Herbert Gans papers, 1944-2004

Herbert Gans papers, 1944-2004

Summary Information

Abstract

This collection contains the papers of Herbert Gans, a sociologist, urban planner, critic, and Columbia University professor. The collection includes research files, field notes, book manuscripts, published and unpublished articles and studies, correspondence, teaching materials, student writings, speaking notes, and news clippings.

At a Glance

Call No.:
MS#1489
Bib ID:
5419251 View CLIO record
Creator(s):
Gans, Herbert J.
Repository:
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Physical Description:
28 linear feet (64 document boxes 1 flat box)
Language(s):
English , Hungarian , German , Spanish; Castilian .
Access:
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

This collection has no restrictions, however, The Park Forest Interviews (Subseries I.2: Box 23, Folder 1, and Box 24, Folders 1-7) are extremely fragile; access to these materials will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

Description

Scope and Content

A renowned sociologist, urban planner, and critic who has written or edited 14 books and hundreds of articles, Herbert J. Gans taught in Columbia University's Department of Sociology for three decades. The Herbert J. Gans Papers include research files, field notes, book manuscripts, published and unpublished articles and studies, correspondence, teaching materials, student writings, speaking notes, and news clippings amassed by Gans between the late 1940s and 2004. The bulk of the collection consists of Gans's writings and related materials, including sociological field notes, correspondence, grant applications, drafts, and typescripts. Extensive research and correspondence files related to Gans's three most influential books --The Urban Villagers, The Levittowners, and Deciding What's News-- together comprise about a quarter of the collection; drafts, typescripts, and letters pertaining to six of his other books are also included. Contained, too, is a chronological collection of Gans's articles, along with his M.A and PhD theses, planning documents, film and book reviews, speaking notes, and numerous unpublished articles.

Subject files document Gans's numerous interests and activities undertaken as a scholar, policy expert, activist, and public speaker. Many contain handwritten explanatory notes added by Gans immediately before bequeathing the collection.

By far the most voluminous correspondence is that with the sociologist David Riesman; also making appearances are a who's-who of late-20th century American intellectuals and social scientists: John K. Galbraith, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, Robert Merton, Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, William J. Wilson, Todd Gitlin, Frances Fox Piven, and Richard Cloward.

Finally, Gans's teaching files include syllabi, lecture outlines, reading lists, and examinations from four decades of teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, M.I.T., and Columbia.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in 5 series.

Using the Collection

Restrictions on Access

You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

This collection has no restrictions, however, The Park Forest Interviews (Subseries I.2: Box 23, Folder 1, and Box 24, Folders 1-7) are extremely fragile; access to these materials will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Herbert J. Gans Papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

Selected Related Material

Robert K. Merton Papers, Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Accruals

Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Source of acquisition--Gift of Herbert Gans. Date of acquisition--2005 and 2007.

About the Finding Aid / Processing Information

Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Processing Information

Papers surveyed and sent offsite BL & PL 9/13/2005.

Papers Processed Michael Woodsworth (GSAS 2011) 2010.

Finding Aid Written Michael Woodsworth (GSAS 2011) 05/--/2010.

Revision Description

2010-06-26 File created.

2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.

Biographical / Historical

Herbert Gans is a sociologist, urban planner, and critic who has written or edited 14 books and hundreds of articles, and who taught in Columbia University's department of sociology for three decades. Gans was born in 1927 in Cologne, Germany, to middle-class Jewish parents. The family fled Germany in 1939, arriving first in England and then in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood. Gans became a U.S. citizen in 1945 and subsequently spent 14 months in the Army. Returning in 1946 to the University of Chicago, he studied under the "Chicago School" of social scientists, among them Earl Johnson and Everett Hughes, who stressed the importance of urban fieldwork. At Chicago, Gans also grew close to the sociologist David Riesman, who in 1950 supervised a Master's dissertation titled "Political Participation and Apathy: A Study of Political Participation in Local Government and Some Recommendations to Increase Participation in the Government of Park Forest, Illinois." Riesman would remain a friend, correspondent, and mentor to Gans for the next 50 years.

Gans considered moving to Israel and joining a kibbutz after completing his M.A. Instead, he went to work as a planner for the Chicago Housing Authority. His planning work later took him to the Minnesota iron range, where he helped plan two new towns; he also briefly worked for the Division of Slum Clearance of the United States Housing and Home Finance Agency. In 1953, he followed another mentor from Chicago, the social scientist and planner Martin Meyerson, to the University of Pennsylvania and embarked on a doctorate in urban planning. Gans finished his dissertation, titled "Recreation Planning for Leisure Behavior: A Goal-Oriented Approach" in 1957. He was subsequently hired as an assistant professor of city planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

By the late 1950s, Gans had published some 20 articles about planning, suburbs, and political participation, as well as numerous book reviews. He had also penned several essays about American Jewry in the influential magazine Commentary, where the sociologist Nathan Glazer was his editor.

Gans and his first wife, Iris, moved in late 1957 to Boston's West End. A predominantly Italian-American community, the neighborhood had recently been designated a slum and was on the verge of being cleared for urban renewal. Gans's work there as a "participant-observer" turned him into one of the country's most forceful critics of the urban-renewal programs then being undertaken with federal funds. As Gans saw it, the West End was no slum, nor had it exhibited the kinds of social pathologies cited by advocates of slum clearance. Instead, he argued in The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans (1962), the neighborhood had fostered a vibrant, tight-knit community of working-class families for whom displacement was a life-shattering experience. Though many of the group rituals and institutions described in The Urban Villagers were reminiscent of Italian folkways, Gans insisted that class was a better marker of the West Enders' group identity than ethnicity-- a theme he would return to repeatedly throughout his career. The book went on to sell almost 200,000 copies and became a mainstay on college-level sociology syllabi.

In 1958, Gans moved to Levittown, N.J., a newly minted suburb where he hoped to study the process of town formation. He spent three years there conducting extensive field work, which led to a monumental study published in 1967, The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community. The book was most notable for demolishing the then-prevailing view of suburbs as a locus of conformity, isolation, and alienation. As in Boston, Gans found among Levittown's former urbanites strong community institutions, which in many cases had emerged almost overnight. In fact, he argued, there was little evidence to support the conventional wisdom that built environments had a significant effect on people's lives -- another recurring theme in his work.

Gans taught occasional courses in city planning, urban studies, and sociology at Penn and Columbia's Teachers College from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. He took a professorship in planning at MIT in 1969. Two years later, he moved back to New York to join Columbia's department of Sociology, where became the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology in 1985.

Gans's first marriage ended in divorce. In 1967, he married Louise Gruner, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society.

By the late 1960s, Gans had gained recognition as one of the country's foremost authorities on urban issues. Gans initially supported the federal War on Poverty undertaken in 1964 but later criticized it for stressing the mental and psychological incapacities of the poor themselves rather than the broader political and economic structures that created poverty. To Gans, the urban crisis was in fact a national one. As he testified in 1967 before the National Advisory Commission on National Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, the uprisings that wracked American cities in the late 1960s resulted, above all, from segregation and unemployment. Thus only a national jobs program, combined with deliberate desegregation and income-redistribution programs, could solve the urban crisis. (Gans helped draft the Kerner Commission's final report in 1968.) The intersections of race and class in American society would remain a theme in Gans's work for the rest of his career. So, too, would what he dubbed the "positive functions of poverty" which, he argued in a widely reprinted 1972 article in the American Journal of Sociology, allowed elites to benefit from keeping the poor poor. A compilation of Gans's writings about poverty and cities, People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions, appeared in 1968.

Gans firmly believed that sociologists had a duty not only to study social problems but also to advocate for change outside the academy. During the late 1960s and 1970s, his omnivorous interests involved him in an increasingly broad range of activities. Politicians including Hubert Humphrey and Fred Harris solicited his advice. He was active in the influential liberal group Americans for Democratic Action and the social-democratic League for Industrial Democracy. He campaigned in the mid-1970s for the release of imprisoned Hungarian sociologists and helped them emigrate to the U.S. Throughout, he wrote about subjects as varied as suburbanization, the Vietnam War, landmarks preservation, the Beatles, and the New York Yankees in the pages of academic journals and popular publications alike. A series of ruminative essays published in the New York Times Magazine between 1968 and 1974, on subjects including inequality, welfare, housing, and television, delivered his ideas to a readership of millions.

A sharp-tongued and at times iconoclastic cultural critic, Gans also penned numerous film reviews, satires, opinion pieces, and essays on popular culture. In 1959, he produced a monograph on British consumption of American movies and TV shows; ten years later, he carried out extensive research about the educational uses of television among New York City residents. In 1964, he testified as an expert witness at Lenny Bruce's obscenity trial. Gans's brand of cultural theory received its clearest expression in his 1974 book Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste, which he dedicated to Riesman. The book issued a robust defense of popular culture, arguing that the bifurcation between "high" and "low" cultures reflected socioeconomic hierarchies rather than the intrinsic worth of people's aesthetic standards.

Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Gans worked intermittently on a wide-ranging study of American news outlets. In 1963, he carried out a series of interviews with broadcasters and media executives-- including David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, and the president of NBC, Robert Kintner-- in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination. In subsequent years, he spent several months as a participant-observer at CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time, applying an ethnographer's eye to the sociology of newsrooms. This research led to numerous articles, lectures, and, eventually, a book-length study, Deciding What's News (1979).

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Gans continued to publish and lecture on a wide variety of topics including ethnicity, television, urban design, suburbia, and labor. He served as president of the American Sociological Association in 1988. An obsessive newspaper reader, he fired off a steady stream of letters to the editor and maintained regular correspondence with a number of prominent reporters and columnists. His books reprised, updated, and expanded on key themes of his earlier work. Middle American Individualism: Political Participation and Liberal Democracy, published in 1988, issued a defense of the working- and middle-class Americans often derided by elites as apathetic, unthinking, or uncultured. Gans portrayed their individualism in Tocquevillian terms, as the reservoir of America's democratic values, and argued that the political system ought to seek ways of better serving such individuals. The War Against the Poor (1995) issued a pointed critique of the labeling, categorization, and marginalization of the so-called "underclass" while calling for greater job creation and income-maintenance programs for the poor. Two essay collections, People, Plans, and Policies (1992) and Making Sense of America (1999) also appeared.

Gans has said that his life's work amounts to an immigrant's quest to understand America. That quest continues into his eighties, as books including Democracy and the News (2003) and Imagining America in 2033 (2009) attest. Now a professor emeritus, he remains a strong advocate of public sociology, encouraging students and professionals alike to take a multidisciplinary approach and tie their work to policy considerations.

Subject Headings

The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.

All links open new windows.

Name
American Sociological Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Columbia University -- Faculty
Frankel, Max, 1914-
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006
Gans, Herbert J.
Glazer, Nathan
Harris, Fred R., 1930-
League for Industrial Democracy
Moynihan, Daniel P (Daniel Patrick), 1927-2003
Riesman, David, 1909-2002
United States. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
University of Chicago. Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania. Department of City and Regional Planning
Place
Boston (Mass.) -- Social life and customs
Levittown (N.J.)
United States -- History -- 1961-1969
United States -- History -- 1969-
United States -- Race relations
United States -- Social conditions -- 1945-
United States -- Social policy
Subject
City planning -- United States
Democracy -- United States
Ethnicity -- United States
Individualism
Italian Americans -- Massachusetts -- Boston
Italian Americans -- Social life and customs
Jews -- United States -- Social life and customs
Journalism -- United States
Mass media and culture -- United States
Minorities -- United States
Political participation -- United States
Popular culture
Poverty -- United States
Public welfare -- United States
Recreation -- United States -- Planning
Representative government and representation -- United States
Social classes -- United States
Sociology -- Fieldwork
Sociology -- Research
Sociology -- Study and teaching
Sociology -- United States
Sociology, Urban
Suburban life -- Case studies
Suburbs -- United States
Television broadcasting of news
Urban policy -- United States
Urban renewal -- Case studies
Urban renewal -- Government policy -- United States

Series I: Writings, 1947-2004

This series contains materials related to books, book-length studies, articles, planning documents, and other writings authored by Gans during close to six decades of work. Together, these files comprise more than half the collection. The basic organizational scheme of these materials was established by Gans, although many files were rearranged in alphabetical order during processing. Subject and correspondence files related to a given book or article were grouped with the relevant title.


Subseries I.1: Books, 1953-2003

Gans wrote nine books:The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans(1962),The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community(1967),People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions(1968),More Equality(1973),Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste(1974),Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time(1979),Middle American Individualism: The Future of Liberal Democracy(1988),The War Against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy(1995), andDemocracy and the News(2003). Correspondence, research notes, grant applications, drafts, manuscripts, and book reviews related to each book are contained within this subseries.

The files relating toThe Urban Villagers, The Levittowners,andDeciding What's Newsprovide a vivid portrait of how Gans planned and carried out his sociological fieldwork. The files also offer considerable insight into his writing process and efforts to gain funding and support for his research. Five boxes of materials related to his research in Boston forThe Urban Villagersinclude heavily annotated drafts and a diary he kept while living as a participant-observer in the West End neighborhood. Of particular note among the correspondence files are letters written to Gans by a West End family immediately before and after being forced from their home, as well as two letters from Jane Jacobs, dated 1959, on the subject of urban renewal. Files pertaining toThe Levittownersinclude two-dozen folders of questionnaires filled out by Levittown residents at Gans's request; a daily diary detailing Gans's observations and musings on Levittown life; three folders of grant applications; and an annotated version of the 1300-page manuscript that eventually led to the much shorter book. Files related toDeciding What's Newsinclude a series of 1963 interviews carried out in the wake of the JFK assassination with notable journalists and media executives including David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, and the president of NBC, Robert Kintner; field notes from time spent in the CBS, NBC,NewsweekandTimenewsrooms in the late 1960s and early 1970s; correspondence soliciting funds and support; and opinion pieces and editorials flowing from the project.

In addition, Gans preserved hundreds of reviews about his books, as well as letters he exchanged with particularly critical or laudatory reviewers. Drafts or typescripts of most of his books up toDemocracy and the Newsare also contained here.


The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans, 1962


Correspondence


Box 1 Folder 1

Caruso, Joseph, 1958-1987


Box 1 Folder 2

General, with Clippings, 1955-1961


Box 1 Folder 3

Granovetter, Mark, 1974


Box 1 Folder 4

Jacobs, Jane, 1958


Box 1 Folder 5

Lopreato, Joseph, 1970-1971


Box 1 Folder 6

Post-Publication, 1962-1967


Box 1 Folder 7

Regarding Publication, 1960-1962


Box 1 Folder 8

Regarding West End, 1958-1959


Box 1 Folder 9

Research, 1958-1959


Box 1 Folder 10

Steiner, Richard, 1958


Box 1 Folder 11

Topalov, Christian, 1999-2003


Box 1 Folder 12

West Enders, 1958-1963


Box 1 Folder 13

Drafts, late, 1950s


Box 1 Folder 14

Draft Manuscript, 1959 (1 of 2 Folders), 1959


Box 2 Folder 1

Draft Manuscript, 1959 (2 of 2 Folders), 1959


Box 2 Folder 2

Outlines and Notes, 1958-1962


Box 2 Folder 3 to 4

Photographs of the West End--Taken by Gans, 1958-1962, (2 Folders)


Research Materials


Box 2 Folder 5

General, Undated


Box 2 Folder 6

Government Planning Documents, 1953-1955


Box 2 Folder 7

Interview Study, 1957


Box 2 Folder 8

Mental Health, 1950s


Box 3 Folder 1

Notes and Outlines, circa, 1958-1960


Box 3 Folder 2

Reviews, 1962-1964


Second Edition


Box 3 Folder 3

Correspondence, Notes, and Publicity Materials, circa, 1980-1986


Box 3 Folder 4 to 5

Galleys and Pageproofs, 1982, (2 Folders)


Box 3 Folder 6

Typescript with Notes, 1982


Box 3 Folder 7 to 8

Typescript with Edits, 1982, (2 Folders)


Box 4 Folder 1

"The Taking," by Marc Lipsitz--Play About Gans and West End, With Notes,, undated


Box 4 Folder 2

Thirtieth Anniversary, 1992-1993


Box 4 Folder 3 to 4

Typescript with Notes, 1962, (2 Folders)


Box 5 Folder 1

West End Participation-Observation Study--Diary, 1957-1958 (1 bound volume), 1957-1958


The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community, 1967


Box 5 Folder 2 to 4

Applying for Grants, 1950-1962, (3 Folders)


Correspondence


Box 6 Folder 1

General, 1956-1969


Box 6 Folder 2

Reactions, 1967


Box 6 Folder 3

Riesman, David, 1959


Box 6 Folder 4

Diary--Handwritten, 1958-1959


Drafts


Box 6 Folder 5 to 9

Manuscript, 1965 (5 of 7 Folders), 1965


Box 7 Folder 1 to 2

Manuscript, 1965 (2 of 7 Folders), 1965


Box 7 Folder 3 to 5

Partial Typescript, undated, (3 Folders)


Box 7 Folder 6 to 7

Typescript, undated (2 of 7 Folders), undated


Box 8 Folder 1 to 5

Typescript, undated (5 of 7 Folders), undated


Box 8 Folder 6

Getting Published, 1962-1967


Box 64 Folder 1 to 2

Lawsuit, 1966-1970, (2 Folders)


Box 8 Folder 7

Photographs of Levittown, circa, 1958


Research


Box 9 Folder 1 to 7

City Interviews, 1958-1962 (7 of 13 Folders), 1958-1962


Box 10 Folder 1 to 6

City Interviews, 1958-1962 (6 of 13 Folders), 1958-1962


Box 10 Folder 7

Diary, 1958-1959--Table of Contents


Box 11 Folder 1 to 2

Diary, 1958-1959 ( 2 bound volumes), 1958-1959


Box 12 Folder 1

Interview Drafts 1-5, 1958


Box 12 Folder 2 to 4

Panel I Interviews, 1959, (3 Folders)


Box 12 Folder 5 to 6

Panel Interviews and Re-Interviews, 1959-1961 (2 of 8 Folders), 1959-1961


Box 13 Folder 1 to 5

Panel Interviews and Re-Interviews, 1959-1961 (5 of 8 Folders), 1959-1961


Box 14 Folder 1

Panel Interviews and Re-Interviews, 1959-1961 (1 of 8 Folders), 1959-1961


Box 14 Folder 2

Questionnaire Drafts, 1957-1958


Box 14 Folder 3

Questionnaires Sent to Levittown Residents, undated


Box 14 Folder 4

Reviews, 1967


Box 64 Folder 3

Reviews--British, 1967-1969


Box 14 Folder 5

Revised Edition, 1982


Box 14 Folder 6

Revised Edition--Photographs, 1982


Box 14 Folder 7

Start of Levittown study, 1950-1960


Box 14 Folder 8

Aborted Plans for New Edition, 1982


Box 14 Folder 9 to 10

Correspondence, 1966-1970, (2 Folders)


Box 14 Folder 11

Outlines and Drafts, circa, 1966-1967


Box 14 Folder 12

People, Plans, and Policies--Correspondence and reviews, 1974-1995


Box 64 Folder 4

Reviews, 1968-1970


More Equality, 1973


Box 15 Folder 1

Correspondence, 1972-1974, 1985, 1972-1974, 1985


Box 15 Folder 2

Reviews, 1973-1974


Box 15 Folder 3 to 5

Typescript, 1973, (3 Folders)


Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste, 1974


Box 64 Folder 5

Book Contract, 1970


Box 15 Folder 6

Correspondence, 1970-1976


Box 15 Folder 7 to 8

"Mass Culture as a Social Problem,", 1970, (2 Folders)


Box 15 Folder 9

Proposal for Second Edition, undated


Box 16 Folder 1

Reviews, 1975-1976


Box 16 Folder 2 to 3

Typescript, circa, 1974, (2 Folders)


Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time, 1979


Box 16 Folder 4

Assassination of John Kennedy--Interviews, 1963


Box 16 Folder 5

Content Analysis, 1967


Box 16 Folder 6

Content Analysis, 1971


Box 16 Folder 7

Content Analysis, 1975


Box 16 Folder 8

Content Analysis, undated


Correspondence


Box 64 Folder 6

Bullitt, Stimson, 1962-1971


Box 16 Folder 9

General, 1961-1963


Box 16 Folder 10

General, 1976-1980 (1 of 2 Folders), 1976-1980


Box 17 Folder 1

General, 1976-1980 (1 of 2 Folders), 1976-1980


Drafts


Box 17 Folder 2 to 4

Manuscript--Early Version, 1971, (3 Folders)


Box 17 Folder 5 to 6

Typescript--Before Copy Editing, 1979 (2 of 5 Folders), 1979


Box 18 Folder 1 to 3

Typescript--Before Copy Editing, 1979 (3 of 5 Folders), 1979


Box 18 Folder 4 to 6

Typescript--With Copy Editing, 1979 (3 of 5 Folders), 1979


Box 19 Folder 1 to 2

Typescript--With Copy Editing, 1979 (2 of 5 Folders), 1979


Box 19 Folder 3

Early Notes and Outlines, 1960s


Box 19 Folder 4

Grant Application, 1974-1975


Box 19 Folder 5

NBC Letters, 1975-1976


Box 19 Folder 6

Opinion Pieces, 1979-1980


Box 19 Folder 7

Outline of Study, undated


Box 19 Folder 8

Project Descriptions, circa, 1964-1965


Box 19 Folder 9

Progress Reports, 1964-1968


Box 19 Folder 10

Research Proposals, 1964-1971 and undated, 1964-1971, undated


Box 20 Folder 1

Reviews, 1979-1980


Box 64 Folder 7

Reviews, 1979-1980


Box 20 Folder 2

Talks and Speeches, circa, 1979-1996


Box 20 Folder 3

Textbook Study, circa mid-1960s


Middle American Individualism: The Future of Liberal Democracy, 1988


Box 20 Folder 4

Correspondence, 1976-1988


Box 20 Folder 5 to 7

Notes and Memos, circa, 1980s, (3 Folders)


Box 20 Folder 8

Paperback Edition, 1988-1991


Box 20 Folder 9

"Popular Individualism: An Essay on American Values and Politics," 1986 (1 bound volume), 1986


Box 21 Folder 1

Reviews, 1988-1989


Box 21 Folder 2 to 4

Typescript, 1988, (3 Folders)


The War Against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy, 1995


Box 21 Folder 5

Correspondence with Foundations, 1989-1991


Box 21 Folder 6

Op-eds, Unpublished, circa, 1990s


Box 21 Folder 7

Outlines and Study Proposals, circa, 1988-1994


Box 21 Folder 8

Reviews, 1995-1996


Box 21 Folder 9

Tables, circa, 1990s


Box 22 Folder 1

Talks, circa 1980s, 1990s, 1980s, 1990s


Box 22 Folder 2 to 4

Typescript, 1994, (3 Folders)


Making Sense of America, 1999


Box 22 Folder 5 to 7

Typescript, 1999, (3 Folders)


Democracy and the News, 2003


Box 22 Folder 8

Correspondence, 2001


Box 22 Folder 9

Outlines, 1996


Box 23 Folder 1

Outlines, 1997


Box 23 Folder 2 to 3

Typescript--with Edits, 2001, (2 Folders)


Box 23 Folder 4

Typescript--Index of Names, circa, 2002


Box 23 Folder 5

Typescript--Final Version, 2002 (1 bound volume), 2002


Subseries I.2: Book-Length Studies, 1949-1969

This subseries contains Gans's Masters and Doctoral theses and related materials, along with two studies carried out on the subject of television. Gans's M.A. thesis, "Political Participation and Apathy: A Study of Political Participation in Local Government and Some Recommendations to Increase Participation in the Government of Park Forest, Illinois" (1950), which he wrote at the University of Chicago, is accompanied here by drafts and preliminary studies, correspondence with academic advisers, and eight folders of interviews Gans carried out during his fieldwork in Park Forest. These files provide a valuable perspective on how Gans first grappled with the challenges of carrying out qualitative research based on in-depth fieldwork. Files related to Gans's PhD thesis, "Recreation Planning for Leisure Behavior: A Goal-Oriented Approach" (1957), include a 1960 revision of the dissertation, which Gans tried, in vain, to turn into a book.

The two television studies — "American Films and Television Programs on British Screens: A Study of the Functions of American Popular Culture Abroad" (1959) and "The Uses of Television and Their Educational Implications: Preliminary Findings From a Survey of Adult and Adolescent New York Television Viewers" (1969) — are accompanied by correspondence and research materials. Together, they testify to Gans's longstanding interest in popular culture, especially film, and media.


M.A. Thesis [Many materials in this category are acidic and/or disintegrating.]


Box 23 Folder 6

Correspondence, 1949-1951


Box 23 Folder 7

Drafts and Preliminary Studies, circa, 1949-1950


Box 23 Folder 8

Park Forest Interviews, late 1940s (1 of 8 Folders), 1940s


Box 24 Folder 1 to 7

Park Forest Interviews, late 1940s (7 of 8 Folders), 1940s


Box 25 Folder 1

"The Child-Oriented Jewish Community: A Study of a Suburban Jewish Sub-Community in Park Forest, Illinois,", 1955


Box 25 Folder 2

"The Jewish Community in Park Forest, Illinois: A Study in Jewish Community Formation,", 1950


Box 25 Folder 3

Thesis: "Political Participation and Apathy: A Study of Political Participation in Local Government and Some Recommendations to Increase Participation in the Government of Park Forest, Illinois", 1950


Doctoral Thesis


Box 25 Folder 4

Abstracts, 1956


Box 25 Folder 5

Correspondence, 1964


Box 25 Folder 6

Dissertation: "Recreation Planning for Leisure Behavior: A Goal-Oriented Approach," 1957 (1 of 2 bound volumes), 1957


Box 26 Folder 1

Dissertation: "Recreation Planning for Leisure Behavior: A Goal-Oriented Approach," 1957 (1 of 2 bound volumes), 1957


Box 26 Folder 2 to 4

"Recreation Planning for Leisure Behavior"--Unpublished Book Manuscript,, 1960, (3 Folders)


"American Films and Television Programs on British Screens: A Study of the Functions of American Popular Culture Abroad,", 1959


Box 26 Folder 5

Completed Study, 1959


Box 27 Folder 1

Correspondence, 1957-1962


Box 27 Folder 2

Research Materials, late, 1950s


Box 27 Folder 3

Research Proposals, 1956-1957


Box 27 Folder 4 to 5

"The Uses of Television and Their Educational Implications: Preliminary Findings From a Survey of Adult and Adolescent New York Television Viewers,", 1969, (2 Folders)


Subseries I.3: Articles, 1949-2004

This subseries contains published and unpublished journal articles, magazine essays, short-form newspaper editorials, book reviews, film reviews, and lectures, along with related materials. Much of the organizing logic was provided by Gans, who created a list of 177 articles he authored between 1951 and 2004. This chronological list can be found in Box 29, Folder 1. It includes articles written for scholarly publications such as theJournal of the American Institute of Planners, Social Policy,and theAmerican Journal of Sociology;for general-interest magazines such asThe Nation, Commentary,and theNew York Times Magazine;and as book chapters. Each article is numbered on the list and can be found under the corresponding number in subsequent folders; many articles also correspond to a numbered folder of related materials — correspondence, research files, clippings — either within this subseries or in Series II: Subject Files. Among the subject files, numbers within parentheses denote the article number to which the subject corresponds. For instance, the Series II folder labeled "1960s—City and Poverty (#48), 1965," corresponds to Article 48 on Gans's list, which is titled "The City and the Poor" and which can be found in Box 29, Folder 6.

Absent from Gans's list are the bulk of his many newspaper articles; these are contained within four folders labeled "Unlisted Short articles." Also unlisted are book reviews Gans wrote for a variety of academic and mainstream publications, mostly in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, as well as the 30 film reviews he wrote in the 1970s forSocial Policy.Finally, the subseries includes unpublished articles and talks, arranged in approximate chronological order (many are undated).


Box 27 Folder 6

Article list--Compiled and Numbered by Gans


Box 27 Folder 7 to 10

Articles 1-40, 1951-1964, (4 Folders)


Box 28 Folder 1 to 8

Articles 41-120, 1964-1981, (8 Folders)


Box 29 Folder 1 to 6

Articles 121-177, 1981-2004, (6 Folders)


Related Materials


Box 29 Folder 7

Article 4, 1951-1952


Box 29 Folder 8 to 10

Article 8, , 1949-1955, (3 Folders)


Box 30 Folder 1

Article 12, 1958


Box 30 Folder 2

Article 16, 1958-1959


Box 30 Folder 3

Articles 18, 21, 22, 1955-1961


Box 30 Folder 4

Articles 43-46, 1964-1965


Box 30 Folder 5

Article 66, 1968


Box 30 Folder 6

Article 67, 1965-1968


Box 30 Folder 7

Article 70, 1968


Box 30 Folder 8

Article 73, 1965-1968


Box 30 Folder 9

Article 75, 1969


Box 30 Folder 10

Article 81, 1969-1970


Box 30 Folder 11

Article 91, 1972


Box 30 Folder 12

Article 93, circa 1972-73


Box 30 Folder 13

Article 99, 1973


Box 30 Folder 14

Article 99, 1972-1974


Box 30 Folder 15

Article 102, 1973-1974


Box 30 Folder 16

Article 104, 1975


Box 30 Folder 17

Article 112, 1976


Box 30 Folder 18

Article 123, 1981


Box 30 Folder 19

Article 137, 1983-1989


Box 30 Folder 20

Article 141, 1989-1990


Box 30 Folder 21

Article 144, 1986-1992


Box 31 Folder 1

Article 145, 1990-1993


Box 31 Folder 2

Article 149, 1990-1992


Box 31 Folder 3

Article 155, 1993-1994


Box 31 Folder 4

Article 160, 1995


Box 31 Folder 5

Article 163, 1995-1996


Box 31 Folder 6

Article 15, 1997-1999


Box 31 Folder 7

Article 169, 1999


Box 31 Folder 8

"Preserving Everyone's Noo Yawk", 1975


Box 31 Folder 9

"Should We Subsidize Popular Art?", 1974-1975


Box 31 Folder 10

Various articles, 1974-1999


Box 31 Folder 11 to 13

Book Reviews, 1950s-1990s, (3 Folders)


Box 31 Folder 14

Film Reviews, 1971-1978


Box 31 Folder 15 to 16

Unlisted Short Articles, 1960s-1990s (2 of 4 Folders), 1960s-1990s


Box 32 Folder 1 to 2

Unlisted Short Articles, 1960s-1990s (2 of 4 Folders), 1960s-1990s


Box 32 Folder 3 to 8

Unpublished Talks and Articles, 1950s-1990s, Undated (6 of 17 Folders), 1950s-1990s, Undated


Box 33 Folder 1 to 7

Unpublished Talks and Articles, 1950s-1990s, Undated (7 of 17 Folders), 1950s-1990s, Undated


Box 34 Folder 1 to 4

Unpublished Talks and Articles, 1950s-1990s, Undated (4 of 17 Folders), 1950s-1990s, Undated


Subseries I.4: Planning Documents, 1951-1988

Gans's work in urban planning is documented here through writings, correspondence, and research materials. Much of this work dates from Gans's brief career as a professional planner during the 1950s; Gans also participated in the Forty-Second Street Development Project, which aimed to transform Manhattan's Times Square, and materials from that project are included here.


Box 34 Folder 5

"A Comprehensive Planning Study of the Public Library,", 1955


Box 34 Folder 6

Anacostia-Bolling Urban Renewal Project, 1967


Box 34 Folder 7 to 8

Babbit, Minnesota, 1951, (2 Folders)


Box 35 Folder 1

Babbit and Beaver Bay, Minnesota, 1951


Box 35 Folder 2

Cleveland, 1970s


Box 64 Folder 8

Columbia, Maryland, 1964-1973


Box 35 Folder 3

Forty-Second Street Development Project, 1984-1988


Box 35 Folder 4

White Pine, Michigan, 1952


Subseries I.5: Other Writings, 1947-2003

This subseries contains a miscellaneous assemblage of Gans's writings. Gans was an enthusiastic but rarely published satirist from his undergraduate years until the early 1970s, at which point he seems to have given up on the genre; collected here are published and unpublished satirical pieces, along with a number of rejection letters from such publications asThe New YorkerandThe Nation.Gans also fired off a steady stream of letters to the editor, many of which were published and are collected here. A frequent lecturer outside of his salaried teaching engagements, he amassed forty years worth of speaking notes that can be found in this subseries. The subseries also contains, among other writings, a 1965 essay titled "The Role of Housing in the War on Poverty," several unpublished children's stories from the 1970s, and two unpublished book-length compilations of Gans's essays.


Box 35 Folder 5

Center for Urban Education--Memoranda and Studies, 1960s


Box 35 Folder 6

Children's Stories--Unpublished, 1970s


Box 35 Folder 7 to 8

"Entertainment and News"--Unpublished Gans Anthology, undated, (2 Folders)


Box 35 Folder 9

Foreword to Easter Hill Village, 1969-1974


Box 35 Folder 10 to 11

Letters to the Editor, 1960-2003, (2 Folders)


Box 36 Folder 1

Satires, 1947-1971


Speaking Notes


Box 36 Folder 2 to 8

General, 1960-1999, Undated, 1960-1999, Undated, (7 Folders)


Box 36 Folder 9

News and Media, early, 1970s


Box 37 Folder 1

"The Future of the American City", 1970s-1980s


Box 37 Folder 2

"The Role of Housing in the War on Poverty, 1965


Box 37 Folder 3

Untitled Essay Collection, 1960s

Series II: Subject Files, 1944-2004

This series contains correspondence, news clippings, research notes, article drafts, policy papers, meeting minutes, and documents related to Gans's six decades a scholar, planner, teacher, writer, and activist. Explanatory notes written by Gans accompany several subject files.

Some files are arranged chronologically by decade, which reflects their approximate order at the time of accession. Together, these files provide a snapshot of what Gans was doing at any given time at the peak of his activity in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In 1968, for instance, he was thinking and writing about the interplay of culture and class, about the future of the suburbs, and about equality in America; he was testifying before the Kerner Commission and in an obscenity trial regarding a Swedish film; he was participating in the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the League for Industrial Democracy, Americans for Democratic Action, and the American Sociological Association. Other materials include the 1955 accusations of communist-related activities levied against Private Seymour Smidt, whose friendship with the allegedly leftist Gans was among the pieces of evidence wielded against him; research materials about Yiddish theater from the late 1940s and early 1950s; a 1967 letter signed by Robert F. Kennedy in response to Gans's inquiry about the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation; and materials pertaining to the infamous 1965 report on the black family authored by Gans's erstwhile friend, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. (Among these subject files, numbers within parentheses denote the article number to which the subject corresponds. For instance, the Series II folder labeled "1960s – City and Poverty (#48), 1965," corresponds to Article 48 on Gans's list, which is titled "The City and the Poor" and which can be found in Box 29, Folder 6.)

Other material, some of which was labeled by Gans, is arranged alphabetically. Included here are materials related to the American Sociological Association, of which Gans was president in 1988; a draft manuscript of the influential book by Peter Marris (a friend of Gans's) and Martin Rein later titled "Dilemmas of Social Reform"; a transcript of Gans's testimony as an expert witness in the obscenity trial of Lenny Bruce; Gans's resumes and articles about Gans; material documenting Gans's lobbying efforts in behalf of dissident Hungarian sociologists imprisoned by that country's communist regime; drafts and correspondence related to a festschrift Gans edited about his friend and mentor, David Riesman; and notes, course readers, and syllabi from Gans's time as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.


1950s


Box 37 Folder 4

Annenberg School, late, 1950s


Box 37 Folder 5

Audience Image Paper (#9), 1956-1958


Box 37 Folder 6

Confidential Magazine Study, 1954-1956


Box 37 Folder 7

"In Defense of American Sociology"--Unpublished, 1954-1960


Box 37 Folder 8

Journal of Informal Sociology (#15), 1957-1961


Box 37 Folder 9

Kibbutz Project, early, 1950s


Box 37 Folder 10

Levenson, Sam, mid-1950s


Box 37 Folder 11

Media Record, 1959


Box 37 Folder 12

Near West Side Planning Project, 1959


Box 37 Folder 13

Popular Culture News, 1950s


Box 38 Folder 1

Research Notes and Memos, 1950s


Box 38 Folder 2

Saturday Evening Post Study, 1957


Box 38 Folder 3

Smidt, Seymour--Allegations Against,1955


Box 38 Folder 4

Urban Planning, 1950s


Box 38 Folder 5

Yiddish Theater Research, 1940s-1950s


1960s


Box 38 Folder 6

American Sociological Association, 1967-1969


Box 38 Folder 7

Automation (#38), 1962-1964


Box 38 Folder 8

Beatles Piece (#44), 1964


Box 38 Folder 9

Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, 1967


Box 38 Folder 10

City and Poverty (#48), 1965


Box 38 Folder 11 to 12

Culture and Class, 1965-1968, (2 Folders)


Box 38 Folder 13

Diversity (#19), 1961


Box 38 Folder 14

Education Planning, 1966


Box 38 Folder 15

Effects of Move (#35), 1962


Box 39 Folder 1

"Equality Revolution" (#71), 1968


Box 39 Folder 2

Federal Role in Urban Problems (#62), 1967


Box 39 Folder 3

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 1968-1969


Box 39 Folder 4

Jacobs, Jane (#28), 1962


Box 39 Folder 5 to 6

Kerner Commission, 1967-1969, (2 Folders)


Box 39 Folder 7

League for Industrial Democracy, 1969


Box 39 Folder 8

Moynihan Report (#47), 1965


Box 39 Folder 9

Neighborhood Viability, 1964-1965


Box 39 Folder 10

New York Housing Policy--Unpublished, 1961


Box 39 Folder 11

"Organization Man" data, 1960


Box 39 Folder 12

Outdoor Recreation (#30), 1959-1962


Box 39 Folder 13

Planning for People (#77), 1968


Box 40 Folder 1

Politics of Culture (#78), 1968


Box 40 Folder 2

Psychology Today Interview, 1969-1970


Box 40 Folder 3

Research notes, 1950s-1960s


Box 40 Folder 4

Reston New Town Study, 1963


Box 40 Folder 5

Sherman, Allan (#34), 1958-1963


Box 40 Folder 6

Social Accounting (#63), 1967


Box 40 Folder 7

Social and Physical Planning (#33), 1962


Box 40 Folder 8

Society for the Study of Social Problems, 1967-1971


Box 40 Folder 9

Suburbs, Future of (#66), 1968


Box 40 Folder 10

Television News (#79), 1969-1970


Box 40 Folder 11

Testimony for "I Am Curious,", 1968


Box 40 Folder 12

Urban Crisis and Democracy (#76), 1969


Box 40 Folder 13

Urban Poverty and Social Planning (#60), 1962-1967


Box 41 Folder 1

Urban Renewal (#46), 1965


Box 41 Folder 2

Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life (#26), 1958-1962


1970s


Box 41 Folder 3

Adult Learning and Public TV, 1972


Box 41 Folder 4

"The American Architectural Experience,", 1975


Box 41 Folder 5

Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science,, 1979-1980


Box 41 Folder 6

Dolci, Danilo, 1972-1974


Box 41 Folder 7

Eastern Sociological Society, 1971-1973


Box 41 Folder 8 to 9

General, 1970s, (2 Folders)


Box 41 Folder 10

Harris, Fred—Presidential Campaign, 1974-1976


Box 41 Folder 11

Income Redistribution (#99), 1972


Box 41 Folder 12

Joint Center for Urban Studies, 1969-1971


Box 41 Folder 13

Packard, Vance (#94), 1972


Box 42 Folder 1

Social Science and Policy (#88), 1971


Box 42 Folder 2

Social Science Research Council, 1975


Box 64 Folder 9

Welfare (#86), 1971


Box 42 Folder 3

Young Presidents Association Paper (#92), 1971-1972


Box 42 Folder 4

Ad Hoc Council for New York Planning and Housing Policy, 1966


Americans for Democratic Action


Box 64 Folder 10

Equality Resolution, 1968


Box 42 Folder 5

Futures Project, 1972-1974


Box 42 Folder 6

General, 1971-1977


Box 42 Folder 7 to 10

American Sociological Association, 1973-2003 (4 of 6 Folders), 1973-2003


Box 43 Folder 1 to 2

American Sociological Association, 1973-2003 (2 of 6 Folders), 1973-2003


Box 43 Folder 3

Badillo, Herman, 1977


Box 43 Folder 4

Camp Avodah, 1944


Box 43 Folder 5

Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1972


Box 43 Folder 6

Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 1972


Box 43 Folder 7

Columbia University Sociology Department, 1986-1989


Box 43 Folder 8 to 9

"Community Action and the Professional Reformer: A Study of the Evolution of Community Action Projects," by Peter Marriss and Martin Rein--Manuscript, circa, 1966, (2 Folders)


Box 43 Folder 10

Conflict with Rothman and Lichter, 1980s-1990s


Box 43 Folder 11

Cultural Policy--National Endowment for the Humanities and Rockefeller Foundation,, 1978-1979


Box 44 Folder 1

Ethnicity, 1970s


Box 44 Folder 2

Ethnicity--Second-Generation, 1991-1993


Box 44 Folder 3 to 5

Ethnicity--Symbolic, 1970s-1980s, (3 Folders)


Box 44 Folder 6 to 7

Expert Witness, 1960s-1970s, 1982, 1960s-1970s, 1982, (2 Folders)


Box 64 Folder 11

Expert Witness--Trial of Lenny Bruce, 1964


Box 44 Folder 8

Faculty in Support of Columbia Students Who Refuse Military Service, undated


Box 44 Folder 9

Ford Foundation Income Maintenance Panel, 1967


Box 44 Folder 10

Gannett Center for Media Studies, 1984-1997


Box 44 Folder 11

Gans, Herbert--Resumes, circa, 1960s-1970s


Box 44 Folder 12

Gans, Herbert--Writings About, 1962-2001


Box 45 Folder 1 to 3

General Activities, 1980s-1990s, (3 Folders)


Box 45 Folder 4

Hollywood Film Study, 1962


Box 45 Folder 5

Honors, 1982-1987


Box 45 Folder 6

Housing and Urban Development, Department of, 1977-1978


Hungary


Box 45 Folder 7

Correspondence, 1969


Box 45 Folder 8

Research Trip, 1973


Box 45 Folder 9

Szelenyi & Konrad, 1973-1975


Box 64 Folder 12

Kemeny, 1974-1977


Box 45 Folder 10

I.F. Stone's Biweekly-- Final Issue, 1971


Box 45 Folder 11

International Sociological Association, 1980-1981


Box 45 Folder 12

Judaism, 1940s-1950s


Box 46 Folder 1

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 1972-1975


Box 46 Folder 2

National Conference on Education and Inequality, 1974-1975


Box 46 Folder 3

National Conference on the Distribution of Wealth, 1973


Box 46 Folder 4

Nyden, Paul, 1974-1976


Box 46 Folder 5

Popular Culture, 1950s


Box 46 Folder 6 to 7

Poverty, Positive functions of, 1964-1994, (2 Folders)


Box 46 Folder 8 to 10

Riesman, David--Festschrift, 1974-1979 (3 of 4 Folders), 1974-1979


Box 47 Folder 1

Riesman, David--Festschrift, 1974-1979 (1 of 4 Folders), 1974-1979


Box 47 Folder 2

Socialism, 1950s-1960s


Box 47 Folder 3

Street Corner Society revisited--Correspondence with and about Marianne Boelen and William Whyte,, 1971-1996


Student Materials--University of Chicago


Box 47 Folder 4

"Methods of Communication Research"--Notes and Essays, 1949


Box 47 Folder 5

"Anthropology-Sociology 240"--Course Reader with Notes by Gans, 1948


Box 47 Folder 6

"Principles in the Sciences"--Course Reader with Notes by Gans, 1944


Box 47 Folder 7

"The Scope and Methods of Social Sciences"--Syllabus with Notes by Gans,, 1946


Box 47 Folder 8

"The Media Sociology of Herbert Gans,", 1992-1994


Box 47 Folder 9

Transaction Magazine, 1968-1973


Box 47 Folder 10

Urban sociology, 2000-2001


Box 47 Folder 11

White House Conference "To Fulfill These Rights,", 1965


Box 47 Folder 12

Worksharing--Correspondence, 1982-1986 (1 of 2 Folders), 1982-1986


Box 48 Folder 1

Worksharing--Correspondence, 1982-1986 (1 of 2 Folders), 1982-1986


Box 48 Folder 2

Worksharing--Talks and Papers, 1980s

Series III: Correspondence, 1949-2004

This series contains correspondence arranged both chronologically and by correspondent. The general correspondence is arranged chronologically; correspondents include Gans's fellow scholars and students, admirers and critics of his work, editors and publishers, and journalists and public figures with whom he did not maintain a regular correspondence. Very little personal information appears in these letters and memoranda. Much of this correspondence is of a routine or formal nature.

Correspondents arranged alphabetically include David Riesman, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Max Frankel, all of whom corresponded regularly with Gans over a long time period. Others, including a number of American sociologists — among them Daniel Bell, Todd Gitlin, Nathan Glazer, Seymour Martin Lipset, Robert Merton, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, William J. Wilson, and Francis Fox Piven — wrote and received letters to and from Gans intermittently over several decades. Similarly, Gans corresponded in spurts, especially in the 1990s, with a number of journalists and critics, among them Russell Baker, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Paul Goldberger, Nicholas Lemann, and Jim Sleeper; as a group they offer a glimpse into Gans's passionate engagement both with the news and with the manner of its reporting.

The series also contains correspondence touching on Gans's time at Columbia, the bulk of it pertaining to administrative and personnel issues within the Sociology Department. Correspondence related to particular subjects remains interspersed throughout the writing and subject files. For instance, in addition to the correspondence between Gans and Riesman in Series III, Riesman correspondence on the subject of The Levittowners can be found in Subseries I.1.


Box 48 Folder 3 to 9

General, 1950-2004 (9 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 49 Folder 1 to 10

General, 1950-2004 (10 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 50 Folder 1 to 10

General, 1950-2004 (10 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 51 Folder 1 to 9

General, 1950-2004 (9 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 52 Folder 1 to 7

General, 1950-2004 (7 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 53 Folder 1 to 9

General, 1950-2004 (9 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 54 Folder 1 to 8

General, 1950-2004 (8 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 55 Folder 1 to 7

General, 1950-2004 (7 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 56 Folder 1 to 8

General, 1950-2004 (8 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 57 Folder 1 to 5

General, 1950-2004 (5 of 80 Folders), 1950-2004


Box 57 Folder 6

Abbott, Andrew, 1995-2001


Box 57 Folder 7

Baker, Russell, 1969-99


Box 57 Folder 8

Becker, Howard, 1998-99


Box 57 Folder 9

Bell, Daniel, 1972-2000


Box 57 Folder 10

Collins, Gail, 2000-2004


Columbia University


Box 57 Folder 11

Coming to Columbia, 1968-71


Box 57 Folder 12

Sociology Department, 1971-2002 (1 of 5 Folders), 1971-2002


Box 58 Folder 1 to 4

Sociology Department, 1971-2002 (4 of 5 Folders), 1971-2002


Box 58 Folder 5

deBary, Theodore, 1973-1976


Box 58 Folder 6

McGill, William, 1971-1977


Box 58 Folder 7

Dennis, Everette, 1984-2001


Box 58 Folder 8

Dowd, Maureen, 1993-2001


Box 58 Folder 9

Ellsberg, Daniel, 1967-1970


Box 58 Folder 10

Frank, Barney, 1987-2003


Box 58 Folder 11

Frankel, Max, 1977-2000


Box 58 Folder 12

Friedman, Milton, 1974-1975


Box 59 Folder 1

Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1979-2004


Box 59 Folder 2

Gitlin, Todd, 1969-1994


Box 59 Folder 3

Glazer, Nathan, 1951-1998


Box 59 Folder 4

Goldberger, Paul, 1977-2001


Box 59 Folder 5

Goodman, Paul, 1960-1961


Box 59 Folder 6

Harris, Fred, 1967-1985


Box 59 Folder 7

Hartke, Vance, 1970


Box 59 Folder 8

Hirsch, Paul, 1976-1984


Box 59 Folder 9

Hughes, Harold, 1971


Box 59 Folder 10

Humphrey, Hubert, 1968


Box 59 Folder 11

Jacoby, Tamar, 2002-2004


Box 59 Folder 12

Jordan, June, 1969-1972


Box 59 Folder 13

Lemann, Nicholas, 1994-2002


Box 59 Folder 14

Lewis, Oscar, 1966


Box 59 Folder 15

Lindsay, John, 1965, 1968, 1965, 1968


Box 59 Folder 16

Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1961-1994


Box 59 Folder 17

Lynch, Kevin, 1950s


Box 59 Folder 18

Marris, Peter, 1962-1999


Box 59 Folder 19

Merton, Robert, 1953-2001 and undated, 1953-2001, undated


Box 59 Folder 20

Meyerson, Martin, 1959-1969


Box 59 Folder 21

Mondale, Walter, 1968


Box 59 Folder 22

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 1966-1997


Box 59 Folder 23

Mumford, Lewis, 1955-1970


Box 59 Folder 24

Musil, Jiri, 1989-2002


Box 59 Folder 25

New York City Officials, 1979-1995


Box 60 Folder 1

O'Connor, Alice, 1993-2001


Box 60 Folder 2

Offe, Klaus, undated


Box 60 Folder 3

Piven, Francis Fox and Richard Cloward, 1966-2001


Box 60 Folder 4

Podhoretz, Norman and Midge Decter, 1961-1968


Box 60 Folder 5

Purnick, Joyce, 1995-2001


Box 60 Folder 6

Rainwater, Lee, 1966-1968


Box 60 Folder 7 to 13

Riesman, David, 1949-2002, (7 Folders)


Box 60 Folder 14

Rustin, Bayard, 1966-1985


Box 60 Folder 15

Schlesinger, Arthur Jr., 1961


Box 60 Folder 16

Schorr, Alvin, 1978-2004


Box 60 Folder 17

Seeley, John, 1955-1962


Box 60 Folder 18

Sleeper, Jim, 1984-1992


Box 61 Folder 1

Uchitelle, Lou, 1996-2002


Box 61 Folder 2

Wacquant, Loic, 1992-2001


Box 61 Folder 3

Wanner, Eric, 1991-2004


Box 61 Folder 4

Weaver, Robert, 1962


Box 61 Folder 5

Wilson, William Julius, 1987-2001

Series IV: Teaching Materials, 1957-2000

This series contains lecture notes, syllabi, reading lists, and examination questionnaires Gans produced during some four decades as a teacher of urban planning, sociology, public policy, and mass communications at the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Columbia University.


University of Pennsylvania


Box 61 Folder 6

Planning 544: The Development and Structure of the Contemporary Community,, 1957


Box 61 Folder 7

Planning 900: The Sociology of the Urban Community, 1959-1960


Box 61 Folder 8

Sociology 24: Mass Communications in American Society, 1959


Box 61 Folder 9

Sociology 11: Urban Sociology, 1958


Box 61 Folder 10

Assorted Planning and Sociology Courses, late, 1950s


Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Box 61 Folder 11

11.51: Urban Sociology and Social Policy, 1969-1971


Box 61 Folder 12

Correspondence re. academic appointment, 1969-1970


Columbia University


Box 61 Folder 13

4047 Urban Sociology and Social Policy--Syllabi, 1971-1979, 4047, 1971-1979


Box 62 Folder 1

4047 Urban Sociology and Social Policy--Syllabi, 1990-1995, 4047, 1990-1995


Box 62 Folder 2

4047 Urban Sociology and Social Policy--Exams, 1979-1995, 4047, 1979-1995


Box 62 Folder 3 to 4

4047 Urban Sociology and Social Policy--Lecture Notes, 1972-1975, 4047, 1972-1975, (2 Folders)


Box 62 Folder 5 to 6

4047 Urban Sociology and Social Policy--Lecture Notes, 1986-1995, 4047, 1986-1995, (2 Folders)


Box 62 Folder 7

4052 Equality in America, 1972-1975, 4052, 1972-1975


Box 63 Folder 1

4099 Field Methods, 1976-1986, 4099, 1976-1986


Box 63 Folder 2

3940 Social Policy and Social Planning, 1979, 3940, 1979


Box 63 Folder 3 to 5

3415 Sociology of News and Journalism, 1981-1983, 3415, 1981-1983, (3 Folders)


Box 63 Folder 6

9240 Mass Media and Popular Culture Research, 1995-1999, 9240, 1995-1999


Box 63 Folder 7

PhD Examinations in Urban Sociology, circa, 1976-2000


Box 63 Folder 8

Mass Media in an Urban Society, circa, 1967


Box 63 Folder 9

Urban Sociology--Assorted Materials, 1960s-1990s

Series V: Mixed Media, Undated

This small series includes a few photographs of sociologists who taught at Columbia between the late 19th and the 20th century, and four discs of undated Edison Voicewriter Dictaphone recordings. It is unclear what Gans recorded on these discs.


Box 65 Folder 1

Columbia Sociologists--Early 20th Century, Undated (6 photographs), Undated


Box 65 Folder 2

Columbia Sociologists, Undated (17 photographs), Undated


Box 65 Folder 3

Edison Voicewriter Dictaphone Recordings, Undated (4 discs), Undated