The Progressive Roots of the Instrumental University

Chapter 1 introduces the godfather of the instrumental university, Charles Merriam, and traces the remarkably parallel rise of public administration, city planning, and industrial relations as inherently instrumental academic fields. It delineates contributions to that rise from several sources: progressivism and the New Deal milieu in general, early twentieth century associational movements for planning and government reform, and the nexus of Rockefeller philanthropy and the Social Science Research Council.