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 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