COLLECTION
Identifier: HUGFP 145
David C. McClelland was a Harvard psychologist, noted especially for his work on achievement motivation. These papers chifely document his professional life.
These papers document the professional life of David McClelland. While there are portions of these papers where McClelland's professional life and personal interests intersect, as in the papers relating to religion, McClelland the scholar is always more heavily documented than McClelland the private man.
Chronologically, the papers cover all of McClelland's life, including a small amount of material from his childhood. Professional papers date from his college and graduate school years. Like his career, this collection is dominated by the years at Harvard.
McClelland's activities in various arenas, teaching, consulting, pure research, are intermingled. A researcher may expect to find consulting materials from a McBer project among the reading materials for a course, while one may also find test results from a cohort of students in a folder on a reasearch topic.
David C. McClelland was a Harvard psychologist, noted especially for his work on achievement motivation.
This document last updated 2016 November 9.
Processed under the direction of Kate Bowers by Jill Snyder and Chris M. Lubicz-Nawrocki, September 2000 through March 2001 .
Staff at the Harvard University Archives re-housed all papers in acid-free folders and document boxes, organized the material, maintaining the original organization where possible, and produced this finding aid.
Staff in the Harvard University Archives tried to identify and preserve the organization of the papers as far as possible. While correspondence and course material arrived at the Harvard University Archives in good order, subject and project files and reprints were in no discernable order. Additionally, McClelland would re-use folders, so that sometimes the contents and the folder title are at odds. Staff o the University Archives imposed a rough subject organization where no intrinsic organization could be ascertained.
A vast amont of material was weeded from the collection. Weeded material did not meet the collecting policy of the Harvard University Archives and consisted chiefly of duplicates, drafts, articles and papers written by other researchers, and raw data with no analysis or context. A small research study of "Rorschach results on renowned scientists," conducted by Anne Roe in 1957, was given to the Archives of the History of American Psychology in Akron, Ohio.
Part of the Harvard University Archives Repository
Holding nearly four centuries of materials, the Harvard University Archives is the principal repository for the institutional records of Harvard University and the personal archives of Harvard faculty, as well as collections related to students, alumni, Harvard-affiliates and other associated topics. The collections document the intellectual, cultural, administrative and social life of Harvard and the influence of the University as it emerged across the globe.