The Proletarian Student: A Historical Analysis of Student Class Identity and Political Power in the U.S.

Roughly one century ago, in a time of mass economic disparity and global political oppression similar to that of today, student leaders at universities across the United States spearheaded the first mass American student movement, forming coalitions and coordinating student strikes that numbered 500,000 students, roughly half of the undergraduate population at the time. Since then, the US has seen similar mass student activism in the 1960s and 1970s, and again in the 1990s and today. The past decade in particular has seen a rise in a unique method of collective action, in the form of student unions. These organizations borrow their structure from the labor movement, and organize students in a way that allows them to voice criticism and make collective gains against university administrators, and larger, off-campus policies. This research explores the evolving class identity and political power of American students, in the context of its identification with the American working class, and how this evolving relationship has influenced student organization, particularly between the 1930s and today. What were the overarching socioeconomic and political conditions catalyzing student movements over the last century, and how have students identified within, and organized around, those conditions?