Helen Lynd

Helen Merrell Lynd (March 17, 1896 – January 30, 1982) was an American sociologist, social philosopher, educator, and author. She is best known for conducting the first Middletown studies of Muncie, Indiana, with her husband, Robert Staughton Lynd; as the coauthor of Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1929) and Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (1937); and a pioneer in the use of social surveys. She was also the author of England in the 1880s: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom (1945), On Shame and the Search for Identity (1958), and essays on academic freedom. In addition to writing and research, Lynd was a lecturer at Vassar College, and a professor at Sarah Lawrence College from 1929 to 1964.

Early life and education

Helen Merrell was born in La Grange, Illinois, on March 17, 1896.<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd>"Biographical Notes" in Template:Cite book</ref><ref>One source reports her date of birth as March 17, 1890. See Template:Cite book</ref> Merrill studied philosophy at Wellesley College, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1919. She began teaching at a New York City boarding school, but left the position after two years to begin graduate studies at Columbia University. Merrell earned a master's degree from Columbia University in the History of Ideas in 1922 and a Ph.D. degree in history and philosophy from Columbia in 1944.<ref name=GS216-218>Template:Cite book</ref>

Marriage and family

Helen Merrell met Robert Staughton Lynd while hiking Mount Washington in New Hampshire.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They married in 1921. Robert Lynd died on November 1, 1970.<ref name=GS216-218/>

The couple had two children, a son, Staughton Lynd, who became a historian and social activist, and a daughter, Andrea Merrell (Lynd) Nold.<ref name=GS218>Gugin and St. Clair, eds., p. 218.</ref><ref name=NYT-Obit>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Career

Helen Merrell began her career as an educator in New York City, but after her marriage to Robert Lynd and earning a master's degree from Columbia University, she became a sociologist, author, and college professor.

First Middletown study

In 1924, Helen and Robert Lynd moved to Muncie, Indiana, to begin an eighteen-month study of daily life in this small, Midwestern community. John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded the research as part of the Institute for Social and Religious Research's Small City Study. The Lynds and their three-person staff primarily observed the social lives of the city's inhabitants. The study compared life in Muncie in 1890 to Muncie in 1924, with the goal of measuring the impact of the Industrial Revolution on American life. The Lynds provided details of their observations and analysis of their findings in Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1929), which they coauthored.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=MiddletownStudies>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} (archived version)</ref> It was the first sociological study of an American community and became a classic work in the field.<ref name=NYT-Obit/>

Reviewers praised Middletown's "careful research and is scientific character," but its popularity was due to the authors' detailed descriptions of American life. However, because of the study's primary focus on Muncie's Protestant, white community, the book also received strong criticism for its failure to include details of other racial and ethnic segments of the community. Despite the negative comments the book received positive reviews in The New York Times and New York Herald Tribune.<ref name=Hoover7>Hoover, p. 7.</ref><ref>Muncie's population at the time of the Middletown study in 1925 was ninety-two percent native-born whites. See Hoover, p. 5.</ref> The book's success also launched the Lynds' academic careers. Helen and Robert Lynd coauthored Middletown in Transition (1937), a sequel to their first book on Muncie that became another sociological classic, but plans for a third Middletown book did not develop. Instead, the Lynds turned to other scholarly interests.<ref name=NYT-Obit/><ref name=GS217-18>Gugin and St. Clair, pp. 217–18.</ref>

Professor, author, and essayist

Helen Lynd became a lecturer at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and from 1929 to 1964, a faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She also continued to author books, such as England in the 1880s: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom (1945) and On Shame and the Search for Identity (1958), in addition to writing articles on academic freedom.<ref name=GS218/>

The model of shame that Lynd advocated in her book, On Shame and the Search for Identity (1958), is loosely Marxian, insisting upon "the importance of historical context and of transcultural analysis within single social formations" (particularly Western). Her theory of shame hinges upon the clashing of different social or moral 'values' in specific locations at specific moments, highlighting the trauma experienced by members of communities marginal to dominant culture: those most likely to feel shame are those made to feel 'inappropriate' by dominant cultural norms."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

During the era of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Helen and Robert Lynd were the subjects of federal investigations for alleged involvement in the Communist party. Helen Lynd testified before the U.S. Congress in 1953.<ref name=GS218/>

Death and legacy

Helen Lynd died on January 30, 1982, in Warren, Ohio, at the age of eighty-five.<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd /><ref name=NYT-Obit/>

Helen and Robert Lynd's legacy stems from their Middletown studies and detailed descriptions of small-town life in Muncie, Indiana, the first systematic sociological study of a community in the United States.<ref name= LOC-HelenLynd/><ref name=NYT-Obit/> The Lynds were pioneers in the use of social surveys in their research.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Helen and Robert Lynd coauthored two books that became classics of American sociology: Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937).<ref name=NYT-Obit/><ref name=Center>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Robert B. Downs included Middletown as one of the twenty-five he listed in Books That Changed America (1970).<ref name=Hoover7/>

Helen and Robert Lynds' pioneering work also began an on-going tradition of studying Muncie, Indiana, including the establishment of the Center for Middletown Studies in 1980. (The Center became affiliated with Ball State University in 1984.) Beginning with Frederick Lewis Allen in the 1930s, scholars have followed the Lynds pioneering efforts by producing numerous articles and books.<ref>Hoover, pp. 17–23.</ref><ref name=Center/> More recent Middletown studies continue to examine modern life in Muncie with the hope that research on this particular Indiana community will provide a "better understanding of modern American life."<ref name=GS218/> Later Middletown studies have resulted in the publication of additional books, including Middletown Families (1982) and All Faithful People (1983), and films, such as the six-part documentary, Middletown, which aired on PBS in 1982, and The First Measured Century, first broadcast on PBS in 2000.<ref name=Center/><ref>Hoover, pp. 26–27; 36–38.</ref>

Selected published works

• Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929), co-authored with Robert Staughton Lynd<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/><ref name=MiddletownStudies/>
• Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937), co-authored with Robert Staughton Lynd<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/>
• England in the 1880s: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945)<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/>
• On Shame and the Search for Identity (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958)<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/>
• Toward Discovery (Bronxville, New York: Sarah Lawrence College, 1965)<ref name=LOC-HelenLynd/>

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}

• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}

• Template:Cite book
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }} (archived version)

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}

External links

• Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
• Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd Papers, finding aid, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.