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The Rand school of social science during the progressive era: Will to power of a stratum of the American intellectual class
Author(s) -
Recchiuti John L.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(199504)31:2<149::aid-jhbs2300310205>3.0.co;2-x
Subject(s) - intelligentsia , politics , power (physics) , sociology , socialism , social class , social science , stratum , class (philosophy) , political science , gender studies , law , communism , epistemology , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology , philosophy
Boldly asserting the existence of an intellectual class, this article details the efforts of one stratum of that class to rise to political power through the creation and development of the Rand School of Social Science in New York. The author argues that the founders of the Rand School used the social sciences—disciplines which they were themselves shaping and popularizing—to promote their political agenda. The school's founders trained an intelligentsia from the working class in the outlook and methods of the social sciences as part of their efforts to redirect the nation's political agenda toward socialism. Finding the social sciences a politically contested terrain, the author offers a history of the founding and administration of the Rand School, describes the pedagogical role of men and women in it, and details the political repression which the school endured as its influence grew. A number of notable intellectuals were associated with the school, among them Franklin H. Giddings, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Morris Hillquit, Algernon Lee, and Scott Nearing. Previously unpublished information regarding the renowned historians Charles and Mary Beard's involvement with the American Socialist Society and the Rand School is of particular interest.