Student Activism in the 1930s
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SLID Essays (Summer, 1935)

Autobiography of Alvaine Hollister


Antioch College, Ohio

1. Since I understand you are mainly interested in our pasts in the radical movements and in the influences that have contributed to the shaping of our social philosophies, I include only those things that I think are pertinent. If you wish something more completely autobiographical, I will add to this.

2. I was born in New York City on August 29, 1915, and lived here until I was in high school, when my family moved to White Plains, a suburb. I have been living in Yellow Springs, Ohio, attending Antioch College for the past four years. As for my family background, my father is an Episcopalian and a Republican, from a highly reactionary family, though he is not particularly emphatic in his views. My mother was for some time a YWCA secretary, and was careful to give my brother and me a thorough grounding in openmindness and a sense of social justice, though it was a very naive outlook that we developed. While we were in the Bronx our family, old settlers resenting the invasion of "foreigners", was highly anti-Semitic, and the feeling still comes out in me occasionally, although I long ago out-grew it rationally.

3. I had a start in my liberalism as the result of much YWCA work while I was in high school, with emphasis on international and interracial good will. The attitude that we took was a very emotional one, but it broadened my social outlook considerably.

4. Until the time that I went to college, I don't remember once seriously considering the problem of far-reaching social reform, probably because I was never exposed to any discussion of the question. My first real baptism was in my freshman year at Antioch when an L.I.D. chapter was formed on campus. By some chance, I was elected to the executive committee, and was a delegate to the Christmas convention in New York. When I came back from there, I was really interested in social problems and considered myself a Socialist. A group of us collected clothing and made a trip to the West Virginia coal fields over a weekend. We also did a good deal of work in connection with the L.I.D. Lecture Series, which came to Dayton that year.

5. For the next two years I went liberal, dabbling in the cooperative movement a bit, and gradually getting my head above water again (I went radical very precipitantly, and I have been glad for this two-year period of non-activity.) I finally decided to go into the Socialist movement last summer, and I joined the YPSL. Last fall and winter I worked for the Party, and this spring have done most of my work for the L.I.D., in connection with the formation of the Antioch chapter.

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