Interpreting the Scrapbooks

Interpreting the Scrapbooks Name Course Instructor Date Assistance to refugee scholars from the 1930s helped to integrate the first wave of European exiled scholars and professors. The exile of German academics offered an opportunity to advance knowledge at the New School for Social Research of New York, where there was an emphasis on attracting accomplished scholars. To accommodate the exiled German intellectuals, arrangements were made to seek funds from various sources. The New School would serve as a model for other institutions hosting exiled European intellectuals. Alvin Johnson took a firm stand against exclusion and discrimination of people regardless of their background, and opening the school was one way to promote justice. Accommodating the exiled German intellectuals, and scholars who were censored and persecuted, facilitated the transition to academic, professional, and personal lives of the exiled professors. For the Jewish students and intellectuals fleeing the anti-semitism before and during World War II, the school provided an opportunity to teach and learn when there was an emphasis on ending discrimination. The school opened several faculties, initially experimenting with the courses, and this also enriched the American intellectual circles where various intellectuals were holding different political positions. The advisory of trustees reported on the school’s progress on the experimental course, in the first two years the committee was formed and in 1933 the board of trustees offered support. The New School supported academic freedom. Frieda Wunderlich, one of the first faculty members, supported the quest for equality. Wunderlich was also one of the scholars to debate on the New Deal policy debates at a time when the institutions of higher learning were segregated. The faculty created knowledge and were inspired by the German university system. Wunderlich and other female scholars, as well as the Jewish intellectuals and political exiles, fit in as there was a creation of positions for endangered academics.[“Dr. Wunderlich and Mme. Hamada Are Honored at Reception and Tea”. New York City Herald-Tribune. November 19, 1933.] The New School supported freedom of intellectual inquiry, and there was a recognition that the institutions of higher learning were obligated to protect academic freedom. For the refugee scholars, access to the school was an opportunity for the open exchange of ideas and collaboration through workshops, conferences of scholars and projects. The school was a refuge for the intellectuals in exile at a time when there were inaction and indifference among scholars in many other US universities. Typically, each scholar was expected to have a position in an institution of higher learning that was established, and the New School provided this. Since the school emphasized the democratic intellectualism, the scholars were able to widen their views using the German system and to adapt this to the US teaching methods. There were debates and inquiry on world problems including the impact of Nazi Germany in Europe, democracy and the place of capitalism in the western world. The exiles brought new perspectives to the school and were in the forefront debating and talking about the new problem...