Book Review

Book Review Part 1: 

Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education, 1929 - 1970

By John Lyons

Margaret Haley, 1st Chicago teachers union president

The book Teachers and Reform by John Lyons is a must read for Chicago teachers to learn about the history of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Second City Teachers will feature a 3 or 4 part series on the history of the CTU and its relationship to the Chicago Public Schools based on information from this book. This first part will take a look at how the CTU was first formed.

In 1900, women made up 50 percent of Chicago high school teachers, but in 1930 they made up 80 percent of junior high school teachers.

Chicago was the center of teacher unionism after women elementary teachers formed the Chicago Teachers Federation (CTF) in 1897. CTF leader Margaret Haley demanded that corporations pay higher taxes, enact more progressive laws, and fight for the women's vote and Irish independence. 

High school teachers formed their own union in 1912 Herbert Miller formed the Chicago Federation of Men Teachers (MTU), and then women formed the Federation of Women High School Teachers.

The success of teacher unionism in Chicago was because Chicago had the largest and most militant and progressive labor unions in the country in the early 1900s. The Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) formed close relations with socialists and other radicals to organize packing house and women garment workers. The CFL opposed World War I and supported Irish independence from Britain. They turned away from radicals in the mid 1920s and focused only on pay and benefits.

In 1915 the Chicago Board of Education president Jacob Loeb instituted a rule to prohibit teachers from joining labor unions. The CTF then disaffiliated from the CFL and the AFT in May, 1917. In this progressive era, women were the most active social and education reformers. They were more interested in improving education than the men.

In the 1920s textbooks were old and inadequate, there were few or no libraries, poor bathrooms and few playgrounds. Cheerless classrooms included merely a chalkboard, a map and a waste basket, and were poorly heated and ventilated.

Teachers unions in Chicago were divided before the Great Depression. In 1929 about 10 percent of Chicago teachers were in a union.

The ethnically divided teaching force in Chicago was further divided between Catholics and Protestants. Chicago Elementary teachers were paid in nine yearly steps from $1500 - $2500, while High School teachers were paid from $2,000 - $3800. The teachers had ten paid holidays and ten paid sick days, a pension, tenure and other benefits. They also had more control over what they taught.

The corrupt Chicago public education system coupled with the Depression resulted in payless paydays that led to the establishment of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). At this time 90 percent of school funding came from property taxes, while in NY it was only 30 percent. Major property holders and big businesses paid little taxes in the Windy City. 

In October, 1932 half of Chicago's workforce was unemployed. The tax delinquency rate was five times that of NY City.

The payless paydays and school crisis of 1929 - 1934 made teachers understand that the banks were the enemies and politicians merely represented their interests and they needed to form a strong union.

In May 1937 John Fewkes became president of the Mens Teacher Union (MTU) on the platform to unit all the teachers unions in Chicago. The next October the four unions - the men and women high school teacher federations, the elementary teacher federation and the Playground Teachers Union merged to form the Chicago Teachers Union, Local No. 1 of the American Federation of Teachers and John Fewkes became the first president.

(The Fewkes Tower was sold by the CTU in 2015 for $48.5 million in order to move into its new headquarters and pay for its legislative agenda.)

In 1938 the CTU became the largest teachers union in the country, with two-thirds of the city's teachers members, while less than 4 percent of teachers in the rest of the country joined a union. Margaret Haley CTF president refused to join because she said the CTU included principals as members and would be dominated by high school teachers.

Mayor Ed Kelly, who formed the Chicago Machine, allowed teachers to distribute union flyers and hold union meetings in the schools and gave Fewkes a leave of absence to be union president and allowed union delegates time off to attend conferences.

"The union faced a critical choice: forge an alliance with reform organizations that would challenge the machine and change the city's politics and public schools or align with the machine and concentrate on issues of salary."

*The next part will focus on the Chicago Teachers Union precarious relationship with Kelly-Nash machine.