ALEXIS FERM PAPERS AND COLLECTED CORRESPONDENCE,, 1893-1973

Summary: Diary, correspondence, writings and scrapbook of Alexis Constantine Ferm (1870-1971), usually known as "Uncle," principal of the Modern School from 1920 to 1925 and 1933 to 1948.

Alexis Ferm kept a diary sporadically from 1893-1906, 1926-1928 and 1942-1944. In the early section, he describes attending lectures at the Ethical Society and speaking at the Brooklyn Theosophical Society, of which he was one of the founding members and where he met his wife Elizabeth Byrne. He describes their courtship and marriage in 1898 and the foundation of the Children's Playhouse in New Rochelle, New York, in 1901. Ferm describes in detail his observations of the children at the Playhouse, which moved to Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, in 1902.

During 1926-1928, the Ferms lived briefly at Stony Hill, near the single tax colony of Free Acres in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and then at their cottage in Newfoundland, New Jersey. Ferm describes his daily routine of caring for the garden, his teaching at the Road to Freedom camp in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and his visits to the Stelton Modern School, the Mohegan Modern School in Peekskill, New York, and the Caldwell (N.J.) Country Day School, a progressive school, as well as his reaction to the Passaic mill workers strike and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. In the final section, Ferm describes the illness and death of Elizabeth Ferm, who suffered a series of strokes and died in 1944, and his subsequent discouragement with the potential of the anarchist movement.

This series also contains collected letters written by Alexis Ferm to former teachers, students and friends of the Modern School, spanning the period 1930 to 1971. They are arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent, and chronologically within each folder. The bulk dates from 1948, when Ferm moved to the single tax community of Fairhope, Alabama, to his death in 1971, although some date from the 1930s when the Ferms had left the Modern School and were living in Newfoundland, New Jersey. Correspondents include Mrs. Sam Adel, John Aronoff, Judith (Lighter) Bokelman, Frances Sweida Browning, Aurora Greenhouse, Sasha and Gladys Hourwich, Sema Lighter, Nathan Marer, and Edgar and Martin Tafel. In his letters, Ferm describes his life at Fairhope, where he built his own house at the age of 79, and shows a lively interest in the fortunes of his former pupils. Nathan Marer's correspondence concerns the Alexis Ferm Fund. After the school property was sold in 1961, a trust fund was set up to provide a pension for Ferm, which was administered through the League for Mutual Aid. In the mid-1960s, the fund began to run out of money, so former Modern School students started giving privately to Uncle Ferm through Marer, who, however, led him to believe that the money was still coming through the League. Because of his distrust of the federal government, Ferm refused to apply for Social Security until the age of 98.

In this series also fall Alexis Ferm's writings. Of particular interest is a typescript manuscript autobiography entitled "Sven: the Ordinary Life of an Ordinary Boy," which describes the life of a Swedish immigrant boy growing up in Brooklyn in the late nineteenth century. Ferm wrote of "Sven" that "everything is true except the name of the boy." (8) In this manuscript, Ferm describes growing up as the son of Swedish immigrants in a working-class district of Brooklyn. He was forced to leave school early to work in a dry goods store, although he continued his education through evening classes. He describes working conditions at the time and relations with other immigrant groups. The manuscript begins when Ferm was about six years old and ends when, as a young adult, he leaves Brooklyn to manage a general store in upstate New York.

This series also includes some of Ferm's writings about education, pieces called "Education and Schooling" and "Education" written while he was living in Alabama, and part of a manuscript about the educational theories of Montessori and Rousseau and how they related to what was practiced at the Modern School.

This series also contains a facsimile of a scrapbook, 1929-1933, kept by Alexis Ferm, which primarily consists of clippings of his educational column from The Road to Freedom, an anarchist journal published at Stelton. Other articles from The Road to Freedom kept in the scrapbook concern anarchism in Spain and South America, conferences held at Stelton, book reviews, and articles from the Youth Section. The original scrapbook was in such poor condition that it had to be photocopied and discarded. Several items which were found in the scrapbook were removed and placed in folders. These include newspaper clippings from The Fairhope Courier and The Mobile Register where Ferm wrote letters to the editor about education, civil rights and other social issues, as well as a regular column of film reviews. A few letters were also found in the scrapbook including two responses from readers to his letters to the editor, one abusive and one supportive. Alexis Ferm was a strong believer in the rights of African Americans. His attacks on the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council in the paper led to harassment and hate mail.