Social Policy and American Institutions

Past Projects – 1960s

• Ethical Aspects of Experimentation on Human Subjects: With new surgical techniques, like heart transplants, and other experimental procedures becoming indispensable tools in prolonging human life, the issue of human experimentation was becoming a matter of increasing public interest. The Academy created an interdisciplinary working group to study the ethics of human experimentation. Under the shadow of the memory of the Nazi years, the participants raised issues that were not only scientific and ethical, but also social, legal, and political, and that extended beyond medicine to experiments in psychology, education, and other areas of social policy. The working group’s papers were initially published in Dædalus in 1969.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1966-1970
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Paul Freund (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Experimentation with Human Subjects,” ed. Paul A. Freund. New York: George Braziller Inc., 1970. (out of print)
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: National Institutes of Health
  
  
• Understanding Poverty: In the 1960s, the United States developed a national system of social programs based on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 declaration of “unconditional war on poverty.” In 1966, the Academy convened a series of seminars on the many components of poverty. The interdisciplinary dialogues brought together scholars and government officials to discuss the nature of poverty — its cultural and economic roots, and the effects of education, racial discrimination, and segregation — and to evaluate the social action programs then in place.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1966-1969
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Daniel P. Moynihan (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “On Understanding Poverty: Perspectives from the Social Sciences,” ed. Daniel P. Moynihan. New York: Basic Books, 1969. (out of print)
  
  “On Fighting Poverty: Perspectives from Experience,” ed. James Sundquist. New York: Basic Books, 1969. (out of print)
  
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: American Academy, Stern Family Fund
  
  
• The Negro American: Initially published as two double-size issues of the Academy’s journal, Dædalus, this volume is a comprehensive survey of the problems and the status of African-Americans in American society. The topic was one of great urgency, and this volume has been considered perhaps the most seminal publication explaining the complexities and implications of racial problems in the United States in the 1960s. As President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote in the foreword of the volume, “Nothing is of greater significance to the welfare and vitality of this nation than the movement to secure equal rights for Negro Americans.” The Dædalus issues were so critically acclaimed and well received, the Academy followed them up with a comprehensive bibliography of research and writings on the Negro American experience.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1965-1967
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Kenneth B. Clark (City College of New York) and Talcott Parsons (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “The Negro American,” eds. Talcott Parsons and Kenneth B. Clark, with foreword by Lyndon B. Johnson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967. (out of print)
  
  “The Negro in America: A Bibliography,” first edition, by Elizabeth W. Miller. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. (out of print)
  
  “The Negro in America: A Bibliography, Second Revised and Enlarged Edition,” by Elizabeth W. Miller and Mary L. Fisher. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. (out of print)
  
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Carnegie Corporation of New York, American Academy
  
  
• Commission on the Year 2000: Interest in the millennium developed not only from the significance of the number, but from the anticipation of the world to come, full of new technologies, shifting policies, and a changing role for the U. S. in the global arena. The Academy initiated this study in 1964 to consider the consequences of private and public decisions, anticipate future problems, and suggest alternative solutions before problems descend unnoticed and demand an immediate, and not always effective, response. The task was to imagine the future and identify the problem areas and social and intellectual questions likely to be central by the year 2000. Among the issues discussed were: values and rights; the life-cycle of the individual; the international system; the U.S. government; intellectual institutions; science and society; the social impact of the computer; biomedical sciences and technology; the individual; and economic institutions. First published in Dædalus in 1967, the report’s chapter titles reveal topics that have been and continue to be at the center of scholarly research and contemporary politics.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1964-1971
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Daniel Bell (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “Toward the Year 2000: Work in Progress,” eds. Daniel Bell and Stephen R. Graubard. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1967, 1968, 1997. Available from publisher.
  
  “The Future of the U.S. Government: Toward the Year 2000,” ed. Harvey S. Perloff. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1971. (out of print)
  
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Carnegie Corporation of New York
  
  
• The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in American Life: By the second half of the 20th century, the philanthropic foundation in America had evolved into a new institutional form, both private and public in nature. This project traced the development of the modern general-purpose philanthropic foundation and assessed its role in philanthropy as a whole, as compared with the roles played by government, business corporations, company-affiliated foundations, individual donors, community-service organizations, and other participants in philanthropic activity. This study also examined the role of private foundations in financing higher education and scientific research. The data suggested that foundation resources were not expanding in proportion to need and that education and research in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and public policy studies would experience increasing reliance on government support.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1964-1967
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Warren Weaver (Rockefeller Foundation)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “U.S. Philanthropic Foundations: Their History, Structure, Management and Record,” by Warren Weaver. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. (out of print)
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  
  
  

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