"At Home In Utopia" Film Screening & Discussion with Josh Freeman

Joshua Freeman is a distinguished historian of labor and of New York City. He is the author of a number of books, including Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II, and In Transit, a co-author of Who Built America?, a co-editor of Audacious Democracy, and a forthcoming history of garden apartments.

Film synopsis: In the mid-1920s, thousands of Jewish immigrant garment workers managed to catapult themselves out of urban slums and ghettos by pooling their resources and building four cooperatively owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx. At Home in Utopia (Director Michal Goldman, New Day Films) focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony – also known as the Coops – the most grassroots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing cooperatives, where many of the residents were Communists or sympathetic to the communist movement. Beginning as a stalwartly secular East European Jewish working-class enclave, the Coops was part of an international movement the scope of which challenges our assumptions today. In the 1930s they opted to bring their passion for racial justice home, by racially integrating their own cooperative house, with unexpected consequences.

This is an event of the Spring 2025 Social Justice Academy: Home, Place, and Housing Justice. Learn more about the academy and RSVP for additional speakers, creative workshops, and action events by clicking here. Co-sponsored by the departments of Communication & Media Arts and History, Philosophy & Religious Studies. Visit Politics and Human Rights to learn about the major and minor. For more information, write to socialjustice@mmm.edu. 

Humanities & Social Sciences (HUMSOC) Division | Website | View More Events

Contact the organizers