Do you perchance remember Emily James Putnam? She whom I put smack dab in the middle of this revised spread of "founders" in one of my very first New School history forays nearly a decade ago?
Well, she was so smack dab in the middle of things that - as an article my New School co-historian J just found - it was Emily James Putnam who published a report on the success of the New School for Social Research after its first full semester for its supporters in the New Republic. It's fascinating for all sorts of reasons, including this tidbit
The fear of the Social refers to a not unfriendly old gentleman who urged me to try to get "social" left out on the ground that "to most minds it means hostility to society" - not that clears things up. Does he fear socialism as a threat to the world depicted in the Society pages? I'm glad they kept the "social," but really: Institute for Social Technology!?!? It's a fair bet that a century ago no important word meant quite what it's taken to mean today...
But the part of Putnam's update that we've found ourselves most charmed by gives you a snapshot of Emily James Putnam in the world:
But the part of Putnam's update that we've found ourselves most charmed by gives you a snapshot of Emily James Putnam in the world:
Emily James Putnam, “A Communication: The New School
of Social Research,” The New Republic February 2, 1920, 294
