From Colony to Conference: Colonial Officials at Professional Academic Meetings in the Early Twentieth Century

Emily Hauptmann, Western Michigan University

In the years immediately after the Spanish-American War, many economists and historians as well as would-be political scientists and sociologists held positions in the US’s newly acquired colonial possessions, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Most did not opt to stay in such positions long-term; instead, they returned to the US to pursue academic careers. In this paper, I build on my presentation at last year’s SSHA that analyzed how the experience of colonial service steered three figures (David Barrows, Bernard Moses, and William F. Willoughby) towards adopting political science as their new disciplinary home. The proposed paper begins by considering the kind of space the AEA and AHA as well as the newly founded APSA and ASS made at their annual meetings in the first two decades of the twentieth century for people who held or were still holding colonial positions. Focusing on sessions that featured those who held colonial positions, I explore how these different groups of social scientists sought to make their colonial experience to relevant to these new communities of professional academics.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 44. Managing the Masses: Critical Reconsiderations of 20th Century Political Science and Theories of Expert Control