Howard Brillinger Selsam was born on 28 June 1903 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His parents were John T. Selsam, a grocer, and his mother was Flora Emig Selsam.[4]
In 1931, after receiving his PhD, Selsam served as an instructor and later as an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, where he worked for 10 years.[5] Active politically, Selsam participated in anti-war events on campus[8][9] and took "an active part in the social struggles of his day on the side of the communistmovement."[4] Selsam's involvement is echoed in a contemporary newspaper article where Selsam is associated with Communist Party USA activities,[10][11] yet he was careful not to impose his political beliefs on students.[12][13] Nevertheless, Selsam published articles in left-wing periodicals such as The New Masses, although Selsam used the pseudonym "Paul Salter."[14][15] The political activities of Selsam and other Brooklyn College faculty members attracted the attention of governmental investigation. Despite their denials of Communist association to reporters,[12] Selsam and other faculty members later lost their teaching positions due to the Rapp-Coudert Committeeinvestigations into Communist involvement in public education in New York State.[4][12][3] That Selsam refused to testify at the hearings[16][17] and faced contempt charges[18] likely made his resignation unavoidable.[19]
In 1944, Selsam became the director of the Jefferson School of Social Science,[3][4][26] a "Marxist adult education facility"[27] whose faculty included "leftist academics dismissed from the City University of New York."[27] He held this position from 1944-1956.[28] Under Selsam's leadership (1944-1956[5]), 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.[29] 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.[30]
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.[31]
Selsam and other school administrators denied that the school was a Communist front and fought against having it so officially labeled.[22][23][24][25] 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[23] —all of these factors ultimately forced the school administrators to close down the school in 1956.[22][33]
On April 8, 1953, represented by attorney Joseph Forer, Selsam accused the committee as much as it accused him. He blamed congressional committees for creating an "atmosphere of repression and terror." "Every witness... knows full well the meaning of your subpoena server's knock... dismissal from his job."[5]
Khrushchev's secret speech and its aftermath caused considerable turmoil within the Communist Party USA,[23] and Selsam and other Jefferson School faculty members openly quit the Party in a joint letter published in the May 6, 1956 issue of the Daily Worker.[22]
With the closure of the Jefferson School of Social Science, Selsam devoted much of his time lecturing and writing.[4] He wrote a number of books on Marxist topics for International Publishers. Many of these books were republished in Canada, England, and India. In addition, Selsam's books were translated into a variety of languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Russian, German, Hungarian, and Japanese.[6][3]
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[34] who was well known as an author of science books for young people.[4]
During his last years Selsam had a heart ailment,[3] and he died in New York on September 7, 1970. He was survived by his wife, Millicent Selsam,[4][34] a son, Robert, and his sister Mrs. Esther Garman.[3]
^ abAnonymous (1965). "Chapter: About the author". In Selsam, Howard (ed.). Ethics and progress: New values in a revolutionary world. New York, New York: International Publishers.
^ abcHeins, Marjorie (2013). "Chapter 3 Rapp-Coudert". Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge. New York: New York University Press. ISBN9780814770269. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
^United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations (1950). State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eighty-First Congress, Second Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 231, a Resolution to Investigate Whether There Are Employees in the State Department Disloyal to the United States, Part 2, Appendix. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. p. 1923.
^Associated Press (20 December 1940). "High Court Given College Red Case". The Milwaukee Journal. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The Journal Company. p. 4. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
^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.
^Balinky, Alexander (1 March 1956). "Microscope on Communism"(PDF). Westfield (N.J.) Leader. Westfield, N.J.: Westfield Leader Print. and Pub. Co. p. 19. Archived from the original(PDF) on 13 May 2014. Retrieved 12 May 2014.