Editing Talcott Parsons (section)

===Taking charge at Harvard===
Parsons' situation at Harvard University changed significantly in early 1944, when he received a good offer from [[Northwestern University]]. Harvard reacted to the offer by appointing Parsons as the chairman of the department, promoting him to the rank of full professor and accepting the process of reorganization, which led to the establishment of the new department of Social Relations. Parsons' letter to Dean [[Paul Buck]], on April 3, 1944, reveals the high point of this moment.<ref>Letter from Talcott Parsons to Dean Paul Buck, April 3, 1944. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives.</ref> Because of the new development at Harvard, Parsons chose to decline an offer from [[William Langer]] to join the [[Office of Strategic Services]], the predecessor of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]. Langer proposed for Parsons to follow the [[American army]] in its march into Germany and to function as a political adviser to the administration of the occupied territories. Late in 1944, under the auspices of the Cambridge Community Council, Parsons directed a project together with Elizabeth Schlesinger. They investigated ethnic and racial tensions in the [[Boston]] area between students from [[Radcliffe College]] and [[Wellesley College]]. This study was a reaction to an upsurge of [[anti-Semitism]] in the Boston area, which began in late 1943 and continued into 1944.<ref>Uta Gerhardt, "A World from Brave to New: Talcott Parsons and the War Effort at Harvard University". ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences'' Vol.15 (3), 257–289, Summer 1999. p. 266.</ref> At the end of November 1946, the Social Research Council (SSRC) asked Parsons to write a comprehensive report of the topic of how the social sciences could contribute to the understanding of the modern world. The background was a controversy over whether the social sciences should be incorporated into the National Science Foundation.

Parsons' report was in form of a large memorandum, "Social Science: A Basic National Resource", which became publicly available in July 1948 and remains a powerful historical statement about how he saw the role of modern social sciences.<ref>Talcott Parsons, "Social Science: A Basic National Resource". In Samuel Z. Klauser & Victor M. Lidz (eds.) ''The Nationalization of the Social Sciences''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.</ref>