Social Science and Its Frontiers

Americans often date the emergence of a strong commitment to government support of science to the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 satellite in October 1957. That event certainly spurred policy decisions that increased federal investments in education and science, and thus is an appropriate starting point for the popular narrative about science. At the same time, policy developments of the Sputnik era built on earlier events, widely recognized by historians of science. That perspective starts the story with the presentation in July 1946 of Vannever Bush’s report, Science, The Endless Frontier, to President Truman, advocating for a large, organized federal investment in scientific research, based on the role of science and technology in the Second World War. Early efforts to enact legislation based on the Bush report failed (Truman vetoed the first bill that passed because it lacked presidential control over the appointment of the Foundation’s leadership), but in 1950 Truman signed the National Science Foundation Act, establishing an enduring basis for publicly—especially federally—funded scientific research in the United States. The debates about the creation of the National Science Foundation pitted progressives against conservatives and advocates of public and congressional control of science against advocates of exclusive control by scientists.1 One of the topics of debate—although hardly the loudest—was whether the social sciences would be included in the Foundation’s charge.2 Vannever Bush was opposed to their inclusion, sometimes arguing that they should be supported by a separate organization; on the other side, Democratic West Virginia Senator Harley M. Kilgore, a leading sponsor of a more progressive approach, supported their inclusion in the Foundation’s mission. In the end, the compromise legislation that Truman signed in 1950 did not include support for the social sciences, but at the same time did not prohibit such support. The Foundation did not totally exclude the social sciences for long; it hired sociologist Harry Alpert in 1953, and in 1954 introduced a first, extremely modest, program to support the linkage between the social and natural sciences.