The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ARCHIVES: CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT AND PRESERVATION A Dissertation in Higher Education by Yu Sun © 2020 Yu Sun Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December, 2020 ii The dissertation of Yu Sun was reviewed and approved by the following: David Guthrie Associate Professor of Education Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee David M. Post Professor of Education (Educational Theory & Policy and Comparative & International Education) and Senior Scientist Karly Ford Assistant Professor of Education (Higher Education) Alan Sica Professor of Sociology Leticia Oseguera Associate Professor of Higher Education Program Chair iii ABSTRACT This dissertation, using the case of the historical establishment of the American Sociological Association archives, argues that a lack of collaboration across institutions and among people contributed to difficulties in establishing the significance of the ASA archives as a social science project in America after World War II. The ASA makes an ideal case study because its archival history illustrates how sociologists struggled to build collective endeavors of archive advocates and partnerships between universities and the ASA. By incorporating the research methods of political history, case study, and archive study, this research analyzes relevant historical materials, such as letters, newsletters, reports, proceedings, and meeting records, to reconstruct a brief history of the ASA archives. This historical study identifies six main events in the development of the ASA archives. The chronology begins with a prologue documenting the weak and unofficial call and need for an organizational archive in the 1950s-1960s. Because of the lack of archival awareness, opportunities in this rich era of the ASA was missed by archive advocates. The first official proposal for the archive was submitted in 1969 by Hinkle and Cahnman. The proposal was denied for three possible reasons: the conflict between insufficient budget and ambitious scope of archiving, the conflict between the academic need of scholars and the informational need by officers, and the concern for privacy. The second event was the appointment of the Page committee on archives in 1969 and its report in 1972. The Page committee was restricted by no financial support, understaffed activities, and failure to adopt previous archive advocates. The third event was the collaboration with the Library of Congress from 1974 to 1992. The cooperation could have been more successful if the ASA was not delayed by institutional inertia: it didn’t begin transmitting records until nine years later. The fourth event was Barber’s donation for a centralized archive for American sociology in 1990. The fifth event was the change of repository to the Pennsylvania State University after the Library of Congress decided to deaccess the ASA archives in 1992. Lastly, from 2012 to 2017, current archive advocates in the ASA successfully reversed a crisis of iv confidential materials into an initiative for the digitalization of past archives. The struggling of the ASA organizational records implied the absence of a qualitative database in the quantification of academic research. The final success was achieved by the collaboration of sociologists. By and large, the history of the ASA archives demonstrated the difficult circumstances of a qualitative database during the trend of quantification. Four resources that mitigated against the establishment of the ASA archives are identified: 1. insufficient funding for social sciences, 2. the transformation towards a scientific orientation in sociology, 3. the absence of efficient institutional arrangements, and 4. the absence of a collective endeavor of archival advocates. The third and fourth factors were the most significant because they occurred in all of the events mentioned above. The combination of university partnership, well-designed organizational arrangement, and manpower collaboration would illuminate success, while the lack of cooperation consistently failed the archivization. Today, the technology of digitization provides opportunities for the potential prosperity of qualitative archives. In the new era, social researchers should work together to build up a collective memory and endeavor to preserve the history of social science. Keywords: Archive, American Sociological Association, History, Partnership, Collaboration. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Context: archives and their selectivity ............................................................................................. 3 American academic archives .............................................................................................. 4 Archival selectivity ............................................................................................................. 7 Research questions ......................................................................................................................... 10 Significance of the study ................................................................................................................ 11 Limitations to the study .................................................................................................................. 13 Overview of chapters ..................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2 Research Methods ..................................................................................................................... 15 Political history .............................................................................................................................. 15 Case study ...................................................................................................................................... 17 The choice of case .......................................................................................................................... 19 Archival approach .......................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 3 History of the American Sociological Association Archive ..................................................... 22 Prologue (1950-1960s) ................................................................................................................... 23 The story ........................................................................................................................... 25 The analysis....................................................................................................................... 27 The Hinkle proposal (1969) ........................................................................................................... 28 The story ........................................................................................................................... 30 The analysis....................................................................................................................... 33 The conflict between fiscal deficit and the ambitious scope of an archive ......... 34 The conflict between advocates influenced by continental sociology and the overwhelmed officer ............................................................................................ 35 The Page committee (1970-1972) .................................................................................................. 37 The story ........................................................................................................................... 37 The analysis....................................................................................................................... 43 Uncooperative administrators .............................................................................. 44 The absence of university partnership ................................................................. 46 Distracted Committees ......................................................................................... 49 The Contracts with the Library of Congress (1974-1992) ............................................................. 52 The story ........................................................................................................................... 52 The analysis....................................................................................................................... 54 Three versions of the instrument.......................................................................... 54 A collegiate repository v. a governmental one .................................................... 57 The Barber Committee (1990-1998) .............................................................................................. 60 The story ..........................................................................................................................