RG XXI: Commission on the Year 2000

Historical Note

Interest in the millennium developed not only from the significance of the event, 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 established the Commission on the Year 2000 in 1964 to consider the consequences of private and public decisions, anticipate future problems, and suggest alternative solutions before those problems descended unnoticed and demanded an immediate--and not always effective--response. Chaired by Harvard University’s Daniel Bell (elected 1964), the Commission’s 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: biomedical sciences and technology; economic institutions; the individual; intellectual institutions; the international system; the life-cycle of the individual; science and society; the social impact of the computer; the U.S. government; and values and rights.

First published in Dædalus in 1967, the Commission report’s chapter titles reveal topics that have been and continue to be at the center of scholarly research and contemporary politics. In addition to the Dædalus issue, the Commission produced the following publications: Toward the Year 2000: Work in Progress, ed. Daniel Bell and Stephen R. Graubard. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1967, 1968, 1997; and The Future of the U.S. Government: Toward the Year 2000, ed. Harvey S. Perloff. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1971. In March 1972, Bell and the Academy received a grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a twenty-month research project entitled “Futurism and Forecasting: An Assessment of the Field.”

Scope and Content

The series is contained within the Academy Archives’ Record Group XXI: Academy Projects and Programs. Processing for the series utilized MPLP principles, thus minimum preservation steps were taken, and folder titles listed in the finding aid are as they appear on the actual folders. As materials from varying series were incorporated, an intellectual arrangement was placed on the series with original order being maintained in certain places.

This series contains records of the work done by both the administrative support and the working groups of the Commission. Included materials consist of correspondence and memoranda, grant materials, invitations to join the Commission, newspaper clippings and journal articles on the Commission and futurology, notes, official publications of the findings and reports generated by the Commission, requests from varying institutions and entities for copies of official reports, and transcripts of the meetings in each area of the study.

Processed using MPLP by Timothy Rodriguez, September 2015.

Arrangement

The series is divided into three sub-series, which are further divided:  Sub-series 1: Project Administration, 1964-1980; Sub-series 2: Project Work, 1965-1972; and Sub-series 3: Project Publications. Certain materials in the Project Administration series are restricted.

Volume

8 records center cartons (8 linear feet)

Access

The Grant Management records in the Project Management series are restricted and closed for research.

Preferred Citation

[Item title, date]. Record Group XXI: Academy Projects – Commission on the Year 2000, 1964-1980. Archives, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Subjects

Bell, Daniel, 1919-2011
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Economic forecasting
Education, Higher—Forecasting
Forecasting—21^st century
International relations–Forecasting
Learned institutions and societies—America
Life cycle, Human—Social aspects
Natural resources--United States—Forecasting
Population forecasting—United States
Privacy—Moral and ethical aspects
Privacy, Right of—21st century
Science—Social aspects—Forecasting
Social change—Forecasting
Social prediction
Technological forecasting
Technology—Sociological aspects
United States—Politics and government—Forecasting
Universities and colleges—Forecasting
Urbanization—Forecasting

Related Records

RG XV Publications: Record Copies:

"Toward the Year 2000: Work in Progress" (Daedalus 1967 Summer)