Dissertation Information for Melanie I. SturgeonNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: Social scientists and the National Research Project: A study of technological displacement, 1935--1944 Abstract: During times of crisis, like the Great Depression, governments establish agencies staffed with expert social scientists to study long term trends, make informed decisions about the future, and provide the empirical data upon which the state can justify and implement policy. In this role, the state becomes knowledge producer, consumer and disseminator. New Dealers created the National Research Project on Reemployment Opportunities and Recent Changes in Industrial Techniques (NRP) to study the effects of technological innovation on worker displacement. The NRP's economists, sociologists and social workers amassed the cross industrial and community statistics that the government needed to measure the amount of displacement, the extent of workers' reabsorption, and the implications for workers and their families. This dissertation uses the NRP as a vehicle to analyze the growth of the state's knowledge base regarding the relationships of technological innovation, worker productivity and unemployment in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the role that social scientists played in the collection, analysis and dissemination of this information. It examines the development of the fields of social work and sociology, and government's use of social scientists as experts. Reviewing disciplinary approaches to research, and debates over quantitative, value neutral methods versus inquiries which included normative goals, it considers the consequences in the growth of the state's knowledge base. This study uses social scientists' discussions, fieldwork and community studies to investigate the quality of their research and writing, and their contributions to knowledge about the impact of technological innovations on segments of the labor force. NRP studies demonstrated an important linkage between age and technological displacement. The long-term jobless tended to be older, skilled or semi-skilled male workers displaced by technological innovation, corporate mergers, or the shutdown of established companies. NRP social scientists also revealed cyclical patterns of technological innovation and displacement during times of economic crisis. Their findings added significant pieces to the state's knowledge base and at the same time revealed the tangible consequences of the intellectual debates within the social sciences. |
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