action and to reasons why it happened as it did.
A period of explanatory discussion is often needed to establish the necessary cause-effect relationship of events since the playwright's desire to maintain interest and build suspense can result in a very complicated plot.
As indicated by the plot summary of North-South, extant 194 Highlander scripts are devoid of complexity. They do, however, adhere to the plan for developing action found in the formula. Furthermore, since the scripts were created by means of group improvisation, a series of episodes connected to a nuclear scene is substituted for a series of complications or minor conflicts worked out in one scene. The nuclear scene is also used to maintain a cause-effect relationship between the action in the episodes. Thus, the form utilized by extant Highlander scripts is an adaptation of that of conventional drama.
The basic principles for development of action are maintained; but the form is adapted to suit the needs of group improvisation, and the complexity often associated with conventional drama is absent.
An examination of extant outlines shows students also used this basic form when creating individual impro visations. The major difference in their use lies in their being restricted to one scene. This required them to structure their action without the use of episodes.
However, since the students were restricted by time, improvisation playing-time was three to five minutes, their plots are as straight-forward and as free of complexity as are the group plays.
Thus, a simplified version of the form most often associated with conventional drama is representative of that 1 9
PATTERN OF INQUIRY PATTERN OF PLOT DEVELOPMENT 5
Opening situation-exposition to explain the dramatic world of the playscript
Conflict introduced, the situation is upset and, Existence of indeterminate situation
Creation of a problematic The action begins: the characters situation attempt to resolve the conflict Formation of a problem-solution
Process of formulating problem- A series of complications solutions, testing them, and observing effects.
The climax
Observation that action is The denouement producing anticipated consequences
Existence of a determinate Curtain situation
Figure 1. Comparison of the Sequence of Events in the Pattern of Inquiry to Those Associated with Conventional Plot Development. 196 found in extant versions of Highlander plays and impro visations. As illustrated by the figure facing this page, the sequence of events in the dramatic form is very similar to that of the pattern of inquiry. It is highly unlikely students realized a similarity between the educational process they were undergoing and the process they were structuring. However, the process they were structuring was a series of interdependent steps, each of which had a function. In addition, the construction of the process was governed by the necessity of maintaining a cause- effect relationship between the function of each step as a means to the next step, and as a means to completing the whole. This constitutes what was earlier referred to as the secondary cause-effect relationship students had to consider. It is an important one because the necessity of maintaining it led to identification and discussion of student errors. Furthermore, discussion could include an explanation of how an individual mistake affected the whole. Students could see where they had made a mistake; could become aware of how it disrupted every other part of their work, which might have been very good; and could see reasons why. Thus, the form with which the students were working was one which provided the opportunity for a very precise analysis of the effectiveness of their class- work. If they did not maintain a cause-effect relationship 197 between the means they devised and their desired end, they could be given the chance to make corrections.
For example, a student or group of students could
neglect to include information essential to exposition.
An omission of this type might result in a totally in
comprehensible scene even though everything else in the
drama was adequate to accomplish the play’s purpose.
Because of the nature of the form with which they were working, the students could be shown where they had made
their mistake and how it confused the whole. Crucial
data could be included, students could see the results; and
they could see why it worked. In effect, these students would have had the experience of solving a problem and analyzing and understanding their experience.
Thus, the form used by students when they were devising a means to an end was one which provided the opportunity for a very precise analysis of their efforts.
Furthermore, drama class was conducted in a way which capitalized on this potential for precise student analysis.
This constitutes the third reason why the opportunity for analysis in drama class was conducive to meaningful experience. Rehearsal for North-South, previously cited, provides one example of student analysis; 198 We decided, after trying five, then four, to limit the testimony to three--two scabs, a man and a girl, and one girl union member. The latter, a self-contained and ordinarily rather phlegmatic young woman, burst the bonds of court propriety during one rehearsal when the scab girl was testifying to shout, "It's a lie! I never touched her first!" And Milis, the sheriff, who always played his parts disturbingly in character, intervened between the warring females to put the Union witness out of court. "But Milis," some practical body protested, "you can't really take Elizabeth off the stage. She still has to testify." "Don't make no difference," the sheriff replied. "If she don't behave herself it's my duty to put her out. And I'm going to see to it that she goes out." We persuaded Elizabeth to "behave herself" sufficiently to be permitted to remain on stage and give her testimony: ... 15
The clash between the young woman playing the union witness and the student sheriff happened when both got carried
away by the moment and forgot what they were doing. The practical body, presumably a student, who remembered
Elizabeth's character was essential to the development of the play, served the purpose of calling attention back to the task at hand so that the action line of the scene served a specific function in the play as a whole.
Remembering Elizabeth was needed was not a profound act, but it probably made the students realize Elizabeth's character was necessary to what they were doing. They had planned it that way, and omitting the character would require additional planning or re-thinking of the scene,
15Dyer, p. 24. 199
and, perhaps, of the play. The incident represents one example of students stopping and thinking about what they were doing. Occurrences of this type probably happened on a regular basis.
Other similar examples are found in extant out lines of individual improvisations. These outlines represent the work of the fall class of 1940 and are especially helpful because they include a summary of class criticism of the performance. Two examples will serve; in both cases the original performance was judged to fall short of accomplishing its purpose.Since class time was regularly devoted to improving improvisations, the class criticism serves as an indication of how the improvisations were reworked. Attention was directed towards restructuring the improvisation to make it the most appropriate means for achieving its desired end.
The first improvisation is intended for an audience of workers as they leave the factory. The purpose is to make the audience accept and consider hand-bills which urge them to sign an application card for CIO membership. This improvisation is apparently based on the actual experience of a student who attempted to help organize a Firestone
l^These two. examples were chosen at random from several in the Wisconsin collection. 200 plant in Memphis and was beaten by anti-union forces while trying to pass out union literature. The Memphis
Firestone plant was the object of a futile organization attempt on the part of the CIO in 1940, and physical violence was used against the organizers.-’-7 Thus, the problem with which the improvisation deals is "Passing out hand-bills at the Memphis Firestone plant gate."-’-3
The action runs as follows: the hand-bill distributors arrive at the plant gate as the shift changes; they begin to distribute hand-bills to the workers, some of whom accept them arid some of whom do not; "goons" or anti-union forces come out of the plant and surround the distributors who try to reason with them; the goons attack the distributors and drive them away from the plant gate.
The student director attempts to demonstrate his point by comparing the negative action of the anti-union forces to the positive action of the pro-union forces.
His improvisation can be classified as a melodrama in which the forces of good, the organizers, are defeated by
17walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-17)41 (Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,”1960), p. 330. ■’■^"Passing Out Hand-bills at the Memphis Fire stone Plant Gate," Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten.) 201 the goons. Of course, the desired audience response is a realization that the distributors have a proposal which, at the very least, should be considered. The summary of class comments indicates where and why the improvisation failed in its purpose. Roy and I (the students playing distributors} should of had more time to talk the situation over so the audience could have understood the time and place of happening. The goons entered the scene and began to act before we had time to leave an impression on the audience that we were trying to reason by them and that we were there to help them get better wages and better working conditions as well as their fellow workers.19
Two obvious faults appear here. First, exposition sufficient to lead the worker-audience to understand and to identify with the situation is missing. Secondly, the exposition and discussion between the goons and the distributors does not communicate to the audience the intentions of the hand-bill distributors: better wages and better working conditions. If the particular class in which this improvisation was performed was conducted in the manner specified above, the improvisation was reworked to include this information;
The comments, written by the student director, provide an indication of what he got out of the experience.
-'-9”Passing Out Hand-bills." 202 His writing illustrates he was aware of trying to make his
intended audience think and feel a certain way; the
improvisation was for him a means to an end. Furthermore,
his comments indicate a very precise awareness of where
and why the improvisation did not accomplish its purpose.
The next improvisation is concerned with the
problem of local union officers who are bought off by
management. This example contains a much more detailed
plot line than the previous one. In general the action
line revolves around a newly elected local president who
agrees not to push for wage adjustments when offered a
special extra-income job by his superintendent. The
purpose of the scene is to warn the audience to keep a
vigilant eye on their local officers, but the student misses his purpose when he has the newly elected president
go to members of his local-and tell them "he is going to
give up the presidency of the local union." Otherwise the improvisation is nicely structured, even to the point of having members of the union, at the beginning of the scene, "hope that this president will not sell the union out to the company. . . ." Class comments, in part, read:
The proper ending should have been for the president of the local union to tell the Committee {union members] that the company was not in a position to pay the wage increase in the classifica tions requested instead of telling them to get another president--he should have given the impression 203 that he was leaning towards the company--as that was what the superintendent expected in return for the heading contract.20 • -
Again, the comments indicate student ¿understanding of
where the work is at fault and why.
One other observation should be made about the
comments attached to the outlines. They were written from
memory some time after performance. The drama class
report explains:
Results far exceeded anything the instructor had imagined. By the end of the fourth week, she felt it had been a sad mistake not to have kept a detailed record of class procedure. At this late date, students were asked to hand in copies of the outline which they had prepared for themselves, with comments (filled in from memory) concerning the class criticism.21
This is significant because the ability to remember the
comments indicates the students had obtained an under standing of their experience in the drama class. The
problem-solving experience was meaningful for them.
Three examples from two terms, obviously do not permit conclusive statements about the way in which the
drama class was conducted throughout the period. The examples are, however, sufficient to illustrate the
probability of classes being conducted in a manner which
20cecil Pegues, "Betrayal of Union by President," Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 2. (Typewritten.) 23”Developing Directors," p. 3. 204 took advantage of the potential for analysis. Furthermore,
the type of analysis portrayed in the examples is one
focused on the need for maintaining a cause-effect relationship between the dramas as means and the definite ends the group or individual student sought to obtain.
There is one additional extant report which provides information about the way in which a drama class was conducted during the period. The data in the report in no way contradicts earlier discussion of class method ology. In fact this report contains evidence which, because of its special nature, greatly increases the possibility of making conclusive statements about the way in which Highlander drama classes were normally conducted.
The report concerns the fall term of 1942 and consists of notes taken by a Highlander staff member who observed the class. His notes were subsequently used to write the evaluation of the drama class included in the term evaluation.22 The term was special for two reasons.
First, it lasted only two weeks as compared to the regular six weeks. Secondly, 1942 was Highlander's tenth anniversary, and the drama class spent the last week preparing for an end-of-the-term banquet-celebration.
22gee. Leon Wilson, "Notes on Dramatics Class, taught by Zilphia Horton," 13 September 1942; "Evaluation of the term, 1942," Wisconsin State Historical Society. (Typewritten.) 205 Zilphia Horton is quoted as saying the following to
students as they began work on the banquet: "The banquet will be good only if all details are worked out ahead of
time." The class was then divided into three committees:
decoration, food, and entertainment. The subsequent class meeting began with these remarks:
What was wrong with the way we set to work yesterday? We didn't decide what the main theme of our banquet and entertainment was. It is the tenth anniversary of Highlander Folk School. We should have started to work yesterday in our committees with that thought in mind.23
These students were asked to prepare for a banquet by work ing toward a definite end. Furthermore, the question,
What was wrong with the way we set to work yesterday? calls for analysis. Perhaps asking students to execute tasks by devising a means to an end was a teaching methodology not restricted to drama, but was, instead, one which was regularly utilized, at least by Zilphia Horton. If this was the case, and the quotation above suggests it was, then it is highly probable the three previous examples are representative of the way in which all drama classes were conducted.
Therefore, Highlander students were invited to undergo a very precise analysis of their problem-solving
23wilson, p. 3. 206 experience in drama class because the means they were
devising had a corporeal existence, because the form they utilized as a medium for their means provided the oppor tunity for a very precise analysis, and because the drama class was conducted in a way which capitalized on the potential for analysis. This type of analysis is conducive to meaningful experience.
This explanation of Highlander dramatic activities as an instrument for teaching problem-solving has explained, thus far, how the drama class provided students with implicit problem-solving experience, how the dramatic form utilized in the class provided them with the opportunity to analyze that problem-solving experience, and how the class was conducted in a manner which capital ized on the potential for analysis. The discussion has followed this form because it is based on the premise, that problem-solving experience is meaningful if it is analyzed and if an understanding of the process involved is obtained While the foregoing shows students were given the opportu nity to meaningfully analyze their problem-solving experience, there has been no real reference to what they understood as a result of their analysis. Some attention needs to be given to this aspect of the premise.
What degree of understanding of the process or principles of effective and efficient problem-solving 207
could the students in Highlander's drama class have
obtained? The drama class was structured around two ideas:
a task should be approached with a given end in mind,
and the successful execution of the task required the maintenance of a cause-effect relationship between the means of accomplishing the task and the desired end. In all of the classes students were requested to begin their work on a play or improvisation with an end in mind.
In addition, discussion and criticism of student efforts were primarily concerned with whether the work, as a means, accomplished its end. Since these two principles were completely interwoven into all class work, students could have gained an implicit understanding of them.
Furthermore, evidence of increased student ability in devising means to ends, and in maintaining cause-effect relationships between means and ends, within the course of a term, makes the possibility of student understanding of these principles, probable. The students apparently made progress during the course of a term. The last play created by the summer class of 1939 was Dues Blues. The term's drama report compares the creation of the play to the class's first effort, North-South. "But by this time the students contributed much more; rehearsals went faster. The 208 performance was smooth."24 Since earlier remarks about student contributions were made with regard to play structure, it may be assumed from this statement that students were more responsible for the structure of
Dues Blues than for that of the previous play. Faster rehearsals imply a greater awareness of what was being done and why, which corroborates the assumption of greater student contribution to the whole. In addition a smooth performance suggests a greater understanding of the over all situation since earlier discussion explained the need for an understanding of the play's structure and of the purposes of each scene when the technique of improvisation was utilized. Increased student contributions and a greater understanding of the whole indicate students, at the end of the term, were more proficient at devising an effective means to an end than they were at the beginning of the term. . -• -
Another indication of student progress is found in the drama report for the fall term of 1940, a term devoted to creating individual improvisations. The following observations about use of class time are revealing: During the first week of student direction, improvisations were repeated three and four times, thus taking up the entire period with
24oyer, p. 30. 209 one student. By the beginning of the second week, they were much smoother, and it was found two students could direct in one class. Then the directors no longer stated the problem to the class before its improvisation. This they felt was a more accurate test of presentation.23
The first two weeks of class were spent introducing students to improvisational techniques and to the way in • Î which an improvisation should be structured. Thus, the weeks referred to here are the third and fourth of a six-week term. Since class time was spent on improving improvisations, the reduction of time required for each improvisation implies students were more proficient in maintaining a cause-effect relationship between means and end. -
The final example of student progress is not as specific as the two previous ones, but it is particularly interesting because it provides insight into the abilities of a class at the beginning of a term. The first six class meetings of the two week fall term of 1942 were devoted to working on two improvisations. The initial improvisational situation was brought to class by Zilphia
Horton as a way of introducing students to techniques of improvisation. On the third day of class, after running through this initial scene for a final time, a group of
25"Developing Directors," p. 2. 210 students acted out another problem. Following is an
assessment of their efforts:
Whole thing was talk, endless talk around a table, and actors, finishing the play were reminded that the central problem of the play had not been brought out: they had been so busy discussing the ramifica tions of a single grievance, that they failed to tell the,audience that their boss was stalling on all grievances to bust up their union.26
Two subsequent class periods were devoted to improving
this single improvisation. Class attention was then
devoted to banquet preparations, part of which included
creating skits for entertainment. The nature of the skits
and their degree of success is unknown, but the term
evaluation contains the following remarks:
Z. LZilphiaj not sure that they the students got any idea or what she was driving at in having them do improvisations. However, what she drew out of them the first week showed up in the last week.27
These remarks are not specific. They could be about the
way in which the students worked on the banquet, or they
could be about what students accomplished with their
banquet skits. As noted earlier, however, the same
general approach was utilized in both efforts, and the
evaluation therefore indicates students became better able
to execute the tasks given them.
^^wilson, p. 4.
27"Dramatics," in "Evaluation of the term, 1942," p. 1. 211
Together, the three examples presented demonstrate
that some Highlander students became more proficient in
executing the tasks given them during the course of a
term. Since these tasks amounted to problem-solving, and
since class emphasis was upon working toward a definite
end and maintaining a cause-effect relationship between means and end, some Highlander students obtained a degree of understanding of these principles, and could apply them within the confines of the drama class. Also, if it is assumed that the beginning skills of the class of 1942 were comparable to those of the class of 1940, the level of achievement attained by a drama class during the course of a term may be postulated. The difference in student proficiency suggested by six class days devoted to work on two improvisations as compared to one class day devoted to work on two improvisations is a striking one. If the increase in skills implied by this comparison was typical of that seen in most drama classes, students could have gained a significant degree of understanding of basic principles of problem-solving. The paucity of evidence, however, should not be forgotten, and the comparison is included because it suggests a possible, if not probable, level of achievement attained during a Highlander term.
If one steps back and looks at the situation in
Highlander's drama class, it can be described in the 212 following way: Students were given a task and asked to
execute it in a specific way. Furthermore, they were asked to execute more than one task, but always in the
same way. Thus, they had the experience of approaching
a task in the same way more than once, usually several
times. The students had the opportunity to make a way
of doing something a habit. Whether or not repetition
was sufficient to produce habit would depend upon the
individual, but the opportunity existed. Viewing the
drama class in this way recalls an earlier definition of education:
that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience and ' which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.28
If Highlander students left the drama class with habits which might have caused them to approach a task or a problem by formulating a definite end, and by attempting
to maintain a cause-effect relationship between means and end, they left the class with an implicit understanding of principles basic to efficient and effective problem solving. Highlander's drama class provided them with this opportunity.
28Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf^ 1964), citing Dewey's Democracy and Education, p. 122. 213 Even though this research is concerned only with explaining how Highlander dramatic activities provided the opportunity for meaningful problem-solving experience, there is one question whose inevitability calls for consideration. Does increased proficiency in- utilizing basic principles in a specific type of situation imply an understanding of the principles which can be applied to other types of situations? Or, to look at the question in another way, and with specific regard to the drama class: Were the habits and the specific situation so closely associated as to make application in another situation improbable?
Perhaps, it was Myles Horton's realization of the impossibility of answering these questions which caused him to say "hopefully it would carry-over," when referring to potential results of Highlander's attempts to help students become more apt at problem-solving. Not only is there no answer to the basic question, convincing pro and con arguments can be formulated. All except one of Dewey's principles of problem solving have been used to explain why the task assigned to
Highlander students amounted to problem-solving. Because the problem-solving experience in the class was implicit, one principle was deleted: the pre-requisite to solving a problem is the realization a problem exists and action is 214
needed. Inherent in this principle are reasons to suggest
that any understanding of principles of problem-solving
obtained in Highlander's drama class might not carry-over
in ordinary problematic situations. The realization of
the existence of a problem and of the need for action to which Dewey refers is a rational one, and it is one which specifies inquiry as the type of action needed. In all
of his thinking on problem-solving, Dewey advocates a
rational rather than an emotional approach to problems.
In fact, his opinion of man as a creature prone to
emotional rather than rational action is the reason for his definition and theory of problem-solving. The atmosphere in Highlander's drama class was not only devoid of the negative emotions which naturally accompany problems, but the problem-solving experience was implicit.
Furthermore, drama class was fun. This line of thinking leads one to conclude application of principles understood in drama class was not very likely.
However, returning to Dewey's concern with man's proneness to emotional instead of rational action, one might question the feasibility of attempts to increase problem-solving effectiveness. Is it possible to induce a rational reaction in an emotional situation? The question now becomes one of degree and leads to another question: How can man be made to act more rationally in 215 emotional situations? It would seem attempts to do this, which were in any degree successful, would be ones which
accepted man as he is, a creature of reason and emotion.
Furthermore, the teaching methodology used in these attempts would need, ideally, to be one which challenged man to choose rational action and which rewarded him for doing so. The Highlander drama class did not meet this ideal, but when the methodology utilized in the drama class is compared to reading a book, listening to a.lecture, having a discussion, or seeing a film about how to solve problems, its superiority is evident. The student in the drama class was totally involved in what he was doing.
Some interplay between his reasoning ability and his emotions did take place as he went about the tasks of creating plays and improvisations. Furthermore, he was given the opportunity to experience, and the word is used in its fullest implications, the satisfaction of successfully executing an act which demanded reasoning on his part. Since the basic questions under consideration do not have definite answers, the argument deemed most valid could depend upon an individual’s opinion of the innate nature of mankind. Highlander Folk School's educational methodology appears to have been founded on a belief in man's capacity to be more rational when facing emotional 216 situations. Problem-solving experience is meaningful
when people analyze it and understand the process involved.
A final question remains to be considered, and it
is one which relates to the validity of the preceding
explanation as a whole. Since Highlander Folk School was
committed to preparing students to handle future problems more effectively, why was the meaningful problem-solving
experience in the drama class implicit, and why was it
only present in the drama class for a relatively short period of time?
' To attend the last.part of the question first, two reasons can be given to explain the brief span of time during which the drama class provided meaningful problem solving experience. Both relate to the school's desire to structure class activities at the student's experience level. Highlander's dramatics program was an experimental one aimed at discovering how to best realize and utilize drama's educational potential. Concurrent with this objective was one of learning how to best reach the student's experience level. Thus, one reason why dramatics offered meaningful problem-solving experience for a short period of time was the time required to realize and utilize drama's educational potential. In addition, the
Highlander student changed over the years. As explained previously, the student of the late thirties and early 217 forties could be called a participant in the labor move ment when compared to his predecessors who were only spectators. Myles Horton says education is dealing with people's problems based on their experience and adds,
"if their experiences are different, the levels of their problems are different." In comparing various student bodies who attended the school during Highlander's association with the labor movement, Mr. Horton describes the first groups as having "no experience, nothing to build on," whereas, later, "people became much more efficient when they came to Highlander. Their stage of investment in terms of experience was way above what it was at the beginning."29 Improvisation demanded not only an understanding of the specific subject matter dramatized, but some general understanding of the world of labor as well. Students in the early thirties did not have this understanding. Consequently, asking them to improvise labor plays would have been equivalent to structuring class activities beyond their experience level. Therefore, providing meaningful problem-solving experience in drama class prior to the late thirties was not a feasible goal because of the experience level of Highlander students prior to that time, and because of the maturation of
29Horton interview, 1977. 218 teaching methodology occurring in the dramatics program and in the school as a whole.
Why, when it was present, was the problem-solving experience implicit? As explained earlier, Highlander teachers often attempted to evoke an implicit understanding of concepts because the school's practical, action-oriented educational theory fostered the belief that implicit understanding was often more meaningful and more likely to produce desired results than was explicit understanding.
Another reason for describing the problem-solving experience in Highlander's drama class as implicit, however, is an absence of methodological statements which equate the act of creating a dramatization with that of solving a problem. This lack of documentation raises the question of whether the situation in the drama class which provided students with the opportunity for meaningful problem-solving experience was one which was deliberately created; or, one which occurred because of the combined ' V. ' - - effect of a specific set of factors such as the nature of drama, the didacticism of Highlander theatre, and the way in which all classes at the school were probably conducted?
Both alternatives can he used to explain why the situation in Highlander's drama class was as it was. Ultimately, however, the situation in the class existed because the idea of executing tasks, or solving problems, by deliberately 219
devising a means to a desired end was an integral part of the way people at Highlander thought.
The Highlander habit of assessing a situation,
identifying its problem, determining a desired end, and
achieving a means to that end is illustrated by the
flexibility of the school's overall program throughout the
period, by the staff's consistent determination to
structure class activities at the student>s experience
level, and by the development and subsequent decline of
the dramatics program. Thus, the way in which students
in the drama class created their dramatizations was, to
Highlander staff, a natural one. In fact, this way of
doing things was so ordinary that there was no need to write about it in drama reports or talk about it in
staff meetings. If one was part of Highlander, one worked that way. Thus, ultimately, the situation in Highlander's drama class was one which provided students with the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic principles of problem-solving because Highlander staff naturally used these principles when they approached life's problems. 220
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
' Summary. Workers' theatre is usually classified
as political theatre. In the 1920's and 1930's several
radical groups in America formed theatre troupes for
political purposes. The plays they produced were of a
type known as "agit-prop" because they were designed to
move audiences to action and were usually sloganized. This
type of theatre received a great deal of attention from
American scholars in the sixties and early seventies when
America was going through an unusually intense period of
political activism. In the resultant research which
emphasized the political aspects of workers' theatre, little, if any, attention was given to the workers'
theatre of the period which was a part of the curricula
of nationwide schools for workers. The primary purposes
of this branch of workers' theatre were entertainment,
cultural enrichment, and education. Highlander Folk
School was a school for workers, and dramatic activities were an integral part of the school's curriculum. High
lander operated on the philosophy that education should be derived from experience. Drama, as a cultural approach
to education, was utilized as a means of providing two types of educational experience: one which effected greater understanding of subject matter in the school's curriculum, 221
and one which provided students with the opportunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving.
An examination of the Highlander dramatics program as a means of providing a greater understanding of subject matter reveals a process of development and maturation which occurred between 1932 and 1942. The process consisted of continued experimentation aimed at discovering and most effectively utilizing the educational potential in dramatics as a means of education-by-experience. Other determinants of the dramatics program at any given time were the needs of the labor movement and the nature of the student body. Consideration of these factors and attempts to respond to them produced a dramatics program with flexible goals. In the early thirties, when the southern labor movement was In its infancy, Highlander dramatic activities were directed toward transforming the generally apathetic southern worker into an active supporter of the cause of labor. Later in the decade, when the southern labor movement was rapidly gaining strength, the emphasis of the dramatics program shifted to one calculated to enable the southern labor union member to establish and to maintain organizations which were dedicated to promoting his interests. The educational goals of Highlander’s dramatics program during these two periods can be termed, 222
r es p e c tively, e due a t ion-by-experience-as-sp ectator, and
education-by-experience-as-participant. By the early
forties an increasingly institutionalized labor movement,
an understanding of the educational potential of dramatics
on the part of Highlander staff, and a need for faster
educational techniques caused a de-emphasis on dramatics
as a means of providing educational experience. Although
dramatic activities continued to be included in the
Highlander program, they became just one of several
educational techniques utilized when implementation was appropriate to the needs of the educational situation.
The final factor which determined the nature of
Highlander's dramatics program was the interests and training of the drama director. Supervision of dramatics passed through several hands until 1936 when Zilphia Horton assumed the directorship. Under her guidance and because of her determination to discover and utilize to its fullest the educational potential inherent in dramatics, the
Highlander dramatics program reached maturity. One of Highlander's general institutional objectives was to help people solve current problems and, in the process, to prepare them to meet future problems. The school attempted to accomplish the latter goal by evoking a student awareness of basic principles of effective and efficient problem-solving. One method employed was the 223 improvisation of plays and scenes about proposed solutions
to current problems. This problem-solving experience
was educational in two ways. Students gained an analytical
perspective of current problematic situations which
included an understanding of processes of action which
might be effective in dealing with these problems in real
life. In addition, students were provided with the op
portunity to gain an implicit understanding of basic
principles of problem-solving because the act of creating
a dramatization by means of improvisation is equivalent
to attempting effectively and efficiently to solve a
problem as defined by John Dewey.
Dewey's thinking is relevant to all aspects of this
examination of Highlander dramatic activities as a means of
education-by-experience because of his status as the lead
ing exponent of the theory of experience and because of his
aesthetics, in which he defines art as a medium devoted to portraying what human experience can be in its most intense and complete moments. Theatre at Highlander utilized a form
similar to that of Dewey's pattern of inquiry, an instru ment designed to help man shape his earthly life in
accordance with his needs and desires. In addition, the
concept of man as a creature capable of shaping his life
largely determined the content and methods of implementa
tion employed in Highlander theatre. Thus, the essence of 224 Highlander theatre was the idea that man is capable of structuring his life. The art of theatre and this idea
are not commonly associated, but any other type of
theatre would have been inconsistent with Highlander's institutional objectives.
Highlander Folk School's association with the
labor movement was governed by a desire to help create a
society which brought the greatest happiness to the great
est number. Such a society could be established and maintained, it was believed, only if the citizens compris
ing it were active, informed and responsible individuals.
Dramatizations about crucial situations existing in the
common collective life of Highlander students were a means of providing information and of promoting the degree and type of action essential to creating and preserving what was believed to be a better society. Thus, even though
Highlander dramatic activities were always thought of as educational experience rather than as art, their purpose was identical to one conventionally attributed to all of the arts--the enrichment of the human experience.
Cohc lus ion. This examination of Highlander dramatic activities led to the discovery of other topics worthy of independent investigation. The first, and the only one directly related to theatre, is performances of
Highlander improvised dramas as cultural phenomena. A 226 principles. The character and presence of Myles Horton
may be largely responsible for philosophical consistency
and for the school’s survival, but it does not seem
feasible to attribute this solely to his influence or, for
that matter, to that of any other staff members. Such a view would overlook the continued response of people to what Frank Adams has called the idea of Highlander. No
institution can survive unless it offers something. High lander has not only existed for forty-five years, but has endured frequent attacks calculated to destroy it.
This history suggests the appeal of the idea which is
Highlander is a strong and basic one and invites attempts to discover an explanation of it. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Resource Material for John Dewey Research
Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York: Minton, Balch and Co., 1934.
______. ' How We Think : A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. New York: D. C. Heath-and Co., 1933.
______. "Experience and Thinking." In Vol. 2: The Lived Experience, pp. 494-505; and "The Experimental Theory of Knowledge." In Vol. lj The Structure of Experience, pp. 175-192. In McDermott, John J., ed. The Philosophy of Dewey. 2 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,"T973.
______. "Qualitative Thought." pp. 176-198; and "The Pattern of Inquiry." pp. 111-132. In Bernstein, Richard J., ed. On Experience, Nature, and Freedom Representative Selections. New York: Bobbs- Merrill Co., Inc., I960.
Bernstein, Richard J. John Dewey. The Great American Thinker Series. Brown, Arthur W. and Knight, Thomas S., gen. eds. New York: Washington Square Press, 1966.
Geiger, George R. John Dewey in Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Hook, Sidney. John Dewey : An Intellectual Portrait. New York: John Day Co., 1939; reprint ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971.
Books
Adams, Frank with Horton, Myles. Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander. Winston-Salem, NortK Carolina: John F. Blair, Publisher, 1975. 228 Barnett, Paul. "Industrial Development in Tennessee: Present Status and Suggested Program." Study No. 11 of the Bureau of Research School of Business Administration. The University of Tennessee Record 44 (July 1941).
Bernstein, Irving. The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-41. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.
Brameld, Theodore. ed. Workers Education in the United States. John Dewey Society, Fifth Yearbook. New York: Harpers, 1941.
Carter, Jean. Annotated List of Labor Plays. New York: Affiliated Schools for Workers, Inc., 1938.
Carter, Jean and Ogden, Jess. Everyman's Drama: A Study of the Noncommercial Theater in the Unite? States. New York: American Association for Adult Education, 1938.
Carter, Jean and Smith, Hilda W. Education and the Worker Student: A Book About Workers' Education Based Upon the Experience of Teachers and Students. New York: Affiliated Schools for Workers, 1934.
Cash, Wilbur J. The Mind of the South. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 19417
Ciment, Michel. Kazan on Kazan. New York: Viking Press, 1974.
Cohen, Sanford. Labor in the United States. 3rd ed. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, Publishers, Co., 1970.
Couch, W. T., ed. Culture in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934.
Cremin, Lawrence A. The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964.
Falcone, Nicholas S. Labor Law. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 19627 229 Galenson, Walter. The CIO Challenge to the AFL : A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960.
Goldstein, Malcolm. The Political Stage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Grob, Gerald N. and Beck, Robert N., eds. Ideas in America: Source Readings in the Intellectual History of the United States. New York: Free Press, ' 1970/
Himmelstein, Morgan. Drama Was A Weapon. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1963.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform; from Bryan to F. D. R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
Hoover, Calvin B. and Ratchford, B. U. Economic Resources and Policies of the South. New York: MacMillan, Co., 1951.
Huberman, Leo. Labor Spy Racket. New York: Modern Age Books, 1937 Jacobs, Lewis, ed. The Documentary Tradition : From Nanook to Woodstock. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, Publishers, 1971.
Knowles, Malcolm S. ed. Handbook of Adult Education in the United States. Chicago: Adult Education Association” i960.
Lawrence, Mary. Education Unlimited, Monteagle, Tenn.: Highlander Folk School, 1945.
Liveright, Alexander A. Union Leadership Training-. A Handbook of Tools~and Techniques'? Chicago: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1951.
McBrearty, James C. American Labor History and Comparative Labor Movements : A Selected Bib1iography. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1973.
Marshall, F. Ray. Labor in the South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press'^ 1967. 230
Mitchell, Broadus and Mitchell, George Sinclair. The Industrial Revolution in the South. New York : Greenwood Press, 1968, reprint ed. New York; Johns Hopkins Press, 1930.
Ogden, Frederic D. The Poll Tax in the South. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1958.
Peterson, Florence. American Labor Unions : What They Are and How They Work, rev’ ed. New York : Harper, T9~52~------
Rowden, Dorothy, ed. Handbook of Adult Education in the United States. New York: American Association for AdultEducation, 1934.
Tindall, George Brown. The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.
White, Morton. Social Thought in America : The Revo11 Against Formalism, 2nd e3. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.
Williams, Jay. Stage Left. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974.
Periodicals
Adams, Frank. "Highlander Folk School: Getting Information Going Back and Teaching It." Harvard Educational Review 42 (November 1972), pp. 497-520.
Citizen (Dalton, Georgia), June-August 1939. Cobb, William H. "From Utopian Isolation to Radical Activism: Commonwealth College, 1925-35." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 32 (1973), pp. 132-147. Cobb, William H. and Grubb, Donald H. "Arkansas Commonwealth College and the Southern Tenant Farmers Union." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 25 (Winter 1966),“pp. 293-3TT7“ Coit, Eleanor G. and Starr, Mark. "Workers' Education in the United States." Monthly Labor Review 49 (July 1939), pp. 1-21. 231 "Election on Proposed Constitutional Amendment." Nashville Banner, 4 November 1953, p. 9.
DeVyver, Frank Traver. "The Present Status of Labor Unions in the South." Southern Economic Journal 5 (1938-1939), pp. 485-OT7 ' Frederickson, Mary. "The Southern Summer School for Women Workers.” Southern Exposure 4 (Winter 1977), pp. 70-76. ‘ :
Hanson, Alice. "Workers Education on the March." American Teacher 29 (April 1939), pp. 15-18.
Horton, Myles. "The Community Folk School," Everett, Samuel, ed. The Community School. New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1938; reprinted New Schools Exchange Newsletter 136 (November 1976) PP- 2-10.
Lecky, Eleazer. "New Theatre." Modern Drama 6 (1963), pp. 267-276.
McDermott, Douglas. "New Theatre School.” Speech Teacher 14 (1965), pp. 278-285.
News (Dalton, Georgia), June-August 1939.
"Queen Lena of Labor to Meet AFL Chief Who ’Read Her Out’!" Knoxville News Sentinel, 6 September 1936, p. 1.
Unpublished Material
Highlander Research and Education Center Library. New Market, Tennessee. -
Hodges, James A. "Tennessee Federation of,Labor, 1919-1939.’ M.A. thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1959*. Horton, Aimee. "The Highlander Folk School: A History of the Development of Its Major Programs Related to Social Movements in the South, 1932-1961." Ph.D. dissertation, University-of Chicago, 1971.
Jones, May Wells. "A History of the Radical Theatre in the United States from 1930 to 1970." Ph.D. disserta tion, Tulane University, 1971. 232
Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Historical Society. "Highlander Research and Education Center, Mss. 265." Minton, John Dean. "The New Deal in Tennessee, 1932- 38." Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1959.
Nashville, Tennessee. Tennessee State Library and Archives. "Highlander Folk School, Mss. 1811." New York Public Library. Theatre Collection.
Smith, Gary L. "The International Ladies Garment Workers Union’s Labor Stage, A Propagandistic Venture." Ph.D. dissertation, Kent State University, 1975.
Thomas, H. Glyn. "A History of the Highlander Folk School, 1932-1941." M.A. thesis, Peabody College, 1964.
Interviews
Chapin, Chouteau Dyer. Written Interview, 21 February 1977.
Horton, Myles. Highlander Research and Education Center, New Market, Tennessee. Interview, 19 July 1976. Horton, Myles. Home of Mrs. George Wolfe in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Interview, 24 September 1977. Justus, May. Her home in Grundy County, Tennessee. Interview, 18 May 1977.
Wolfe, Elsie Pearl Horton. Her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Interview, 24 August 1976.
Letters
Chapin, Chouteau Dyer. To Anne Petty. 21 February 1977.
Chisholm, Mac. To his mother. 10 March 1937. Wisconsin State Historical Society.
Dombrowski, James. To Coy Fulton. 17 April 1935. Wisconsin State Historical Society. 233 Hays, Lee. To Zilphia Horton, n. d. Wisconsin State Historical Society.
Horton, Zilphia. To Myles Horton. 6 November 1935. Myles Horton personal files.
Horton, Zilphia. To Myles Horton. 23 September 1936. Myles Horton personal files.
McLaren, Louise. To Myles Horton. 22 February 1933. Wisconsin State Historical Society.