author
Walter Vrooman
b. 1869
A restless reformer and gifted organizer, he helped found Ruskin College in Oxford to bring university-style education to working people. His brief life linked American populism, socialism, and adult education on both sides of the Atlantic.
1 Audiobook
The New Democracy: A handbook for Democratic speakers and workers
by Walter Vrooman
About the author
Born in Macon, Missouri, in 1869, Walter Watkins Vrooman grew up in Kansas and later studied at Harvard and Oxford. He became known as a socialist educationalist with a strong belief that working men and women should have access to serious study, not just elite universities.
In 1899, he helped found Ruskin Hall in Oxford—later Ruskin College—alongside Charles A. Beard, with crucial support from his wife, Amne Vrooman. The school was created for working-class students and quickly became an important part of the wider movement for adult and labor education.
After his Oxford years, he returned to the United States and established another Ruskin College in Trenton, Missouri. He died on December 2, 1909, but his name remains closely tied to the early history of democratic education and the idea that learning should be open to far more people than the traditional university world allowed.