ABSTRACT
While studies of the New York City Teachers Union (TU) generally attribute its eventual demise to the Red Scares of the 1940s and 1950s, this article situates the TU in the history of New York City teachers associations more generally. It argues that the Unions fate was a consequence not simply of anticommunism, but of competition between the Union and other city teachers associations. In particular, the Teachers Guild fought with the Union for the mantle of teacher radicalism. While the two organizations fought for some of the same issues, the liberal Guild was accommodating to the government, while the radical Union was confrontational. When it came to the Unions ideology, however, the Guild consistently sacrificed its commitment to academic freedom by collaborating with public authorities to reveal the extent of the Unions Communist commitments. Using archival data private correspondence of teacher unionists, minutes of Union meetings, and articles from the teachers unions official periodicals this article documents the Guilds efforts at subverting the Union, particularly at moments when the Unions political commitments became salient in public affairs.