The 1920s and 30s were key decades for the history of American social science. The success of such quantitative disciplines as economics and psychology during World War I forced social scientists to reexamine their methods and practices and to consider recasting their field as a more objective science separated from its historical foundation in social reform. The debate that ensued, fiercely conducted in books, articles, correspondence, and even presidential addresses, made its way into every aspect of social science thought of the period and is the subject of this book. Mark C. Smith first provides a historical overview of the controversy over the nature and future of the social sciences in early twentieth-century America and, then through a series of intellectual biographies, offers an intensive study of the work and lives of major figures who participated in this debate. Using an extensive range of materials, from published sources to manuscript collections, Smith examines "objectivists"—economist Wesley Mitchell and political scientist Charles Merriam—and the more "purposive thinkers"—historian Charles Beard, sociologist Robert Lynd, and political scientist and neo-Freudian Harold Lasswell. He shows how the debate over objectivity and social purpose was central to their professional and personal lives as well as to an understanding of American social science between the two world wars. These biographies bring to vivid life a contentious moment in American intellectual history and reveal its significance in the shaping of social science in this country. "As a collective intellectual biography of some of the foremost social science thinkers of the early to mid-century, this book provides perhaps the clearest picture yet of the dilemmas facing the scholar-as-democratic reformer. Smith manages a judicious blend of the personal biography and individual career path with a penetrating account of the subject's main writings and intellectual contributions. His book should be read by a large, interdisciplinary audience."—Leon Fink, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "This is a superb piece of work. There is nothing quite like this book in the available literature and it will nicely supplement the best of previously published accounts of the history of social science in the United States. It is also an important intervention in the current debate about the decline of the public intellectual."—Robert Westbrook, University of Rochester "As a collective intellectual biography of some of the foremost social science thinkers of the early to mid-century, this book provides perhaps the clearest picture yet of the dilemmas facing the scholar-as-democratic reformer. Smith manages a judicious blend of the personal biography and individual career path with a penetrating account of the subject's main writings and intellectual contributions. His book should be read by a large, interdisciplinary audience."--Leon Fink, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Mark C. Smith is Assistant Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Texas, Austin. Social Science in the Crucible The American Debate Over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918–1941 By Mark C. Smith Duke University Press Copyright © 1994 Duke University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8223-1484-4 Contents Introduction, 1 American Social Science: Moralism and the Scientific Method, 2 Wesley Mitchell and the Quantitative Approach, 3 Charles Merriam and Technical Expertise, 4 Robert Lynd and Knowledge for What?, 5 Charles Beard and Activist Social Science, 6 Harold D. Lasswell and the Lost Opportunity of the Purposive School, Conclusion, Notes, Index, CHAPTER 1 American Social Science: Moralism and the Scientific Method * * * American social science has always suffered from an ambivalence found in its very name. As science it represents the amoral, empirical, antitheo-retical approach of the technical method that Daniel Boorstin among others has championed as the characteristic nature of American thought and action. Scientific method deals with how to do things and do them most efficiently; it is unconcerned with the issue of what to do. Yet social science is also social thought and thus contains, especially in America, a traditional consistent concern for social welfare and the directing of society toward preconceived moral ends. Since the time of the Mayflower Compact and John Winthrop's "A Modell of Christian Charitie," American thinking on society has possessed this normative concern for the welfare of individuals within society. As heir to both traditions, American social scientists have attempted to integrate the two. Yet from the time social science was founded in the late nineteenth century, the elements of social advocacy and scientific neutrality have conflicted with each other. Puritans' thinking about society was by definition concern for moral issues. Their goal in establishing a new "comm