Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Inc.

The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences originated as a jointly sponsored project of ten leading American scholarly associations in the field of social science. (They are: the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Social Workers, the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Society, the American Statistical Association, the Association of American Law Schools, and the National Education Association.) The intent was to construct a comprehensive synthesis of the knowledge provided by different disciplines, in such a way that their differing prespectives would shed new light on the common problems of the social sciences. The enterprise was placed under Edwin R.A. Seligman as editor-in-chief; Alvin Johnson was named associate editor. Financial support was obtained from the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Russell Sage Foundations, and the Macmillan Company was enlisted as publisher.

Having already a broad base of support in the American intellectual community, in 1927 Seligman went abroad to meet with leading European scholars, and met with an enthusiastic reception. The procedure worked out for the organization and composition of the Encyclopaedia was as follows. Lists of possible topics were widely circulated for comment and criticism, then responsibility for individual articles carefully assigned to authorities in each field. Translation or Englishing, if needed, fact checking, and bibliographical checking of completed articles were all performed by the editorial staff in New York, and any doubtful points as well as editorial revisions were referred back to the original author. Final proofreading of the typeset galleys was also done by the editorial staff. The 15 individual volumes were published between 1930 and 1935.

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