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Celeste Strack Kaplan Papers,
1931-1996
MSS 035
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Title: Celeste Strack Kaplan Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1931-1996
Collection number: MSS 035
Creator:
Kaplan, Celeste Strack, 1915-1998
Extent:
3 boxes, 1 half-box, 1 oversize
box
3 linear feet
3 linear feet
Repository:
Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research
Los Angeles, CA 90044
Abstract: Papers of a 1930s student radical and
Communist Party member. The collection covers her activities from her
undergraduate debating career through her resignation from the party in
1958.
Language:
English.
Donated to the Library by Celeste Strack Kaplan's husband, Leon
Kaplan, November 10, 1999.
The collection is available for research only at the Library's
facility in Los Angeles. The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday
through Saturday. Researchers are encouraged to call or email the Library
indicating the nature of their research query prior to making a visit.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Southern California Library
for Social Studies and Research. Researchers may make single copies of any
portion of the collection, but publication from the collection will be allowed
only with the express written permission of the Library's director. It is not
necessary to obtain written permission to quote from a collection. When the
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research gives permission
for publication, it is as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be
obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Celeste Strack Kaplan Papers, The Southern
California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles,
California.
Celeste Strack Kaplan was born in 1915 in Chicago; the Strack family
moved to San Diego during her childhood. After graduating from high school
(1932), she earned a full scholarship to the University of Southern California
(USC) where she was the only member of the freshman class to achieve an A
average. She was a member of the championship women's debate team. Raised in a
Republican household, Kaplan became involved in radical student politics at USC
and was expelled in 1934 for her political activities. During the summer,
Kaplan returned to San Diego and worked with the National Student League (NSL)
and the American League Against War and Fascism, organizing in the local high
schools before enrolling in UCLA. She also covered the 1934 San Francisco
General Strike for the NSL's newspaper.
As a UCLA student, Kaplan continued her association with the NSL
(organizing at UCLA and Los Angeles Junior College). She had worked on
organizing the 1934 Student Strike for Peace at USC, and also the 1935 Student
Strike for Peace at UCLA. Kaplan and four male students (including the Student
Body President) were suspended in November 1934 for attempting to arrange an
open student forum. Kaplan specifically was charged with "persistent violation
of university regulations including the holding of communistic meetings on its
grounds." A large scale, negative publicity campaign was launched with support
from a number of liberal organizations. Kaplan and the other students were
reinstated with full credit in December 1934. In 1935, she was part of a
24-member delegation to Cuba in response to a request from the outlawed
National Labor Federation of Cuba (pre-revolutionary Cuba was controlled by
U.S. corporate interests). The delegation included various labor union leaders,
writer Clifford Odets, and others; Kaplan was the NSL delegate. The delegation
was arrested upon their arrival and deported. Kaplan graduated from UCLA with a
Bachelor of Arts and went on to receive a Masters of Economics from UC Berkeley
and a Masters of Social Work from UCLA. While in graduate school Kaplan
continued to work on youth related projects including the American Youth
Congress, American Student Union movement, and the YWCA's work on the Federal
Youth Act.
Kaplan was a member of the YCL (Young Communist League) as early as
the summer of 1934, though she denied party membership at the time of her
suspension. She married fellow party member, Leon Kaplan sometime in the 1940s.
She continued to use her maiden name (Strack) through the 1950s. During the
1940s and 1950s, Kaplan wrote regularly for Political Affairs magazine, which
was sub-titled "A magazine devoted to the theory and practice of
Marxism-Leninism," under her own name and two pen names: Catherine Welland and
Mary Norris. Her writing also appeared in New Masses and Mainstream. In 1948,
as the Educational Director of the Communist Party of California, Kaplan
testified in Hawaii in defense of John and Aiko Reinecke, a husband and wife
both dismissed from teaching jobs for alleged communist affiliation. Kaplan
also went on a speaking tour of the islands sponsored by the Hawaii Civil
Liberties Committee (HCLC). 1948 was also the year she taught a class in "The
History of Socialism in the United States" at the California Labor School.
During this time period, Kaplan's husband was Labor Secretary for the party. In
the early 1950's, the couple was sent underground, moving all over the country,
sometime separated, and unable to contact their families. Their only daughter,
Anna was born (1954) during this time. In 1955, they re-emerged (it was at this
point that Kaplan returned to UCLA for her Masters of Social Work). In 1958,
the Kaplans left the party as part of a mass resignation. This was a period
that found many disillusioned with the Communist Party who went on to create
other alternative political organizations
After leaving the party, Kaplan went on to become the director of EL
NIDO, a multi-ethnic social service agency serving children and families in Los
Angeles County. She retired for the first time in 1983, going on to become
founder and first president of the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children
(1983-1990), help create the County Department of Children and Family Services
(1984), and teach at the USC School of Social Work. In 1990, she retired again,
moving with her husband to Ventura County to be near their daughter and her
family, but Kaplan still taught at the Ventura County USC School of Social
Work. She died in 1998.
This collection contains correspondence, flyers, articles, teaching
materials, manuscript drafts, a thesis, a book, clippings and periodicals. The
collection is divided fairly evenly between clippings, published articles and
unpublished letters and other collected materials. The materials give an inside
view of the radical student movement of the 1930s through correspondence,
flyers and periodicals, and the life and achievements of a specific, gifted
student, including her prize winning record as a debater at USC. It also
documents some of her activities as the Educational Director of the Communist
Party of California in the 1940s. It contains no reference to her period
underground except for one undated letter in which she tells her correspondent
where she is really staying as opposed to where she is "officially" staying.
The collection ends with her resignation from the party in 1958. It contains no
information on her later career as a social worker and teacher.
The collection also contains fairly extensive clippings and
periodicals files. Besides the usual materials the collection contains two
volumes, a 1960 thesis about the New Deal and Youth, in which Kaplan is
mentioned, and a well annotated book (both directly on the page and on detailed
strips of paper stuck between the pages), The Political Economy of Growth by
Paul A. Baran, which Kaplan apparently used in writing State Monopoly
Capitalism. Serril Gerber, who is also mentioned in the Blacklisted Teachers
Collections, and radical lawyer Richard Gladstein, also make appearances in
Kaplan's papers.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into three series:
Student Period,
Communist Party
Period
, and
Clippings and Periodicals
Related Material at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
Title: Richard Gladstein Papers,
Date: 1930-1969
Physical Description:
10 boxes
Title: Abraham Minkus Papers: Blacklisted Teachers in Los
Angeles,
Date: 1945-1983
Physical Description:
4 boxes
Bibliography
Kaplan, Anna L.
Born Underground, in
Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Leftedited by
Kaplan, Judy and
Shapiro, LinnUrbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998.