The Price of Success: Sociologist Harry Alpert, the NSF's First Social Science Policy Architect

Summary

Harry Alpert (1912–1977), the US sociologist, is best-known for his directorship of the National Science Foundation's social science programme in the 1950s. This study extends our understanding of Alpert in two main ways: first, by examining the earlier development of his views and career. Beginning with his 1939 biography of Emile Durkheim, we explore the early development of Alpert's views about foundational questions concerning the scientific status of sociology and social science more generally, proper social science methodology, the practical value of social science, the academic institutionalisation of sociology, and the unity-of-science viewpoint. Second, this paper illuminates Alpert's complex involvement with certain tensions in mid-century US social science that were themselves linked to major transformations in national science policy, public patronage, and unequal relations between the social and natural sciences. We show that Alpert's views about the intellectual foundations, practical relevance, and institutional standing of the social sciences were, in some important respects, at odds with his NSF policy work. Although remembered as a quantitative evangelist and advocate for the unity-of-science viewpoint, Alpert was in fact an urbane critic of natural-science envy, social scientific certainty, and what he saw as excessive devotion to quantitative methods.

Acknowledgements

It is a great pleasure to thank Michael Bycroft, for superb research assistance; Hunter Heyck, Philippe Fontaine, Marga Vicedo, Sarah Igo, Neil McLaughlin, and an anonymous referee, for helpful comments on earlier version; and the National Science Foundation Sponsored Project Award 9810635, and the University of Toronto Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, for financial support.

Notes

¹Harry Alpert, Emile Durkheim and His Sociology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 213.

²On the development of NSF social science programmes and policies during Alpert's years there, see J. Merton England, A Patron for Pure Science: The National Science Foundation's Formative Years, 1945–57 (Washington, DC: NSF, 1982), esp. 267–72; Otto N. Larsen, Milestones & Millstones: Social Science at the National Science Foundation, 1945–1991 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1992), esp. 39–57; Daniel L. Kleinman and Mark Solovey, ‘Hot Science/Cold War: The National Science Foundation after World War II’, Radical History Review, 63 (1995), 110–139 (118–24); Desmond King, ‘The Politics of Social Research: Institutionalizing Public Funding Regimes in the United States and Britain’, British Journal of Political Science, 28 (1998), 415–44.

³Larsen (note 2), 40–1.

⁴Richard J. Hill and Walter T. Martin, ‘In Memoriam: Harry Alpert, 1912–1977’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 42 (1978), 141–2 (142).

⁵Joel Isaac, ‘The Human Sciences in Cold War America’, The Historical Journal, 50 (2007), 725–46; David Engerman, ‘Social Science in the Cold War’, Isis, 101 (2010), 393–400. For an exemplary analysis of the linkages from the pre-WWII to post-WWII eras in the case of prominent Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, see Howard Brick, ‘Talcott Parsons and the Evanescence of Capitalism’, in Transcending Capitalism: Visions of a New Society in Modern American Thought (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 121–51.

⁶Jennifer Platt, ‘The United States Reception of Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method’, Sociological Perspectives, 38 (1995), 77–105 (93).

⁷Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory With Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937). On Parsons's 1937 book, see Charles Camic, ‘Structure after 50 Years: The Anatomy of a Charter’, American Journal of Sociology, 95 (1989), 38–107 (55–60).

⁸Alpert (note 1), 211.

⁹Alpert (note 1), 13.

¹⁰Alpert, ‘Emile Durkheim and Sociologismic Psychology’, American Journal of Sociology, 45 (1939), 64–70 (70).

¹¹Alpert (note 1), 14.

¹²Reviews of Alpert's Durkheim biography: Howard Becker in American Sociological Review, 9 (1944), 205; John H. Mueller in American Journal of Sociology, 45 (1939), 289; W. Rex Crawford in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 205 (1939), 204–5.

¹³Jennifer Platt, A History of Sociological Research Methods in America, 1920–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 69. For a stimulating critical analysis of the ways in which US scholars came to identify these European theorists and their theories as ‘classical’, see R. W. Connell, ‘Why is Classical Theory Classical?’ American Journal of Sociology, 102 (1997), 1511–57.

¹⁴Alpert (note 10), 67–8. See also Alp ert, ‘Explaining the Social Socially’, Social Forces, 17 (1938–1939), 361–5.

¹⁵Alpert, ‘France's First University Course in Sociology’, American Sociological Review, 2 (1937), 311–317 (313–14).

¹⁶Alpert, ‘Emile Durkheim: A Perspective and Appreciation’, American Sociological Review, 24 (1959), 462–5 (462).

¹⁷Alpert, ‘Some Observations on the State of Sociology’, Pacific Sociological Review, 6 (1963), 45–8 (48). It seems that Durkheim's path provided a model that retained significant appeal in France, as evident in the cases of prominent post-WWII sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Raymond Boudon, who also did their graduate training in philosophy.

¹⁸Lundberg, Can Science Save Us? (New York: Longmans, Green, 1947). On Lundberg's aggressive scientism, see Platt (note 13), 63–105, 212–223.

¹⁹MacIver's methodological statements are collected in Social Causation (Boston: Ginn, 1942).

²⁰Lynd, Knowledge for What? The Place of Social Science in American Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1939). On Lynd and social scientific instrumentalism, see Stephen P. Turner and Jonathan H. Turner, The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990), 42–5, 57–9. On the dispute between MacIver and Lundberg, and between MacIver and Lynd, see Elzbieta Halas, ‘How Robert M. MacIver Was Forgotten: Columbia and American Sociology in a New Light, 1929–1950’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 37 (2001), 27–43 (35–39). Alpert's middle position is elaborated in ‘MacIver's Contributions to Sociological Theory’, in Freedom and Control in Modern Society, edited by Morroe Berger et al. (New York: Van Nostrand, 1954), 286–312 (290–2).

²¹Alpert (note 15), 315.

²²Alpert (note 1), 111, 112.

²³Alpert (note 1), 111, 80.

²⁴The existing historiography, which treats Alpert only fleetingly, erroneously groups Alpert's qualified embrace of operationalism with Lundberg's aggressive advocacy, perhaps because Alpert's later NSF promotion of scientism made this kind of retroactive characterization plausible. See for example Roscoe C. Hinkle, Developments in American Sociological Theory, 1915–1950 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 44.

²⁵Lundberg: ‘… I define the concept [of generalization] in terms of the operations by which I arrive at it, in conformity with the accepted requirements of science. Is this or is it not what we very scientists today mean by generalization? If you accept this definition, the question as to whether all scientific generalization is necessarily quantitative at once disappears, for quantification is implicit in this definition’. ‘Quantitative Methods in Social Psychology’, American Sociological Review, 1 (1936), 38–60 (44–5). See also Lundberg, ‘The Thoughtways of Contemporary Sociology’, American Sociological Review, 1 (1936), 703–23. Bridgman outlined his principle of operationalism in The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1927). On Bridgman's discomfort with the uptake of his thought in sociology and, especially, behaviorist psychology, see Maila L Walter, Science and Cultural Crisis: An Intellectual Biography of Percy Williams Bridgman (1882–1961) (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 162–88.

²⁶‘. . . . science has endeavored in recent decades to become more humble; humility and modesty are making headway. The new attitude was well expressed by Justice Holmes when he remarked that “certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so”’, in Alpert, ‘Operational Definitions in Sociology’, American Sociological Review, 3 (1938), 855–861 (856–8). In a 1942 letter to the editor, in response to another Lundberg essay promoting a narrow, quantitative reading of operationalism—Lundberg, ‘Operational Definitions in the Social Sciences’, American Journal of Sociology, 47 (1942), 727–45—Alpert staked his differences with his onetime mentor in starker terms: ‘If we adopt what seems to be Professor Lundberg's position, namely, that clear and precise terms are to be valued per se, we place ourselves in a realm of scientific anarchy. Choice becomes a matter of taste, with every operational anarchist sponsoring his own preferences. Clarity cannot be the sole standard of scientific conceptualization . . . Are not organizing ability and utility, and even meaningfulness, as important in conceptualization as clarity?’ Alpert, Letter to the editor, American Journal of Sociology, 47 (1942), 981.

²⁷Alpert (note 1), 13–14.

²⁸Alpert (note 1), 13.

²⁹Alpert (note 1), 108–9. MacIver also drew on Weber's Verstehen sociology.

³⁰Mueller (note 12), 289; Alpert (note 1), 29–31, 57–61.

³¹Alpert (note 15), 311–12.

³²Alpert (note1), 3.

³³Two rich bibliographic overviews of the historiography of postwar social science are Isaac (note 5); and Hunter Crowther-Heyck, ‘Patrons of the Revolution: Ideals and Institutions in Postwar Behavioral Science’, Isis, 97 (2006), 420–46. Also see the excellent volume edited by Roger E. Backhouse and Philippe Fontaine, The History of the Social Sciences since 1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

³⁴Solovey, ‘Riding Natural Scientists' Coattails Onto the Endless Frontier: The SSRC and the Quest for Scientific Legitimacy’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 40 (2004), 393–422; Larsen (note 2), 1–18; The Nationalization of the Social Sciences, edited by Samuel Z. Klausner and Victor M. Lidz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986).

³⁵Solovey (note 34).

³⁶Brett Gary, ‘Communication Research, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mobilization for the War on Words’, Journal of Communication, 46 (1996), 124–47. For the history of public opinion research as an interdisciplinary social science field before, during, and after the war, see Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence 1890–1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Sara Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Jefferson Pooley, ‘An Accident of Memory: Edward Shils, Paul Lazarsfeld and the History of American Mass Communication Research’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Columbia University, 2006), 179–299.

³⁷The best overviews of opinion researchers’ government propaganda service are Converse (note 36), 162–228; Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare, 1945–1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 15–31; and Timothy Glander, Origins of Mass Communications Research during the American Cold War: Educational Effects and Contemporary Implications (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000), 41–60. There were, in the immediate aftermath of the war, a few general accounts. See, for example, John McDiarmid, ‘The Mobilization of Social Scientists’, in Civil Service in Wartime, ed. Leonard D. White (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1945); and Daniel Lerner, Sykewar: Psychological Warfare against Germany, D-Day to VE-Day (New York: G. W. Stewart, 1949).

³⁸ The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life, edited by Samuel Stouffer and Edward A. Suchman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949). See Daniel Lerner, ‘The American Soldier and the Public’, in Continuities in Social Research: Studies in the Scope and Method of The American Soldier, edited by Robert K. Merton and Paul F. Lazarsfeld (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 212–51, for a study of the volumes’ reception. On the 1948 polling fiasco, see Frederick Mosteller et al., The Pre-Election Polls of 1948 (New York: Social Science Research Council, Bulletin 60, 1949); also Igo (note 36), 152–6.

³⁹From 1946–48, Alpert served as a research consultant to the Bureau.

⁴⁰Alpert, ‘The Federal Statistical System’, American Journal of Sociology, 56 (1951), 468–75 (468).

⁴¹Alpert, ‘A Comment’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 14 (1950–1951), 685–6. Also see Alpert, ‘Some Observations on the Sociology of Sampling’, Social Forces, 31 (1952–1953), 30–3.

⁴²Alpert (note 40), 475. On Kelvin's statement, see Robert K. Merton, David L. Sills, and Stephen M. Stigler, ‘The Kelvin Dictum and Social Science: An Excursion into the History of an Idea’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 20 (1984), 319–31.

⁴³Alpert, ‘National Series on State Judicial Criminal Statistics Discontinued’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 39 (1948), 181–8 (182).

⁴⁴Harry Alpert, ‘A Critical Introduction to “Congressional Use of Polls: A Symposium”’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 18 (1954), 121–3 (121–3).

⁴⁵Theodore Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Also relevant: Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Gerd Gigerenzer, et al., The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

⁴⁶Gene M. Lyons, The Uneasy Partnership: Social Science and the Federal Government in the Twentieth Century (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969).

⁴⁷For the General Counsel's Memorandum of March 17, 1953, see Harry Alpert with the assistance of Bertha W. Rubinstein, ‘Role of the Foundation with Respect to Social Science Research National Science Foundation’, April 15, 1954, Appendix A, 36–40, Folder: The Role of the Foundation with Respect to Social Science Research, Alpert-Rubinstein, 1954, NSF Historian's File, National Science Foundation headquarters, Arlington, Virginia. The works cited earlier by England (note 2), by Larsen (note 2) and by Kleinman and Solovey (note 2) all provide brief overviews of the challenges Alpert faced in developing a framework for NSF's social science funding during the 1950s.

⁴⁸Again, see the works by England, by Larsen, and by Kleinman and Solovey (note 2). It should be mentioned that during these early years of the agency, a few individuals on its twenty-four-member governing board had a significant interest in the social sciences. This group includes Charles Dollard, Chester Barnard, Sophie Aberle, and Frederick Middlebush. Some of them—including Barnard whose views are discussed briefly below—contributed to discussions about the agency's involvement in the social sciences. But there's no evidence indicating that any of them assumed more significant roles in promoting the social science activities of the young NSF. They were all appointed because of their expertise in other areas, including the political scientist Middlebush, who had written a popular political science textbook and was the only board member with a social science doctorate. After moving into university administration many years before his NSF appointment, however, he had long since been active as a scholar; his appointment was based upon his high national profile and expertise in university administration.

⁴⁹Barnard as reported in Memo from Alpert to Waterman, May 22, 1953, in Office of the Director, Alan T. Waterman, Subject Files 1951–56, Box 20, Folder [on social science programme], Record Group 307, National Archives (Washington, DC). While Alpert drew heavily upon Barnard, Alpert, as noted by Henry W. Riecken (Alpert's successor at the agency), was ‘strongly advised by the friendlier members of the National Science Board, as well as by allies in the rest of the scientific community, to adopt a strategy of stressing the 'hard science' aspects of the social disciplines.’ Riecken, ‘Underdogging: The Early Career of the Social Sciences in the NSF’, in The Nationalization of the Social Sciences, edited by Klausner and Lidz, 209–225 (215).

⁵⁰Alpert to Waterman, Nov. 1, 1953, Position Paper No. 2, ‘basic research’ at 2, Folder: [Reports on Social Science Program], NSF Historian's Files (NSF HF).

⁵¹Alpert, with the assistance of Bertha W. Rubinstein, ‘The Role of the Foundation with Respect to Social Science Research’, April 15, 1954, 59, Folder: Role of the National Science Foundation with respect to Social Research (Alpert-Rubinstein, 1954), NSF HF.

⁵²Harry Alpert, ‘The National Science Foundation and Social Science Research’, American Sociological Review, 19 (1954), 208–11 (210).

⁵³Alpert to Waterman (note 50), 1.

⁵⁴Henry W. Riecken, ‘The National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences’, Social Science Research Council Items, 37 (1983), 39–42 (40).

⁵⁵Alpert to Waterman (note 50), 3.

⁵⁶Alpert (note 51), 11.

⁵⁷One could make a similar argument about so-called basic research in the natural sciences, and some have. But this was not a common argument at that time. Nor was it an argument Alpert advanced or addressed.

⁵⁸There is a large literature on the controversies over the works by Kinsey and Myrdal and their social implications. See, for example, James H. Jones, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life (New York: Norton, 2004); David W. Southern, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of An American Dilemma 1944–1969 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987). For a stimulating essay about how the controversy over values and objectivity has shaped historical accounts about the roles of social scientists and especially psychologists in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court desegregation case, see John P. Jackson, Jr., ‘The Triumph of the Segregationists? A Historiographic Inquiry into Psychology and the Brown Litigation’, History of Psychology, 3 (2000), 239–61. It is also relevant that leading quantitative social scientists—Alpert's peers—insisted on the inherent and mutually beneficial connection between applied and basic research. See Paul F. Lazarsfeld, et al., The Uses of Sociology (New York: Basic Books, 1967), and the discussion in Crowther-Heyck (note 33), 433–5.

⁵⁹Appendix B in Memo from Program Director for Social Science Research to Director, July 1, 1958, quotes at 20, Annual Review of Soc. Sci. Program for FY 1958, Folder: [Reports on Social Science Program], NSF Historian's File. A similar viewpoint appears in Alpert, ‘Congressmen, Social Scientists, and Attitudes Toward Federal Support of Social Science Research’, American Sociological Review, 23 (1958), 682–7 (685).

⁶⁰Alpert, ‘The Knowledge We Need Most’, Saturday Review, 1 February 1958, 36–8 (37).

⁶¹Alpert (note 52), 210–11.

⁶²Alpert, Review of Sociology: The Science of Society by Jay Rumney and Joseph Maier, Social Forces, 32 (1953–1954), 195–6 (195).

⁶³Appendix C: Recommendations Approved by National Science Board, August 1954, in Alpert with the assistance of Bertha W. Rubinstein, Progress Report No. 5 (Revised), Feb. 1. 1956, Folder: [Reports on Social Science Program], NSF HF.

⁶⁴Alpert to Director [Waterman], June 14, 1957, Box 40, Folder ‘Social Science Research Program’, Office of the Director, Alan T. Waterman, Subject Files 1951–56, Record Group 307, NA.

⁶⁵Basic information about the scope, organization, and funding of NSF's social science programmes can be found in the agency's published annual reports.

⁶⁶Appendix B to Memo from Program Director for Social Science Research to Director, July 1, 1958, ‘confined’ at 20, Annual Review of Soc Sci. Program for FY 1958, Folder: [Reports on Social Science Program], NSF HF.

⁶⁷On NSF support for history and philosophy of science, see Margaret Rossiter, ‘The History and Philosophy of Science Program at the National Science Foundation’, Isis, 75 (1984), 95–104; and on its support for anthropology and especially archaeology, see John E. Yellen and Mary W. Greene, ‘Archaeology and the National Science Foundation’, American Antiquity, 50 (1985), 332–41.

⁶⁸Appendix B (note 66), 18, 19.

⁶⁹Alpert, ‘The Social Science Research Program of the National Science Foundation’, American Sociological Review, 22 (1957), 582–5 (582); Alpert (note 60), 38; Alpert, ‘Congressmen, Social Scientists, and Attitudes Toward Federal Support of Social Science Research’ (note 59), 685–6.

⁷⁰Alpert, ‘The Government's Growing Recognition of Social Science’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 327 (1960), 59–67 (60, 62).

⁷¹Alpert, ‘The Growth of Social Research in the United States’, in The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences, edited by Daniel Lerner (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1959), 73–86 (73, 76–7).

⁷²John F. Galliher and James L. McCartney, ‘The Influence of Funding Agencies on Juvenile Delinquency Research’, Social Problems, 21 (1973), 77–90 (78).

⁷³Alpert (note 20), 287–90.

⁷⁴Alpert, ‘Public Opinion Research as Science’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 20 (1956), 493–500 (494–5).

⁷⁵Alpert (note 15), 46; Alpert, ‘Sociology: Its Present Interests’, in The Behavioral Sciences Today, edited by Bernard Berelson (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 52–64 (62).

⁷⁶Alpert (note 20), 288–9.

⁷⁷Alpert (note 74), 494.

⁷⁸Alpert (note 20), 292.

⁷⁹Alpert (note 15), 46–7.

⁸⁰Alpert (note 15), 45, 48.

⁸¹Alpert, Review of The More Perfect Union by R. M. MacIver, Jewish Social Studies, 11 (1949), 189–91 (190–1). Regarding Alpert's concerns about anti-Semitism, also see his review of How Secure These Rights? by Ruth G. Weintraub, Jewish Social Studies, 11 (1950), 261–33; and his review of A Mask for Privilege: Anti-Semitism in America by Carey McWilliams, American Journal of Sociology, 54 (1948), 177.

⁸²Harry Alpert, ‘George Lundberg's Social Philosophy: A Continuing Dialogue’, in Behavioral Sciences: Essays in Honor of George A. Lundberg, edited by Alfred de Grazia (Great Barrington, MA: Behavioral Research Council, 1968), 48–62 (58, 61).

⁸³Alpert (note 60), 37–8.

⁸⁴Alpert (note 70), 61, 64; Alpert (note 71), 82.

⁸⁵U.S. Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on Government Research, National Foundation for Social Sciences, Hearings, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1967), 90. On the debate over Harris's NSSF proposal, see Gieryn, ‘The U.S. Congress Demarcates Natural Science and Social Science (Twice)’, in Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 65–114 (84–93, 101–8); Mark Solovey, ‘Senator Fred Harris's National Social Science Foundation Proposal: Challenge to the Federal Science Establishment’, author's manuscript.

⁸⁶It would be interesting to know what Alpert thought of Harris's challenge; unfortunately, existing documents do not indicate if he commented on it.

⁸⁷An interesting recent book that provides a good example of this orientation in the history of sociology is David P. Haney, The Americanization of Social Science: Intellectuals and Public Responsibility in the Postwar United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008). Since this book is really about sociology and sociologists, rather than social science more broadly, the title is somewhat misleading.

⁸⁸Alpert (note 20), 292.

⁸⁹For a recent and thoughtful discussion about the significance of entrepreneurial social science researchers and programme builders in the post-WWII years, see Hunter Crowther-Heyck, ‘Herbert Simon and the GSIA: Building an Interdisciplinary Community’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 42 (2006), 311–34.

⁹⁰Alpert, ‘The Social Sciences and the National Science Foundation, 1945–1955’, American Sociological Review, 20 (1955), 653–61 (653).