Workers' Education Bureau of America
Workers' Education Bureau of America or WEB or Bureau, (1921–1951) was an organization established to assist labor colleges and other worker training centers involved in the American labor movement. The WEB was an important development in labor education in the 1920s. Founded in 1921, it served as an informational clearinghouse for labor education organizing forums around the country and assisting local programs. History. The Workers' Education Bureau of America was founded in 1921 by a group of United States-based unionists and educators. WEB received financial, political, and consultative support from American Federation of Labor  (AFL) leaders, including Samuel Gompers, William Green, and Matthew Woll. The AFL slowly built a majority on the WEB board of directors. The AFL then asserted a conservative influence on the organization's activities, which included withdrawing support from left-wing and progressive labor colleges and other training organizations as well as supporting only those curricula which supported the AFL's apolitical agenda and craft unionism. The WEB's first convention was held at the New School for Social Research in New York City. In the "Report of Proceedings First National Conference on Workers Education in the United States", the  Board adopted the following resolutions: In the same report, the Constitution of the organization is stated. Under its Constitution, WEB affirmed that its purpose is to, "collect and to disseminate information relative to efforts at education on any part of organized labor; to co-ordinate and assist in every possible manner the educational work now carried on by the organized workers; and to stimulate the creation of additional enterprises in labor education throughout the United States." In 1951, WEB formally integrated into the AFL (and later, after the merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the AFL-CIO) as its  Education Department. In 2003, the AFL-CIO transferred the duties and programs of the Education Department to the George Meany Center-National Labor College. Officers. 1921: Institutional members. In 1922, WEB's second national convention listed the following as "trade union colleges, study classes, and workers' educational enterprises":