Freedom Study Project Begins Full Operation

An historical research center here has received $600,000 of the approximately $1,000,000 needed for its ten year project.

The Center for the Study of the History of American Liberty recently began full operations and soon expects to receive the remaining funds required for its work, according to Oscar Handlin, professor of History and director of the project.

Established in the spring of 1958 to generate interest in the validity of American freedom, the Center will eventually set forth an analytically-researched synthesis of the history of that freedom.

Rather than rely upon a "hierarchal structure of specialists feeding data to a single point of analysis," the Center will base its conclusions upon a large number of autonomous monographs.

Some monograph titles under consideration for the coming year are "Taxation as a Police Measure," "The Baptists as an Eighteenth Century Minority," "Quaker Patterns of Benevolence," and "The Debate Over the Bill of Rights."

The Center will not investigate topics such as segregation, Handlin commented, because either at present or in the past, they have been the focus of lengthy research. Instead, he said, the group will examine important areas which historians have previously neglected.

During its first year, the Center devoted its time to the planning and definition of future work. For purposes of analysis, the group chose three general areas in which to concentrate its efforts: American political development and the traditions it has fostered; the influence of social mobility in emphasizing the individual; and the role which voluntary organizations have played in limiting the power of the state.

Professor Handlin will write the final synthesis and supervise individual research. In addition, he will make recommendations for appointments and grants and conduct a seminar to examine the problems of the study from year to year.

Grants and commitments for the projest thus far have come from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Sloan Foundation, the United States Steel Corporation, the Kennecott Copper Corporation, and the Hudson Gas and Oil Company.