Rugg worked as a civil engineer before becoming a professor at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he taught for two years and became interested in how students learn.
During World War I, Rugg served as a member of the Army's Commission on Classification of Personnel under Charles H Judd.
While he was teaching at Columbia, Rugg became a spokesperson for the reconstructionist perspective, which viewed formal education as an agent of social change.
[7] He created the first series of an educational book, Man and His Changing Society, which was a junior high school social studies textbook that ran 14 volumes from 1929 until the early 1940s.
Rugg published Culture and Education in America in 1931, The Great Technology in 1933, and American Life and the School Curriculum in 1936.
[4] In addition to emphasizing the social engineering philosophies of the reconstructionists, Rugg argued that individual integrity was vital to a good society and could be fostered by creative self-expression.