By Gabriela Flores
As the United States began taking up arms in World War 2, some Brooklyn College students took up baskets of beans and farm life with the goal of feeding soldiers on the frontlines. What started as a patriotic initiative for many – and a way to leave the nest – soon became a hit of reality on what stood beyond campus grounds. From striking for better working conditions to demanding student representation on the fields, the students of the Farm Labor Project formed part of BC’s history and ongoing activism.
“Throughout the entire history of Brooklyn College, the students were always activists,” said Marianne LaBatto, BC’s Associate Archivist, who is compiling and summarizing the project’s past in her blog “Countdown to 2030.”
“They were always fighting for their rights and for the rights of other people in the United States, and even for others around the world. You can see that in the Farm Labor Project,” she said.
For two years, LaBatto has developed her blog and has gone nose-deep into the archives that preserved fragments of the Farm Labor Project, which first began in 1942 under former Brooklyn College President Harry David Gideonse. At the time, there was a labor shortage in agricultural industries, as many men were drafted to battle or headed to war-related jobs. For Gideonse, the nearly-empty fields became the perfect opportunity for BC students to receive a hands-on education that follows his philosophy of “other-than-intellectual.”
Rounding up 67 Brooklyn College undergrads that summer, Gideonse alongside the Board of Higher Education, stationed students across farms in Upstate New York: one in Dutchess County, another in Germantown, and a third near Red Hook. Noticeably to LaBatto, much of the student voices of those who participated in ‘42 and the years to follow were not preserved within BC’s archives – leaving only administrator notes, reports, internal memos, and some newspaper clippings to draw a limited picture of what the project was like on the ground. One of the archives that did shed light on the initiative’s problems was an exposé published by the Vanguard in April 1944, where interviewees revealed how the project’s head, Professor Benedict, and other faculty members pushed students to work continuously despite their exhaustion.
“[…] A lot of times, that whole picture of an event might be lost. Each archive, not just our archive, has gaps of silence and biases. And a lot of times in archives it’s about power dynamics,” LaBatto said. Though, with the aid of oral histories compiled in 2000 by BC Professor Adina Back, who interviewed alumni that formed part of the Farm Labor Project, a fuller view of the story began to unravel. With LaBatto’s hopes to incorporate student voices in her retelling of the project’s history, the alumni and their recounting of persistent struggles on the farms, discrimination against Bahamian migrant workers, and other hardships were interestingly coupled with sweet memories of young, summer hangouts.
“It’s kind of like life in a way – if you look at your life as a whole, there’s always stuff that can be negative but then there’s always going to be positive aspects of the same experience,” said LaBatto.
After its first summer run, and the publishing of Vanguard’s piece, Professor Benedict thought the college should place students on farms without the consultation of the federal government. Gideonse agreed, and by 1943, 150 undergrads and eight faculty members made their way to Morrisville, where they picked the fields of Grove M. Hinman. While working with Hinman, all participants had to pay for their room and board, book fees, food, and other costs, with many hoping to use their earnings from the field to pay off their debts. However, weather, poor crop quality, low wages from Hinman, and the Bulldogs’ limited skills prevented those goals from materializing.
Besides working hours in the beaming sun, and spending nights studying, the Farm Labor Project students saw the discriminatory difference in treatment between themselves and Hinman’s farmworkers who migrated from the Bahamas. Within the oral histories, alumni recalled the Bahamian migrant workers living in what looked like “abandoned chicken coops.”
“And the other thing that got me was that there were entire families – people don’t realize the entire time there were children that were working alongside their parents for hours and hours at a time in the field,” LaBatto said, who noticed that the archives did not acknowledge the students’ concerns for the Bahamian migrant workers.
After students complained extensively to faculty about the poor working conditions across the fields and picking only Hinman’s farms that were nearly empty, unrest soon rose when their demands and concerns fell on deaf ears. In one incident, an alum named Margorie Brockman recalled with Professor Back in 2000 how the beans she and other students harvested day in, day out were being dumped in local rivers – not going off to soldiers on the frontlines.
“There was not a sense of academic freedom, students were essentially seen as not adults. They were still children in the eyes of faculty members, ‘I am the boss here, you can complain all you want but this is it,’” said LaBatto. Nonetheless, the students pushed back against faculty members, carrying out walk-offs, pushing for the development of a student council, and even a strike in August 1943. Though their efforts did not lead to any significant improvements in their time at Morrisville or the treatment of the Bahamian migrant farmers, the BC students persisted in their activist spirits.
“I think they went in with the best intentions that what they were doing was for the war effort. And I think they did grow, they did mature, and many students continued to be activists after the war,” LaBatto said.
Despite the tolls the Farm Labor Project took on some students, one of the most rewarding experiences many fondly remembered was the social scene. From having a newsletter called the Beanstalker, to brawling in the yard, students enjoyed time away from the confines of home and campus. In their own way, BC students of the 1940s enjoyed their budding independence and the freedoms that came with the field after working hours. Nonetheless, the summer of 1944 led to the project’s end, as recruitment numbers dwindled and other financial constraints surfaced.
Although the project did not persist post-war as President Gideonse wanted, the history will remain alive as LaBatto continues her findings and compilations of archives and oral histories.
“[…] My story is not the end all – I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, this is it,” said LaBatto, who is working on an exhibit for display in the BC Library about World War 2. “I want my blog posts to be a launching part for people to be interested, for people to come to the Archives and explore the primary sources themselves, and make their own conclusions – that’s what using primary sources is all about.”
For more information on the Farm Labor Project, visit: https://countdown2030.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-1940s/the-farm-labor-project/