Celeste Strack Kaplan (née Strack, 1915 - December 1, 1998), was an American

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

er,

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

, and

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fr ...

. From 1973 to 1982, she was executive director fo
El Nido Family Services
and in 1983 helped found and served as the initial president of the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children until 1990. She was also a professor at the University of Southern California School for Social Work from 1983 to 1990, and helped create the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services in 1984. In 2012 she was selected for the Social Work Hall of Distinction.

Early life and education

Kaplan held degrees in economics from UC Berkeley and in social work from UCLA. She was briefly suspended from UCLA in November 1934, for "persistent violation of university regulations including the holding of communistic meetings on its grounds", but was academically reinstated in December 1934, after over 2,000 students participated in a

walk-out In labor disputes, a walkout is a labor strike, the act of employees collectively leaving the workplace and withholding labor as an act of protest. A walkout can also mean the act of leaving a place of work, school, a meeting, a company, or an ...

protest. Strack became a card-carrying

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

member by 1935 through the

Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of YC ...

(YCL).

Personal life

Sometime in 1940s Strack met and married fellow Communist Party member Leon Kaplan (most likely through their work with the YCL). As party officials, Strack and her husband went underground in the early 1950s after the arrest of the 12 Communist Party members in 1951. Kaplan was the head of the California underground for the next several years, and Strack was sent to Chicago. Their only child, Dr. Anna Kaplan, was born during this period in New York City in 1954. The Kaplans left the party in 1958.

Social work and activism

During the 1960s, Strack worked at the Council for Jewish Women, and began working with children. She founded the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children, and spearheaded an intensive two-year study by the Los Angeles Roundtable into LA County expenditures on children and families. The Roundtable promoted improved cooperation between the many public and private groups serving children and families in Los Angeles County. The LA County Board of Supervisors helped implement policies based on the Roundtable's ideas. In 2012 she was posthumously honored for her life of social work.

References

External links

Portrait of Celeste Strack while she was an organizer at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, 1935.

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections,

Charles E. Young Research Library The Charles E. Young Research Library is one of the largest libraries on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. It initially opened in 1964, and a second phase of construction was completed ...

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Celeste University of Southern California faculty UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni American women academics 1915 births 1998 deaths Place of birth missing Place of death missing