Alvin Saunders Johnson papers

Alvin Saunders Johnson was born on December 18, 1874, and spent his childhood and youth on a farm in northeastern Nebraska. In 1897 he graduated from the University of Nebraska with an A.B. in the classics. After brief service in the army during the Spanish-American War he went on to study economics at Columbia University where he received his Ph.D. in 1902.

From 1901 to 1917 Dr. Johnson taught successively at Bryn Mawr, Columbia, Nebraska, Texas, Chicago, Stanford, and Cornell. Throughout this period he supplemented his teaching by writing and research. In 1902 Putnam's published The Social Evil, Johnson's study of prostitution which had been undertaken at the request of New York City's Committee of Fifteen. While at Columbia he worked on the International Encyclopedia and contributed economic articles to Political Science Quarterly and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Articles directed to a more popular audience were published in the Atlantic Monthly and the Unpopular Review. In 1916 Dr. Johnson made a study of public library operations for the Carnegie Corporation.

In 1917, on the eve of America's entry into World War I, Johnson gave up his teaching career and joined the staff of The New Republic as economics editor. The recently launched New Republic was at the time one of the major organs in America for liberal expression. During 1919 Johnson joined a group of New Republic colleagues and Columbia professors, including Charles Beard, James Harvey Robinson, John Dewey, and Wesley Mitchell, in founding the New School for Social Research. For the first several years Johnson served as a New School trustee. However, in 1922, when financial and personal problems threatened to close the school, he took charge and served as the school's director until 1945. Under his vigorous leadership the New School quickly became one of the most eminent and influential centers of adult education in the United States. Notable innovations in the school's curriculum included courses in psychoanalysis and public housing.

During his tenure as Director of the New School Dr. Johnson did not hesitate to assume additional responsibilities. In 1927 he joined forces with Edwin R. A. Seligman to develop and edit the monumental Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. From 1927 to 1947 he served as a member of the editorial council of the Yale Review and was Professor of Economics and Director of General Studies at the Graduate School of Yale during the 1938-1939 academic year. In 1943, with Governor Thomas E. Dewey's support, Johnson became Vice-chairman of New York State's Commission on Discrimination in Employment. The Commission drafted and helped pass the New York Fair Employment Act of 1945. The act later served as a model for the anti-discrimination legislation of other states.

One of Dr. Johnson's most noted programs was conceived in response to Hitler's dismissal of many prominant scholars from their positions in German universities early in 1933. Johnson's idea was to bring these scholars to America and establish them as a group. Financial support for the project was forthcoming and in October of 1933 the "University in Exile" opened its doors. This group of scholars, composed of some of the most talented social scientists in Europe, was eventually incorporated into the New School as a permanent graduate faculty. During 1940, when the Germans invaded Belgium and France, Johnson again went to the aid of foreign scholars. With the help of the Rockefeller Foundation he succeeded in bringing to America nearly two hundred emminent and promising scholars. In 1942 members of this group joined together to form the Ecole Libre des Haute Etudes which remained part of the New School until it became independent in 1946.

Besides his activities as an educator and administrator Dr. Johnson was also a prolific writer, producing nearly a thousand scholarly and popular articles, several novels, two collections of short stories, and an autobiography. The wide ranging themes of Johnson's writings reflect both his remarkably broad interests and his profound faith in the possibility of human progress through education.

Alvin Saunders Johnson died on June 7, 1971.