Abstract
During the 1950s, the growing interest in curriculum reform was driven by the cultural context, a landscape dominated by cold war fears and anticommunist rhetoric and activity. The broader curriculum reform movement that gave rise to the new social studies grew, in part, out of cold war manpower concerns and studies conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Though there were other factors, concerns over Soviet manpower development would create pressure for improving the outcomes of American schooling, and for upgrading instruction in science and mathematics. Manpower worries were raised beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s and were partly behind creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Established by Congress in 1950 with the aim of promoting basic research and education in the sciences, the NSF initially had little to do with the lower schools, though it did begin to sponsor science fairs and summer institutes for teachers in science and mathematics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
William L. O’Neill, American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945–1960 (New York: Free Press, 1986), 33–35.
“Russian Science Threatens the West,” Nation’s Business, September 1954, pp. 42–54, in “Scientists and Engineers” folder, box 71, USOE/OFCE; Benjamin Fine, “Russia Is Overtaking U.S. in Training of Technicians,” NYT, November 7, 1954, “Scientists and Engineers File,” box 71, USOE/OFCE.
Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 5.
Daniel J. Kevles, “K1S2: Korea, Science, and the State.” In Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research, ed. Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 325.
Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Independent Offices, 84th Congress, 1st Session, February 9, 1955, 234–235, as cited in Rudolph, Scientists in the Classroom, 71, n. 60.
Henry H. Armsby, “Scientific and Professional Manpower: Organized Efforts to Improve Its Supply and Utilization,” April 1954, “Scientists-Engineers” folder, box 71, NSF/ODSE
M. H. Trytten, “Engineering Education in Russia,” September 1954.
M. H. Trytten, “Russia and the United States: Engineering Graduates,” November 24, 1954, “Scientists-Engineers” folder, box 71, NSF/ODSE
Benjamin Fine, “Russia Is Overtaking U.S. in Training of Technicians,” NYT, November 7, 1954; Rudolph, Scientists in the Classroom, 71.
Nicholas DeWitt, Soviet Professional Manpower (Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1955).
House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Independent Offices, 84th Congress, 2nd Session, January 30, 1956, 522, as cited in Rudolph, Scientists in the Classroom, 75, n. 80.
James R. Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower: A Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977), 192.
ATW diary note, July 8, 1957, box 25, NSF/ODSF; Waterman to Byron T Shaw, July 18, 1957, “Diary Notes-1957,” “C-E” folder, 1957–1959, box 25, NSF/ODSF; David M. Blank and George F. Stigler, The Demand and Supply of Scientific Personnel (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1957).
Phillip S. Jones and Arthur F. Coxford, Jr., “Mathematics in the Evolving School,” in A History of Mathematics Education in the United States and Canada (Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Teachers of Mathematics, 1970), 69–70.
Beberman, as quoted in Peter B. Dow, Schoolhouse Politics: Lessons from the Sputnik Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 20, n. 20.
Statement by the President’s Science Advisory Committee, Education for the Age of Science, issued at the White House, May 24, 1959, attached to Killian to DuBridge, March 10, 1960, “19–6 PSAC folder,” box 37a, Killian Papers.
John D. Haas, The Era of the New Social Studies (Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, 1977), 14–15.
John L. Rudolph, “From World War to Woods Hole: The Use of Wartime Research Models for Curriculum Reform,” TCR 104, no. 2 (March 2002): 212–241.
PSAC, “Government Research and Development,” October 4, 1960, “18–25 PSAC Correspondence” folder 4, box 36, Killian Papers.
James R. Killian, “The Return to Learning: The Curse of Obsolescence in the Schools Can Be Mitigated by the Scholars in the Universities,” Correspondence, A-Z, 1962–1966, folder 2, box 31, ESI, Killian Papers; Jerome S. Bruner, In Search of Mind: Essays in Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1983), 179–180.
Gerald Gutek, Education in the United States: A Historical Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986).
Hyman G. Rickover, Education and Freedom (New York: E. P Dutton and Co., 1959).
E. Merrill Root, Brainwashing in the High Schools (New York: Devin-Adair, 1958), 3, 11, 18, 55, 136, 137, 119–149; “A Reply to the Charges Made in the 13 Chapters of Brainwashing in the High Schools,” “Attacks on Texts” folder, box 12A, Series IV D, Executive Reference Files, NCSS.
Kermit Lansner, ed. Second Rate Brains (New York: Doubleday News Books, 1958).
Idaho Task Force Conference, “Educational Implications of Sputnik,” January 20, 1958, “S-1946 to Science and Engineering,” box 17, Scientists, NSF/ODSF.
Alan T Waterman, “General Considerations Concerning United States Progress in Science and Education,” July 31, 1958, “1963 W” folder, ATW Special Papers, NSF/ODSF; published as, Alan T. Waterman, “U.S. Progress in Science and Education,” Technology Review 61, no. 1 (November 1958): 33–34.
See Barbara Barksdale Clowse, Brainpower for the Cold War: The Sputnik Crisis and the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981).
Ibid.; Pamela E. Flattau, The National Defense Education Act of 1958: Selected Outcomes (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Defense Analysis, 2006).
Dale Greenawald, “Maturation and Change, 1947–1968, Social Education 59, no. 7 (1995), 421; note the similarity to the 1990s reform movement in the non-social studies definition of the field, focusing on history, geography, and civics.
Karl Shapiro, “Why Out-Russia Russia?” New Republic, June 9, 1958, 10.
Thomas N. Bonner, “Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America,” The Journal of Higher Education 29, no. 4 (April, 1958): 181–183.
John Hershey, The Child Buyer (New York: Knopf, 1960).
Carl F. Hansen, “Educator vs. Educationist,” New Republic, October 10, 1960, 23.
Craig Nelson, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon (New York: Viking, 2009); Nelson characterizes the space race as “The one noble proxy” for direct armed conflict between the United States and USSR.
Zacharias memo, “Role of Federal Government in Education,” January 2, 1957, “PSSC 1957” folder, box 41, Zacharias Papers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2011 Ronald W. Evans
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Evans, R.W. (2011). The Ultimate Weapon. In: The Hope for American School Reform. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116672_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116672_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29081-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11667-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Education CollectionEducation (R0)