Work People's College

402 South 88th Avenue West

The Work People’s College started out as a Finnish Lutheran seminary in Minneapolis in 1903, but within a few months, the group moved to Duluth. They quickly expanded to secular lessons. By 1907, Finnish Socialists had bought a majority of fundraising “stock” in the school, thus establishing it as a non-religious school for working-class radicalism. The front part of the school was built in 1907, and the rear dormitories were added on in 1913.

In 1913, there was an ideological split among Finnish socialists with the school aligning itself with the fast-growing radical labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The school’s curriculum included English, Finnish, Marxism, Socialist thought, IWW style organizing, and worker administration. The Work People’s College was one of the very few, and likely the earliest, formal labor schools in the country.

Famed IWW union organizer, Joe Hill, was sentenced to death in Utah on circumstantial evidence in 1914. He was cremated and his ashes were distributed into envelopes and sent to every state (except Utah) with more around the world to be spread. The fate of these packets was widespread with some ending up in the National Archives via government intercepted mail, some in Utah Phillips guitar, and musician Billy Bragg even consumed some surviving ashes just a few years ago. However, mostly IWW groups ended up spreading his ashes in song. The Work People’s College got one of those packets and the ashes were spread in front of the school in the more conventional memorial route.

The school was target of the 1919 Palmer Raids aimed at working class immigrant groups that resulted in the deportation of many immigrants in the school’s community. Facing federal charges, the school’s central figure, Leo Laukki, fled to the USSR. Classes continued on afterward, but the school never fully recovered. It finally closed in 1941.

International Socialist Review (Chicago), 1913