In assembling still photos to be included in a video I am doing on a
trip up to my hometown in the Catskills in August, I could find nothing
on the net that showed Woodridge in its prime. A visit to the Sullivan
County Historical Museum in Hurleyville turned up the intriguing first
page of a PM article dated July 20, 1947 with the title “Utopia in the
Catskills”. I eventually tracked down the full print version at the New
York Historical Society that I scanned in for the results below. PM was
a leftist newspaper with heavy Communist Party participation that was
published out of NYC from 1940 to 1948 and funded by Chicago millionaire
Marshall Field III, a scion of the Montgomery-Field department stores.
They don’t make millionaires the way they used to.
In a nutshell, the article was as much of a find for me as the Ark of
the Covenant was for Indiana Jones. It told me who I was and where I
came from.
The title of the article refers to the strong left sympathies in the
village and the importance of co-op’s. My grandfather Louis, who died
around the time that this article was written, was president of the
Workman’s Circle that is referred to in the article as follows:
/The dominating political view among the people of the Workman’s Circle
was socialist. The Circle carried out its idealistic aims along three
lines of endeavor: 1. Mutual aid in time of need and misfortune. 2.
Education for membership. 3. Organization of workers’ co-operatives./
There are lots more that I can say about this article but do not want to
interrupt the flow with my observations. As you read through it, you can
find my elaborations on both personal and historical matters by clicking
various links, starting with a longer introduction on Woodridge and the
left here <http://www.marxmail.org/catskill_utopia_intro.htm>.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/30/utopia-in-the-catskills/
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