University of Chicago. Social Science Research Committee

Established in 1923 as the Local Community Research Committee with a grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. In 1930 the LCRC was renamed the Social Science Research Committee. The Committee supported and administered research projects in the social sciences at the University.

From the description of Records, 1923-1964 (inclusive). (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 56101857

The Local Community Research Committee was established in 1923 with an initial grant of $21,000 from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. This grant was supported by subsequent annual direct and matching grants amounting to nearly half a million dollars by 1931. The first members of the Committee were chairmen of five University departments concerned with social science research: Albion W. Small (Sociology and Anthropology); Charles E. Merriam (Political Science); Leon C. Marshall (Political Economy); James H. Tufts (Philosophy); and Andrew C. McLaughlin (History). Harry A. Millis (Political Economy) served as secretary of the Committee from 1924 to 1926, after which Leonard D. White (Political Science) was appointed to the part-time position of Executive Secretary. Significant projects completed or initiated with the support of the LCRC from 1923 to 1930 included Charles Merriam and Harold Gosnell on voting patterns; Ernest W. Burgess on delinquency; Quincy Wright on the causes of war; Simeon Leland on public finance; Vivien Palmer on neighborhoods; and Bessie Louise Pierce on the history of Chicago. The work of the LCRC culminated in the dedication of the Social Science Research Building in December, 1929, and the publication of a collaborative report, Chicago: An Experiment in Social Science Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929).

In 1930, the LCRC was renamed the Social Science Research Committee and Donald Slesinger was brought from Yale University's Institute of Human Relations to become the full-time Executive Secretary, replacing Leonard White, who had resigned to resume his teaching career. Following suggestions made by White before his departure, a Social Science Research Council representing all appropriate University departments and professional schools was created to provide general direction and advice, while supervision of the research program was lodged in a small executive Committee consisting of Slesinger and four faculty members: Edith Abbott, Charles Merriam, Harry A. Millis, and Edward Sapir. Additional committees and sub-committees were established as needed to monitor the progress and insure the completion of individual projects.

Primary financial support for the Social Science Research Committee came from the Rockefeller Foundation, which had absorbed the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial in 1929, from the Division of the Social Sciences, and from the University's general research funds; as had been the case with the LCRC, additional funds were received from local organizations, foundations, and occasional private gifts. Scholars whose work was supported by the Committee after 1930 included Ernest W. Burgess, L. L. Thurstone, Fay-Cooper Cole, William F. Ogburn, Charles E. Merriam, Frank H. Knight, Louis Wirth, Robert J. Havighurst, Hans J. Morgenthau, and John U. Nef, among others. The tenth anniversary of the Social Science Research Building provided an opportunity to survey the accomplishments of the University's social science research effort through a series of commemorative round-table discussions, the proceedings of which were published in Eleven Twenty-six: A Decade of Social Science Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940). The Social Science Research Committee was superceded in 1970 by the Social Sciences Divisional Research fund.

From the guide to the University of Chicago. Social Science Research Committee. Records, 1923-1964, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)