archives.nypl.org -- Bureau of Social Science Research files (original) (raw)

The Bureau of Social Science Research Files collection are comprised of materials from the two sociological studies for which Albert Gollin was the principal investigator, the March on Washington (l963) and the Poor People's Campaign (l968). In addition to material generated by the BSSR in their study and analysis of these events, the collection contains documents from both the March on Washington and the Poor People's Campaign that Gollin and his team gathered for their studies.

The Bureau of Social Science Research files are arranged in two series:

• 1950-1969
  Included in this series are planning documents on Gollin's organization of the study of the March; reference material used to analyze it and previous marches; survey instruments and questionnaires; interview guidelines and transcripts; media-related materials such as newspaper clippings and television program transcripts; and reference material for the final report. The Study subseries encompasses minutes, correspondence, and administrative material from the March that Gollin acquired for the final analysis of the study. The ideological and biographical intersections of the MOW participants are highlighted in the historical sketch of the BSSR/MOW project in "History and Overview". Documented in notes written by Gollin and others is the collapse of the leadership of the original March for Jobs and Freedom and the shift towards the civil/voting rights march. The notes record the timeline of the shift and the key players who brought it about. The grassroots takeover of the March is also captured in notes for an article titled "The MOW in Mass Society: Communication and Persuasion". There are three documents by A. Philip Randolph, including a letter to Dr. Robert Spike, Director of the Commission of Religion and Race, National Council of Churches. A copy of the "Marshals of the March" manual, which covers the logistics of the event relating to food, emergency medical services, audio equipment and security, along with the "Thank You Letter" to volunteers, is included in this subseries. Gollin's undated article titled "The Co-optation of Crisis: The Organizational Factor in the MOW" reports on the tensions among the leadership of the MOW. The Reference subseries includes a memo from Bayard Rustin to the ten chairmen of the MOW on the future of the MOW movement which he titled "The Life Story of the March on Washington". The minutes of a pre-MOW meeting with the Washington, D.C. police on July 11, 1963, attended by Bayard Rustin, Walter Fauntroy, and others of the MOW organizing body, capture some of the concerns raised by law enforcement and the local community. Also included among the items here is a copy of the original text of the speech that John Lewis, of the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC), wrote but did not deliver on the day of the March. Notes for a speech Julius Hobson delivered at the Yale Law Students Association on September 11, 1963, offer a description and analysis of the Council on Racial Equality's (CORE) role and understanding of the MOW. Hobson's notes also capture the emergence and evolution of the March as well as the manipulation by the Big 6 civil rights organizations and how that shaped and changed the March and the original demands and outcomes. Also contained here are correspondence and planning documents on the organizing of the March. Some of the events leading to the transformation into a civil rights/voters rights march are found in the plan of operation dated July 8, 1963. The Survey subseries contains the instruments used to conduct the BSSR survey of the media coverage of the MOW. Instruments used include volunteer registration forms, codebooks, survey forms, interview guidelines for interviewers and volunteers, questionnaires (blanks), instructional manuals, and data analysis. There are also transcripts of interviews of James Farmer, Dr. Anna Hedgeman, John Lewis, Cleveland Robinson, Bayard Rustin, and Whitney Young. Housed in the Media section of this subseries are guidelines for television monitoring, thirteen media reports, content analysis, a report on research on the MOW by Dorothy Aitken Bohn of MOW, and foreign reaction to MOW as documented by the United States Information Agency.
• 1960-1971
  The Poor People's Campaign (PPC) series documents the active planning for the PPC beginning in early l968 and intensifying in May of that year. The correspondence, distributed among the subseries, consists primarily of form letters concerning planning; invitations to universities (Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan) inquiring about their research projects on the PPC and inviting their participation and collaboration in the BSSR study; media contacts; and letters regarding the codification and analysis of data collected during the PPC. The Study subseries encompasses the BSSR's study of the campaign, reports and other writings, and studies of civil disobedience. Gollin's involvement with SCLC's administration of the PPC is evident in the files and documents included here. Included among the files is a detailed blueprint of the vision and plans for Resurrection City by the organizers of the campaign. The Gollin writings folder contains six articles including an unpublished paper, "Collective Protest and Social Change", that presents some of his research findings on the PPC project. The Survey subseries includes codebooks, survey instruments, and interview guidelines. There are transcripts of interviews conducted by BSSR staff and volunteers with participants as well as caravan reports from participant-observers who traveled with the caravans. Of interest are several papers by Carol Yenawine, one of the interviewer,s and an article by David Wham called "Politics and Dramatism of Conflict in the P.P.C: A Case Study". The Reference subseries contains documents related to the lobbying efforts of the organizers of the PPC and shows the role of the national and local organizations, especially the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence, that collaborated with the PPC. The Media subseries includes articles and reports on the civil rights movement, as well as newspaper clippings and periodicals, containing articles about both the March on Washington and the Poor People's Campaign in Black and mainline publications.