Workers' Educational Association | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Workers' Educational Association

Workers' Educational Association, was founded in Toronto in 1918 by university professors and trade unionists interested in providing, on the model of the British WEA, noncredit evening classes for working people.

Workers' Educational Association

Workers' Educational Association, was founded in Toronto in 1918 by university professors and trade unionists interested in providing, on the model of the British WEA, noncredit evening classes for working people. In its heyday during the 1930s and 1940s, funds from provincial and federal sources, the Carnegie Foundation, the labour movement, and tuition fees enabled the WEA in centres across Canada to offer courses on such subjects as economics, current events, labour history and collective bargaining. In the early 1950s, the organization shrank drastically in the face of competing programs in adult education and opponents who erroneously labelled the WEA "communist dominated."