Elaine Carroll
Elaine Carroll | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elaine Carroll in 1950 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
President of the United Commonwealth | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 19 December 1958 – 20 November 1960 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Lysander Hughes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Rupert Gardner | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vice President of the United Commonwealth | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 20 November 1952 – 19 December 1958 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Daniel Plainview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Raymond Beshear | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Member of the 20th–23rd Secretariats | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Boonton, New Jersey, United Commonwealth | 24 November 1900||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died |
(aged 81) Callahania, Florida, United Commonwealth | 14 December 1981||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resting place | Crimson Square Necropolis, Chicago | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Continental | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Continentalist Party | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater |
Newark Revolutionary Technical School RA Institute (BA) MEL Institute (PhD) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Religion |
Irreligious (Raised Presbyterian) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Awards | See below | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elaine Ulyssia Carroll (24 November 1900 – 14 December 1981) was a Continental politician who served as President of the United Commonwealth from 1958 to 1960. As president, Carroll is considered one of the architects of the democratization reforms of the late 1950s, being a member of a "Third Triumvirate" alongside Premier Jack Spruance and General Secretary Christopher McCormack, and she aided in the election of Rupert Gardner in the 1960 election. She also served as Vice President of the United Commonwealth from 1952 to 1958, was a member of the 20th–23rd Secretariats from 1953 to 1961, and a full member of the 18th–24th Central Committees from 1946 to 1964.
Born in Boonton, New Jersey to a working-class family of Scotch-Irish descent, Carroll was the daughter of an engineer employed in Arverne, Queens and a mother who was a schoolteacher. In 1917 she began attending Columbia University, but to the dismay of her parents dropped out after a year and returned to the United Commonwealth, where she began supporting the Continentalist Party in the ongoing Continental Revolutionary War. Working as a volunteer nurse and teacher through the revolution, Carroll became one of the founding members of the Continentalist Youth League branch in Morris County. At the war's end she began attending a revolutionary technical school in Newark and graduated in 1921, at which point she also became a leading member of the New Jersey branch of the Federation of Continental Women. Following in the footsteps of her father, Carroll began work as a deputy engineer in the New Jersey shipyards, but also began pursuing acting and writing. She returned to school at the prestigious Revolutionary Arts Institute in New York, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1930. Becoming increasingly interested in politics, she became a full member of the Continentalist Party in 1932. During this time she volunteered with the Continental branch of the Landonist International in New York City, helping to organize the international Anti-Derzhavist League, an organization of affiliated artists seeking a global boycott of the Derzhavist countries.
During the Great War Carroll volunteered for factory work, producing armored vehicles, and was employed by the People's Commissariat for Commerce and Industry. As part of the war effort, Carroll was recruited for a number of propaganda films promoting Continental industry, which increased her renown as a political figure. In 1936 she was promoted to the national advisory committee for the Central Youth Advancement Administration, specifically tasked with promoting women in the workplace and in industrial fields. In 1938 she was promoted to the Central Committee of the Federation of Continental Women, who in term elected her to the National People's Congress in the 1940 general election. Considered a liberal socialist, she argued in favor of relaxed restrictions in the wake of the war's end as well as racial integration, but also argued for increased international cooperation, the creation of the Chattanooga Pact, and the free movement of peoples across the Pact's borders. In the late 1940s, she controversially supported nuclear disarmament at a time when the country rapidly was increasing its arsenal. While in Chicago, Carroll attended the Marx–Engels–Landon Institute and received a Doctor of Philosophy with an emphasis on Landonist Thought in 1945. The following year she was also elected to the 18th Central Committee.
Interested in the intersection of party ideology and the entertainment industry, Carroll switched her focus to work within the State Committee for Cinematography, serving as a lead overseer in the committee's film selection process. During her time in the SCC, Carroll approved of the broadening of topics and pushed for artistic freedom to increase the prestige of Continental cinema. A rising star within the People's Commissariat for Culture for her work espousing Continentalist values, she gained the attention of Daniel Plainview, President of the Central Party School of the Continentalist Party, who actively cultivated Carroll as his protégé. When Plainview was selected as Vice President in the administration of Amelia Fowler Crawford, Plainview argued for Carroll to lead the Central Party School, which was considered a radical move for the traditionally orthodox institution. As head of the Central Party School, Carroll had a major hand in crafting the ideology of the party through the turbulent post-Seamus Callahan period. Initially favorable to Decallahanization, she shifted the rhetoric of the School to keep reverence for the late leader, as part of a middle-of-the-road approach that kept her relations high with Crawford. Establishing herself as a moderate but firmly pro-Crawford ally, in 1953 Carrol was appointed to the 20th Secretariat, the highest policy-making body in the Continentalist Party. However, around this time Crawford fell from grace in the aftermath of the Irish Missile Crisis. Carefully allying with Crawford's likely successor, Lysander Hughes, while not appearing overly pro-Crawford, Carroll managed to secure nomination for the vice presidency in 1954, coincidentally succeeding her mentor Daniel Plainview a second time.
Within the Presidium, Carroll was initially picked for her outside perspective and was not considered a senior member, but gradually she asserted herself by taking a leading role in the New Frontier initiative of Hughes, and pushed for advancement of the arts as a means of promoting scientific progress. She retained the vice presidency following the election of Hughes as president, and upon his death in 1958, Carroll became president herself, the first woman to hold the office in the Continentalist States. With the death of Hughes, the leadership of the country was uncertain, and rather than fight for control herself as Crawford had, Carroll allied with Premier Jack Spruance and General Secretary Christopher McCormack, overseeing a return to collective leadership sometimes nicknamed the Third Triumvirate. Recognizing the need for reform in the face of widespread protests in the country, the rise of the Continental New Left and the democracy movement, Carroll supported empowering the democratically elected president in the 1960 election as leader, in the interim overseeing the caretaker government. Crucially, Carroll voluntarily abstained from running for reelection herself, hoping to promote an atmosphere of increased democratization. In 1960 Rupert Gardner rose to become the frontrunner for the presidency, and Carroll supported his candidacy and appointment to the 23rd Secretariat. This placed her at odds with the leading opposition group, the Michigan Club led by Charles Acker, which favored a more conservative approach. Helping to ensure Gardner's election, in 1961 Carroll retired from politics. She would spend the remainder of her life as a respected consultant and writer in the Continentalist Party, also appearing in a handful of film roles in her later life. In 1981 she died of breast cancer at the age of 81 while in Callahania, Florida, and she was buried in the National People’s Cemetery after a state funeral.
Carroll as an organizer for the Continentalist Youth League, 1928
Carroll at a Continentalist meeting in Newark, New Jersey, 1930
Carroll giving a speech before the Federation of Continental Women, 1932
Carroll as a member of the National People's Congress, 1940
Carroll (center) on the State Committee for Cinematography, 1947
Carroll giving a speech at the 22nd Party Congress in 1958
Awards
- Hero of Socialist Labor (1953)
- Commonwealth Prize (1940)
- Order of the Revolution (1957)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1934)
- Broadcaster's Award (1938)
- Order of People's Cinematographers (1945)
See also
- C-class articles
- Altverse II
- Continentals (Altverse II)
- Continental politicians (Altverse II)
- Elaine Carroll
- 1900 births
- 1981 deaths
- 20th-century Continental actresses
- 20th-century Continental politicians
- 20th-century Continental women politicians
- Burials at the National People's Cemetery
- Central Committee of the Continentalist Party of the United Commonwealth members
- Central Party School faculty
- Columbia University alumni
- Continental anti-derzhavists
- Continental democracy activists
- Continental marine engineers
- Continental military nurses
- Continental people of Scotch-Irish descent
- Continental women cinematographers
- Continental women engineers
- Continentalist Youth League of the United Commonwealth members
- Deaths from breast cancer
- Deaths from cancer in Florida
- Educators from New Jersey
- Former Presbyterians
- Hero of Socialist Labor recipients
- Leaders of the United Commonwealth
- MEL Institute alumni
- Members of the National People's Congress from New Jersey
- Members of the Presidium of the National People's Congress
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor recipients
- Order of the Revolution recipients
- People from Boonton, New Jersey
- Presidents of the United Commonwealth
- Revolutionary Arts Institute alumni
- Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Continentalist Party of the United Commonwealth members
- Vice presidents of the United Commonwealth