The American college campus has long been fertile ground for growing socialists.
Four months before the Russian Revolution of 1905, ISS (The Intercollegiate Socialist Society) was founded on September 12, 1905, when about 50, middle-and-upper class men and women--except for then-poor author Jack London--gathered at Peek's Restaurant in New York City in response to an invitation from Upton Sinclair. At the time, a series of excerpts from Sinclair's book, The Jungle, was running in a socialist publication, Appeal to Reason, before the book was released.