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White House Statement on the Appointment of a Research Committee on Social Trends.

December 19, 1929

AT THE REQUEST of a number of interested agencies the President has appointed a Research Committee on Social Trends, to direct an extensive survey into the significant social changes in our national life over recent years, paralleling in character the investigation of economic changes made over a year ago. Such subjects will be studied as the improvement of national health and vitality, its bearing upon increased number of persons of "old age" and other results; the changes in maladjusted such as insane, feebleminded, et cetera; the effect of urban life upon mental and physical health; the institutional development to meet these changes; the problems arising from increased leisure; changes in recreation and the provision for it; the changes in occupations, occupations likely to continue to diminish in importance, those likely to increase; the changes in family life, in housing, in education; the effect of inventions upon the life of the people; and many others which may indicate trends which are of importance.

The survey will be a strictly scientific research, carried out by trained technicians, and will require about 2 or 3 years to complete. It is believed that it will produce a body of systematic fact about social problems, hitherto inaccessible, that will be of fundamental and permanent value to all students and workers in the field of social science.

The funds for the research have been provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, and invaluable preliminary aid in defining the nature of the survey has been rendered by the Social Science Research Council.

The members of the Committee are the following:

WESLEY C. MITCHELL, Chairman.

Chairman, Board of Directors, Social Science Research Council, professor of economics, Columbia University; director, National Bureau Economic Research; past president of American Economic Association and of American Statistical Association.

CHARLES E. MERRIAM, chairman of the department and professor of political science, University of Chicago; former president, American Social Science Research Council; director, National Institute of Public Administration.

WILLIAM F. OGBURN, president, American Sociological Society; professor of sociology, University of Chicago; former editor, Journal of the American Statistical Association.

HOWARD W. ODUM, Kenan Professor of Sociology, director of Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina; editor, Social Forces, a Journal of Social Study and Interpretation; and one of the leading sociologists of the South.

SHELBY M. HARRISON, director, Department of Surveys and Exhibits, and vice-general director, Russell Sage Foundation; director of social division, Regional Plan of New York and its Environs.

Herbert Hoover, White House Statement on the Appointment of a Research Committee on Social Trends. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208360

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