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