| | Abstract: | The Workmen's Circle, or Arbeiter Ring, is a secular Jewish fraternal organization founded to build a better world, foster cultural Jewishness, and offer friendships. Early on, the Circle was viewed as an organization of labor unionists, including Socialists, although there was no official connection. Members demonstrated for social security, unemployment compensation, child labor laws, workmen's compensation, and health security, and supported candidates who were in favor of these issues. The group also provided lectures, poetry readings, plays, shows, and concerts in Yiddish. Camp Vladek (called the Workmen's Circle Camp) in Rock Creek, Ohio was a summer resort for adults and a children's camp from 1950-1963, when it was sold and the proceeds were used to build a Workmen's Circle Educational Center at 1980 Green Road in 1964. The I. L. Peretz Workmen's Circle School first opened in 1918 and became a center for adult Yiddish classes and Yiddish cultural programming. Since the Holocaust, the Circle's emphasis has shifted to the preservation, promotion, and perpetuation of Yiddish language and culture. In 1995 there were 3 branches in Cleveland and 1 in Akron; membership totaled approximately 1,200. The Workmen's Circle Records, Series IV collection consists of agreements, applications, awards, booklets, budgets, bylaws, correspondence, a mortgage deed and plot plan for Camp Vladek, employee manual and forms, flyers, board meetings and minutes, music sheets, newsletters, newspaper clippings, a photograph, a poster, holiday programs, a school calendar, a sketch, a songbook, a syllabus, and a Yiddish textbook. | |
