Dollard, John, 1900-

John Dollard was born on August 29, 1900, in Menasha, Wisconsin. He studied commerce and English at the University of Wisconsin, receiving a B.A. in 1922. In 1931, he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. He was a professor of psychology at Yale University from 1952 to 1969. His best known work, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937) describes the social system in place in the South that kept African-Americans in a lower caste and economic class. Dollard's other published works include Frustration and Aggression in 1939 and Fear and Battle in 1943. John Dollard died on October 8, 1980, in New Haven, Connecticut.

From the guide to the John Dollard papers, 1927-1992, (Manuscripts and Archives)

John Dollard (1900-1980) was a psychologist and social scientist best known for his studies on race relations in America. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1931 and in 1932 was appointed Research Associate in Social Anthropology at Yale University’s Institute of Human Relations, where he conducted some of his most influential work. From 1942 to 1945 Dollard served as Expert Consultant to the Morale Services Division of the United States Department of War. Beginning in 1941 he and Neal E.Miller, Research Associate in Psychology at the Institute, undertook a study a study of fear and morale in modern combat conditions. When Miller enlisted soon after Pearl Harbor, John Dollard completed the study, working with Dr. Donald Harrison of the Institute, and with considerable assistance from the Irving Fajans, Jack Bzoje and other members of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Lincoln veteran John V. Murra, then a graduate student in anthropology at the university of Chicago and later a distinguished anthropologist, acted as a paid project assistant, helping with the distribution and collection of project materials, and traveling to Detroit and other cities to secure cooperation from veterans.

As a preliminary to designing the study's questionnaire some interviews with veterans were conducted by project staff. The 44-page questionnaire was then distributed to men (and at least one woman?) who had served under fire as American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Three hundred Lincoln Brigade veterans returned the lengthy questionnaire. With the aid of a Rockefeller Foundation grant Dollard and his team summarized their findings in a report entitled Fear and Courage under Battle Conditions (1943), a statistical analysis of the veterans' replies. The report was published as Fear in Battle (Washington: The Infantry Journal, 1944). In 1952 Dollard became a professor in Yale University’s Department of Psychology and in 1969 he retired with the title professor emeritus.

From the guide to the John Dollard Research Files for, Fear and Courage under Battle Conditions, 1942-1944, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)