Metadata: Odessa Jewish Men’s Vocational School of the Trud [Labor] Society; Odessa, Kherson Province
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of the Odessa Region
- Holding institution (official language):
- Державний архів Одеської області; Государственный архив Одесской области
- Postal address:
- 18, Zhukovskogo str., Оdessa, 65026, Ukraine
- Phone number:
- 380 (48) 722-9365
- Web address:
- http://archive.odessa.gov.ua/en/
- Email:
- archive@odessa.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 108
- Title:
- Odessa Jewish Men’s Vocational School of the Trud [Labor] Society; Odessa, Kherson Province
- Title (official language):
- Одесское еврейское мужское ремесленное училище [общества] «Труд», г. Одесса Херсонской губ.; Одеське єврейське чоловіче ремісниче училище [товариства] «Праця», м. Одеса Херсонської губ.
- Creator/accumulator:
- Odessa Jewish Men’s Vocational School of the Trud [Labor] Society; Odessa, Kherson Province
- Date(s):
- 1873/1920
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- (62 files)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Included are circulars and instructions of the superintendent of the Odessa Educational District and of Kherson province school inspectors on arranging instruction and educational operations at the Trud [Labor] society’s school, and on financial and administrative-economic issues (1901-06); correspondence with the Jewish Colonization Society and the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews (OPE) on various issues pertaining to the school’s operations: organising evening courses in drafting and drawing for Jewish craftsmen, job placement for crafts specialists, etc. (1873-1917); correspondence with the superintendent of the Odessa Educational District and inspectors of schools on organising the school’s curriculum, on its tuition, oversight of its students, mobilising them for frontline service, etc. (1891-1919); correspondence with educational institutions on job placement for the school’s graduates (1901-04); and with institutions, organisations, enterprises, and private individuals on acquiring lathes, blueprints, and tools (1908-14), on organising courses for tinsmiths, cabinetmakers, lathe-operators, and other specialists, and on filling orders (including orders for military equipment) in the school’s workshops (1915-17); reports on the state of the school (1905-08); charters and drafts of charters of the Trud society and its vocational school, the savings and loan serving the school’s employees, and the Jewish women’s vocational school; draft resolutions “on instituting class representatives” and a “students’ court,” and on organising extracurricular vocational education and the department of electrical engineering (1891-1915).
The most voluminous group of documents covers the school’s educational process and internal procedures, and its teaching and administrative-technical staff and the student body. These materials include school orders and rules for student conduct (1891-1907); minutes of sessions of the school’s pedagogic council (1891-92), of joint sessions of members thereof with the board of the Trud society, and of general assemblies of society members (1906-16); curricula in various subjects, including the Jewish religion, Russian and world history, Russian and European geography, and physics and mechanical theory; and information on amounts of time devoted to these subjects (1902-16); records, progress reports, and class logs (1916-18); diplomas of graduates of the school (1899-1919); applications for admission to the school, and documents enclosed with these (graduation certificates from other educational institutions, birth certificates, etc.); applications for financial aid for needy students; petitions for military service deferments; lists of teachers, students, and persons enrolled in adult evening courses for Jewish craftsmen, and school workers and employees (1913-20); etc.
There is also statistical information on the number of vocational schools (including Jewish ones) in cities of the Russian Empire as of 1913-17; information on the number of graduates of such educational institutions; on the distribution of general-education subjects taught at them; and on the productivity of their workshops, and their financial state (including the wage scale of teaching personnel, and the average cost of education per-student); materials pertaining to a conference on Jewish professional education held in Kiev on 21-29 September 1917 (a schedule of events; resolutions on issues of the internal organisation of vocational-educational institutions at the central and local levels; synopses of particular reports delivered at the conference); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Trud [Labor] Society for the Promotion of Handicraft Knowledge among Jews of the city of Odessa and the four-grade Jewish technical school that it operated were established in Odessa in 1864 for the purpose of promoting crafts skills among the city’s Jewish poor and training qualified workers for factories, plants, and workshops. Toward this end, the Trud society considered its mission to consist in aiding the establishment of Jewish vocational schools in population centres of the Odessa Educational District and promoting the subsequent professional development of their graduates; assisting them in finding work and opening their own businesses; and providing them with loans and grants. At various times, the board of the Trud society included the following prominent representatives of the city’s Jewish community: M. Ia. Mendelevich; A. V. Bertenson; I. I. Brodskii; L. Gol’d; A. A. Dridzo; V. K. Granov; A. B. Minkus; B. V. Pitkis; N. E. Frumkin; and others. Serving as the board’s first chair was Odessa city Rabbi S.-A. Schwabacher; subsequently this post was held by the doctors E. Soloveichik and N. Bernshtein, and the attorney M. G. Morgulis.
Upon a reorganisation conducted by the latter in 1874-78, the society’s school (now featuring carpentry and metalworking-blacksmithing workshops) became not only a full-fledged “vocational Normalschule,” but also one of the most prominent professional and technical educational institutions in the Russian Empire. In the early 1890s the Trud society had over 400 members (at the time, the largest secular Jewish association in Odessa), and over 200 students were enrolled at its vocational school; in the early twentieth century, a new and expanded building was constructed for the school, at which point the number of its grades was raised from four to ten, with the number of pupils increasing to 500.
The school was maintained on funding from the korobka [kosher meat tax], membership dues, donations, and proceeds from the sale of items made by students in the school’s workshops and from performances and public lectures. Financial assistance was subsequently provided also by the Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews (ORT) and the Jewish Colonization Society. Originally the school was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and immediately subordinate to the Odessa city prefect; in 1895 it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and the Odessa Educational District, and subordinate to the Kherson Provincial Directorate of Schools.
The school accepted young Jewish men aged twelve to sixteen who had graduated from the city’s two-grade school or passed a corresponding entrance exam. The curriculum (a five-year one after the school’s reorganisation) included specialised and general-education subjects. At the conclusion of their studies, students were tested in ministry-approved curricula, and upon passing these exams they received diplomas of apprenticeship; graduates submitting certification as to their subsequent three-year work experience in manufacturing received a diploma conferring upon them the rank of master craftsman in the given specialty.
As of early 1917 the school consisted of three departments (those of metalworking and mechanics; ironworking; and carpentry and modelling) and trained cabinetmakers, metalworkers, lathe-operators, ironworkers, smelters, and electricians (from 1914 on) and tinsmiths (from 1915 on). The school also opened evening adult-education (1898-1900) and drafting and drawing courses (1906).
Upon the final consolidation of Soviet power in Odessa in March 1920, the Trud society ceased to exist, and its vocational school was nationalised and transferred to the jurisdiction of the provincial department of education; it would form the basis for Odessa’s newly-created (August 1920) A. V. Lunacharskii Mechanical Engineering Technicum and Vocational School (No. 5), which had a preparatory department. The vocational school was to prepare students for matriculation at the technicum and, on the other hand, to train qualified workers. Neither the technicum nor the vocational school were officially Jewish institutions, but 90% of their students were Jews. Both these educational institutions were closed in September 1921 and replaced by the newly-established Metalworking Industry Factory-Plant Apprenticeship School No. 1, which had a four-year curriculum and was meant to train “labour elements of the Jewish population.” This school was subsequently renamed the Metal Vocational School No. 1, and in December 1924 was named for the American Jewish “proletarian” poet Morris Winchevsky (on whom see the historical information given in the descriptions of f. R-834 and f. R-2107).
- Access points: locations:
- Kherson province
- Odessa
- Russia
- Ukraine
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Correspondence
- Education
- Education--Schools and universities
- Education--Students
- Education--Teachers and professors
- Education--Vocational training
- Financial matters
- Military
- Personal records
- Professions
- Professions--Crafts
- Statistics
- Vital records
- Vital records--Birth records
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory (no. 2) systematised chronologically.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
