Conversion

Chapter 2 examines Grace’s undergraduate years at the College of Saint Catherine during the mid–late1920s and then her gradual conversion to socialism during the 1930s. Included among the various factors that led to this shift were her experiences at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she went in 1929 to pursue a doctorate in psychology. Grace maintained her commitment to social justice that she had developed in her youth as a working-class Catholic in St. Paul, but now channeled it in a revolutionary direction in a new city. Both her encounter with the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strikes and her first job as a vocational rehabilitation counselor in the Minnesota Department of Education that she began in 1935 intensified Grace’s evolving view that a socialist society was the only way to address the needs of workers and the exploited. In 1938 Grace entered the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) as a delegate to its founding convention. By September 1940, she left her job at the Minnesota Department of Education—in part because of red baiting during the “little red scare”—to work full-time for the party, leaving the Church (and her husband Gilbert, whom she had married in 1934) behind.

Politics and Love on the Left

Chapter 4 focuses on Grace’s ties with men in the SWP. In addition to platonic friendships and work relationships she forged with men like James Cannon, Farrell Dobbs, and her brother-in-law, Henry Schultz, Grace also engaged in a romance with Vincent Raymond Dunne for over ten years. Both Grace and Ray were married to other people at the time: Grace had separated from her husband, Gilbert, sometime in the late 1930s, but Ray never left his wife, Jennie. As a result, only a few party insiders knew for certain about the affair. But Grace’s and Ray’s dedication to the SWP, among other factors, drew them together. Their relationship was just one of many within the SWP in which couples enjoyed sharing in the common work of the party. Private relationships became intertwined with public commitments and helped build and sustain the radical politics of those involved, who otherwise faced a world hostile to their beliefs. Of particular importance to Grace’s political career in these years was her run for vice president of the United States in 1948, the press coverage of which included deeply entrenched biases against women running for such high office—some of which still remain today.

Sisterhoods

Chapter 3 first traces how Grace built a public career for herself in the SWP, working as Minnesota state organizer and running for US Senate in 1940. The chapter also examines how Grace became one of the eighteen Trotskyists who was convicted of violating the Smith Act in 1941. Of vital importance to Grace’s experiences within the SWP and to her survival at Alderson prison in 1944 was her sisterhood of women comrades, which included her biological sister, Dorothy Schultz. Grace’s rich correspondence during the year she spent in prison reveals not only the connections and concerns shared by her and her women friends but also Grace’s relationship with the mostly poor and very young women incarcerated with her at Alderson. Both these experiences served as the inspiration for the working-class Marxist feminism that Grace came to articulate in her writings for the Militant and in her 1945 “Women in Prison” speaking tour. Grace’s experiences and writings were part of the Left’s answer to the woman question during the 1940s. Her story adds to the history of feminisms on the left during the 1940s and early 1950s, the period between the first and second waves.

Introduction

The introduction provides an overview of the study, situates its place within the relevant historiography of biography, working-class and radical history, women’s history, and the history of religion, and articulates its main contributions to these fields. It explains how Carlson’s life illuminates the workings of class identity within the context of various influences over the course of a lifespan, contributes to recent historical scholarship exploring the importance of faith in workers’ lives and politics, and uncovers both the possibilities and limitations for working-class and revolutionary Marxist women in the period between the first- and second-wave feminist movements. It also lays out how the main themes will be covered in the chapters that follow.

Conclusion

The conclusion reflects on the significance of Grace’s life in terms of the three main historiographical interventions of the book. It argues that her story demonstrates the complexity of class identity as a social category that is forged from multiple, intertwined experiences and perceptions and that evolves over time. It concludes that Grace’s experiences reveal the vitality of working-class and left-wing feminisms that existed during what has been considered the doldrums of the women’s movement. It notes how her life in the SWP also provides a window into the inner workings of the Trotskyist movement, particularly for women at the branch level, and into the social world of platonic and romantic relationships that were so central to sustaining that radical community. And it draws attention again to how her interactions with women religious, priests, and various institutions within the Church that informed her cosmology and activism are a rich source for understanding the contours of lived Catholicism in twentieth-century America, making the case for taking religion seriously as it is experienced by people in the past as a fundamental factor in their lives.

The Break

Chapter 5 examines Grace’s decision to leave the SWP in 1952 and to return to the Catholic Church, a choice that shocked her former Trotskyist comrades. Stemming from personal and spiritual reasons after the death of her father, Grace’s break with the SWP was not due to political factionalism; she remained a Marxist and, unlike other high-profile defectors, never informed for the FBI. But because she had been blacklisted as a former high-level SWP member, she could not find a job. Her experiences during the early 1950s show the impact of the Second Red Scare on individual lives, providing a case study of a woman’s experience, which heretofore has been largely overlooked. With the help of a local priest, Grace found work first as an administrative assistant at St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis and then as a faculty member who was deeply involved with the mission of Saint Mary’s Junior College (SMJC). With Sister Ann Joachim Moore, she cowrote the St. Mary’s Plan for the new college in 1964. She also soon reunited with her husband, Gilbert, and began to rebuild her life with a new (mostly Catholic) network of colleagues and friends.

“Carlson’s Continuing Commentary”

Chapter 6 explores how, during her years at SMJC from the mid-1960s until 1984, Grace embraced a unique form of Catholic activism that drew from the liturgical movement and Catholic Action movement, the ideas espoused by Catholic Marxists in the English Slant movement, and, ultimately, the reforms of Vatican II. She remained devoted to fighting for civil rights and for peace, now including antinuclear campaigns. Through her insistence on striking at the heart of capitalist exploitation, Grace maintained much of her Marxist thinking. In her continued belief in the importance of an organized political movement to effect revolutionary social change, she proudly touted her Old Left loyalties in the face of what she condemned as the undisciplined approaches of New Left protests. And in her call for engagement with the pressing problems of the day as a gospel mandate for the lay apostolate, she functioned as a Catholic activist. In her roles as a teacher, administrator, mentor, and friend, Grace also continued her struggle for women’s equality, now working to overthrow capitalist patriarchy by educating the masses through a variety of personal and professional interactions, particularly as she advised—and at times financially supported—women students at SMJC.

Beginnings

Chapter 1 explores the various factors that shaped Carlson’s identity as a working-class Catholic young woman who was committed to social justice. These included her natal family and childhood neighborhood, her local parish, her women religious teachers, and the impact of World War I and the 1922 shopmen’s strike. Through her experience of World War I, as a working-class Irish and German girl, she had come to question government authority and the 100 percent Americanism that vigilante groups imposed on the community in St. Paul. As a result of her father’s experiences during the shopmen’s strike, she deepened her understanding of the importance of worker solidarity. And Grace came to appreciate early on the importance of education for the development of her autonomy. It was not only her mother, Mary Holmes, who instilled that lesson but also her women religious instructors in high school. The Josephites reinforced the value Grace placed on higher education as a route to economic independence for women and set her feet on the road to a professional career.