Starr, Mark, 1894-....

Born in England, Mark Starr (1894-1985) served from 1935-1960 as educational director for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and had a lifelong interest in adult and workers education. A liberal activist, he was also associated with the American Labor Party, Americans for Democratic Action, the League for Industrial Democracy, and the Liberal Party.

Born in Great Britain, Mark Starr (1894-1985) served from 1935-1960 as educational director for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York City. Starr dedicated much of his life to worker education. He was also associated with a number of political groups including American for Democratic Action, the League for Industrial Democracy, the American Labor Party and the Liberal Party.

Mark Starr (1894-1985), was the education director of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (1935-1960) and a longtime activist in political and civic affairs. Mr. Starr was the chairman of the Liberal Party in Queens from 1945 to 1959 and was the Liberal candidate for the House of Representatives for the district covering western Queens in 1962. As head of the ILGWU Education Department, he supervised a program that offered 600 classes a year in the United States and Canada, established compulsory educational requirements for candidates for union office,with courses offered in trade unionism and related fields. He was president of the American Federation of Teachers. Workers Education Local 189 (during the 1940s), and served on numerous governmental commissions and boards of directors of civic organizations.

Mr. Starr, a native of Somersetshire, England, started work at age 13 as a hod carrier. He began his teaching career with the miners in Wales, ran unsuccessfully as a Labor candidate for Parliament and entered this country in 1928. Mr. Starr was the center of a brief but intense public controversy in 1943, when Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia nominated him to be the city's first director of adult education. Mr. Starr was the only one of 100 candidates found qualified by a screening committee, but he was rejected by the Board of Education, with the chairman later saying that Mr. Starr was disqualified by his "long record as a labor protagonist."