The Local Community Research Committee, Project-Based Research and the “Golden Age” of the Chicago School of Sociology (1923–1930)

The Local Community Research Committee, established by one of the Rockefeller Foundations at the University of Chicago in 1923 and dissolved in 1930, is likely one of the first project-based research organizations conceived as such. The organization was based on an agreement between university professors and administrators and the foundation, with the aim of reshaping social science research by making it useful to the reforming elites of the “community.” It was with this goal in mind that Park, Burgess, and their assistants chose their research topics. But before long, the founding agreement was challenged: the issues were no longer at city level, but at national level, and methods had to be quantitative. The “local community” stopped being a relevant topic. To implement this new approach, the program management was withdrawn from the university departments and allocated to a small committee that concentrated resources on new themes, putting an end to what is commonly regarded as the “golden age” in the Chicago school of sociology.