ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the American Federation of Teachers' (AFT's) attempts to define and defend academic freedom in the years before World War II. It argues that the union's efforts were important for both what they accomplished and for what they indicated about the organization, its priorities, its political activities, and its internal divisions. During the 1920s and 1930s, the AFT increasingly attended to both larger issues of educational liberty and individual cases, bringing itself into conflict with the American Association of University Professors and others who questioned its motives and activities. The experience of New York Teachers Union was important in the AFT's development and is instructive, although not necessarily representative. At the national level, the AFT was similarly showing increased interest in academic freedom, most notably by expanding the size and activity of the renamed National Academic Freedom Committee (NAFC).
