Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey: Sociologists and Soldiers during the Second World War

Appendix: Et Al.: The Coauthors of The American Soldier

Appendix Et Al.: The Coauthors of The American Soldier Stouffer’s name has become so reflexively associated with The America Soldier it is easy to forget that he had a strong supporting cast of coauthors, all of whom worked with him in the Research Branch during World War II. Most all of the coauthors—Leonard S. Cottrell Jr., Robin M. Williams Jr., Irving L. Janis, M. Brewster Smith, Leland C. Devinney, Shirley A. Star, Edward A. Suchman, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, and Marion Harper Lumsdaine—had distinguished and influential careers after the war. Their work bringing social science and survey research to what had been largely an area of thought governed by intuition, and the willingness of the military to modify its thinking based on their work is a testimony to their influence both during and after the war. Their later prominence also reflects their influence well beyond the military. Cottrell and Williams served as presidents of the American Sociological Association, and Smith as president of the American Psychological Association. Cottrell and DeVinney took positions at the Russell Sage and Rockefeller Foundations (respectively), and of the remaining seven coauthors, six held positions at one or several top American universities. To consider the Research Branch and The American Soldier without them, or vice versa, would be the last thing Stouffer would want. The coauthors were relatively young when they undertook their labors in the War Department, and three of them—DeVinney, Smith, and Janis—served in 164 The Coauthors of The American Soldier the Research Branch in uniform. In 1943, their average age was only thirty, with Cottrell at forty-four, the oldest, and Smith at twenty-four, the youngest. Their PhDs came from Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford, and were earned between 1933 and 1950. Williams and DeVinney earned their PhDs during the war, and five of the nine coauthors earned theirs after the war—making them graduate students under Stouffer during their time in the Research Branch. His influence, as well as their experience working in Washington, DC, during the war itself, had a profound effect on them for the remainder of their careers.1 The milieu Stouffer established at the Research Branch was intellectually rigorous, challenging, and exciting. A newspaperman who thrived on data and deadlines, Stouffer, as one Research Branch worker remembered, “would give you a problem of concern to someone somewhere in the War Department, and you would pursue it all the way from the first perplexity to the final report. . . . I felt that nowhere else in America could I have been part of such an important group.” As Jean Converse summed up the atmosphere in Survey Research in the United States: The Research Branch “did the course . . . they interviewed, coded, ran the machines, constructed the tables, wrote the reports.” Stouffer ran the Research Branch with a sense of urgency, and such an intense atmosphere could not fail to be productive of bonds that would long outlast the war.2 Cottrell and Williams provide a good example of the intertwining nature of Research Branch alumni after the war. Even before the war ended, negotiations were beginning for postwar employment. Cottrell wanted Williams to join him at Cornell, and Stouffer, still planning on returning to the University of Chicago , wanted Williams to join him there. In the end, Williams opted for Cornell. Cottrell asked Stouffer to write an official appraisal of Williams, which Stouffer did, noting the loss to Chicago. By 1948, Suchman had also joined Cottrell and Williams at Cornell. This sort of activity was common among Research Branch alumni in the decades following the war. They used their influence and connections to help one another and, like spokes through the hub of a wheel, their connections often ran through Stouffer. To consider briefly their individual biographies is to see more clearly the influence of Stouffer and The American Soldier.3 Leonard Slater “Slats” Cottrell Jr. (1899–1985): Cottrell wrote Chapter Twelve, volume II, “The Aftermath of Hostilities,” and with Stouffer wrote Chapter Thirteen, volume II, “The Soldier Becomes a Veteran.” Born in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Cottrell completed his undergraduate work at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (premed) in 1922, and went on to earn a master’s degree (sociology ) at Vanderbilt (1926) and a PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago in 1933. In Chicago, he met Stouffer, and served as one of the judges of the data The Coauthors of The American Soldier 165...