Harry Alpert

Harry Alpert (1912–1977) was an American sociologist, best known for his directorship of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) social science program in the 1950s. During his time at the NSF (1953–1958), Alpert guided the development of the U.S. NSF's earliest efforts to provide funding to the social sciences, and helped to establish the agency's basic policy framework for funding social science research and fellowships. aimed to clarify how Durkheim understood the ontology of the social word, social science methodology, relations between the social and natural sciences, and the social relevance of social science. After returning to the federal Budget Bureau for three years until 1953, Alpert began working at the National Science Foundation as the social science programme director. ) historians of science Mark Solovey and Jefferson D. Pooley argue that this success might have come at a price. Although during his NSF directorship Alpert made "unity of science" arguments in his attempt to secure additional funding for the social sciences, Alpert's later writings show that he saw many important differences between the natural and social sciences, especially in terms of their scientific status, research aims, and respective methodologies.

The sort of concerns that Alpert expressed about the hierarchical relations between the social and natural sciences would inform national science policy discussions and debates in the coming decades.

Selected publications

"France's First University Course in Sociology." American Sociological Review, 2 (1937): 311–317.

"Operational Definitions in Sociology." American Sociological Review, 3 (1938): 855–861.

"Explaining the Social Socially." Social Forces, 17 (1938/1939): 361–5.

Emile Durkheim and His Sociology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.

"Emile Durkheim and Sociologismic Psychology." American Journal of Sociology, 45 (1939): 64–70.

"National Series on State Judicial Criminal Statistics Discontinued." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 39 (1948): 181–8.

"A Comment." Public Opinion Quarterly, 14 (1950/1951), 685–6.

"The Federal Statistical System." American Journal of Sociology, 56 (1951): 468–75.

"Some Observations on the Sociology of Sampling." Social Forces, 31 (1952/1953): 30–3.

"A Critical Introduction to 'Congressional Use of Polls: A Symposium.'" Public Opinion Quarterly, 18 (1954), 121–3.

"The National Science Foundation and Social Science Research." American Sociological Review, 19 (1954): 208–11.

"The Social Sciences and the National Science Foundation, 1945-1955." American Sociological Review, 20 (1955): 653–61.

"Public Opinion Research as Science." Public Opinion Quarterly, 20 (1956): 493–500.

"The Social Science Research Program of the National Science Foundation." American Sociological Review, 22 (1957):582-5.

"Emile Durkheim: A Perspective and Appreciation." American Sociological Review, 24 (1959): 462–5.

"The Government's Growing Recognition of Social Science." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 327 (1960): 59–67.

"Some Observations on the State of Sociology." Pacific Sociological Review, 6 (1963):45-8.