[1] 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.
[1] In his short five-year term as director, Alpert was able to establish a viable policy framework for NSF funding that would help to demonstrate both the value and scientific legitimacy of social science research.
Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Alpert completed his undergraduate studies at the City College of New York in 1932 before enrolling in Columbia University's graduate program in sociology the following year.
[1] Although Alpert was interested in a range of foundational issues regarding the social sciences, Alpert's doctoral dissertation, as well as a number of his early publications focused on the famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim.
[1] After Alpert received his Ph.D. in 1938, he worked as an assistant professor of sociology at the City College of New York.
Alpert worked in the United States Office of War Information from 1943 to 1944; the Office of Price Administration from 1944-1945; in the Bureau of the Budget from 1945 to 1948; and as a consultant on manpower problems for the United States Air Force's Research and Development Board from 1948-1950.
[1] His participation in these federal positions made statistics and public opinion research central interests for Alpert, and helped to establish him as an important figure in both of these areas.
He remained at the City College of New York until 1947, served as a research consultant to Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research from 1946 to 1948, as a lecturer and adjunct professor of sociology at American University in 1947, and again from 1950 to 1953.
[1] In this position Alpert began to lobby for increased NSF funding for the social sciences.
[1] To do this, Alpert asserted that the "hard science core" of the social sciences (i.e. Those social science studies that adopted quantitative research methods) could fall under the NSF mandate to support basic research which conforms to the highest standards of scientific inquiry and fulfills the basic conditions of objectivity, verifiability, and generality.
[1] Although a variety of scholars have noted that Alpert's efforts to establish a viable policy framework for social science funding during his sort NSF tenure were remarkably consequential (with social scientists Richard J. Hill and Walter T. Martin asserting that, "to a significant degree, NSF support for the social sciences rests upon the philosophy and policies established by Harry Alpert,"[4]) historians of science Mark Solovey and Jefferson D. Pooley argue that this success might have come at a price.
"The Price of Success: Sociologist Harry Alpert, the NSF's First Social Science Policy Architect."