...The first Smith Act trial originated, in part, in the personal histories of the defendants. The ties between certain members of Teamsters Local 544-AFL and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) shaped their union militancy and made them targets of government concern as early as the mid-1930s...

...In July 1941, a federal grand jury in Minneapolis indicted twenty-nine Socialist Workers Party members, fifteen of whom belonged to the militant Teamsters Local 544, for violating the 1940 Smith Act, a peacetime anti-sedition law. Examining the social, political, and legal history of the first...

...) behind. Carlson Gilbert College of St Catherine CSJ Great Depression Socialist Workers Party SWP Teamster strikes of 1934 Minneapolis University of Minnesota “the U” Farmer Labor Party Ireland Archbishop John McHugh Sister Antonia Minnesota Department of Education DoE Sisters of St Joseph...

... organizing for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and ran for vice president of the United States under its banner in 1948. Then, in 1952, she abruptly left the SWP and returned to the Catholic Church. With the support of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who had educated her as a child, Carlson began a new life...