Product Code Database
Howard Selsam (born Howard Brillinger Selsam; 28 June 1903 – 7 September 1970) was an American Marxism philosopher.
Selsam's education began in public schools in the Harrisburg area. Later, Selsam received his undergraduate degree in 1924 from Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From 1924 through 1927, he taught at the American University of Beirut. Later, Selsam did graduate work in philosophy at Columbia University. At Columbia, he received both his MA (1928) and PhD (1931). Selsam's master's thesis dealt with Baron d'Holbach, and his dissertation concerned the English Hegelian philosopher Thomas Hill Green.
In 1944, Selsam became the director of the Jefferson School of Social Science,Marv Gettleman, "Jefferson School of Social Science," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (eds.), Encyclopedia of the American Left. First Edition. New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; pp. 389-390. a "Marxist adult education facility" whose faculty included "leftist academics dismissed from the City University of New York." He held this position from 1944-1956. Under Selsam's leadership (1944-1956), there was a steady flow of students at the Jefferson School. Even during the hey-day of Senator Joseph McCarthy's well publicized investigations into Communist subversion, the Jefferson School had an enrollment of 5,000 students each term. Nevertheless, the school received criticism claiming that students simply received dogmatic instruction. For example, a Rutgers University economics professor, Alexander Balinky enrolled in the school and took some classes. Based on his experiences at the school, Balinky wrote a newspaper article and claimed that the students received political indoctrination at the school.
In early December 1947 when news that the Jefferson School of Social Science had appeared on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO), Selsam told the New York Times:
There is nothing subversive about the Jefferson School. Its organization and teaching are open and above board. Its aims and purposes are clearly defined in its bulletin of courses and other material it issues. If the school is subversive, then any teaching of social science that differs from the beliefs of J. Edgar Hoover (chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) is to be labeled subversive.Due to tensions caused by the Cold War, Anti-communism, and McCarthyism, the Jefferson School was subject to Congressional hearings and Selsam and others received summons to testify on several occasions. For example, Selsam, represented by Joseph Forer, testified before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee on 8 April 1953, and, during Selsam's testimony, he often invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Selsam and other school administrators denied that the school was a Communist front and fought against having it so officially labeled. Given the political radicalism of the faculty members and the Marxist-oriented instruction at the school, and facing external political pressure against the school, declining student enrollment, and publication in the West of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech—a speech which described in detail Stalin's crimes and political purges —all of these factors ultimately forced the school administrators to close down the school in 1956.
Besides writing books, Selsam wrote articles and reviews for periodicals, including The New Masses, and Marxism Today. He worked closely and collaborated with his wife Millicent Selsam, a botanist and high school teacher who was well known as an author of science books for young people.
Besides writing for The New Masses and Marxism Today, Selsam was an editorial board member for the Marxist journal Science & Society, and he was a Entrepreneur of the American Institute for Marxist Studies.
Selsam had correspondence with prominent intellectuals and writers, including historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois
During his last years Selsam had a heart ailment, and he died in New York on September 7, 1970. He was survived by his wife, Millicent Selsam, a son, Robert, and his sister Mrs. Esther Garman.
|
|
