Daniel Bell personal archive

The Daniel Bell personal archive documents the academic and professional career of Daniel Bell as a teacher, writer, consultant, and researcher, with materials dating back to the mid-1930s and up to Bell’s death in 2011, but with the heaviest concentration of material dating from 1940 to 1990. Bell saved all of these materials himself, storing this voluminous collection in multiple rooms in his residence in Cambridge and in his summer house on Martha’s Vineyard. In various places throughout the collection, Bell makes it clear that he saved these files for future researchers to use, but laments that he does not have the time to organize them. The collection is a valuable resource for research in the intellectual history of the social sciences and the study of the economic and social trends that shaped American society in the twentieth century. Bell was a prolific researcher, correspondent, and author, and thus much of the collection consists of correspondence, published and unpublished manuscripts, lectures, and course materials. The collection documents Bell's principal areas of research including labor and its central relationship to capital; socialism's impact on American political life; ideologies in the organization of society; the shifting trajectory of Marxism; intellectual history and philosophy; the future of Israel, Sociology as a field and epistemological framework; and the development of the post-industrial society. Also documented in this collection are Bell's interests in forecasting methodology, the impact of technology in society, higher education, and capitalism's cultural contradictions.

Bell, "a relentless publisher," appears to have kept everything related to his prolific and disparate research interests, including news clippings, reprints, journal and magazine articles, government reports, newsletters, and newspapers. Hence, a majority of the collection consists of these research files. Correspondence files include Bell's communication with many members of a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century, known as the New York Intellectuals, including Sidney Hook, Lionel Trilling, Irving Howe, Hannah Arendt, and Mary McCarthy. Other correspondence files document Bell's involvement with the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, the United States affiliate of the anti-Communist Congress for Cultural Freedom. During the Cold War, the Congress for Cultural Freedom sought to encourage intellectuals to be critical of the Soviet Union and Communism and combat the strength of the Soviet myth among the Western cultural elite. Bell was involved in the Socialist movement as a young man, but he was always a conservative member of the party. He became a respected voice in the academy, and his involvement in anti-communist groups generated respect and moral authority, making him uniquely positioned to help old friends during the Red Scare. Bell wrote affidavits for scholars and organizations targeted by McCarthy, and because of his anti-communism work, these affidavits went a long way. Many of these affidavits can be found in this collection.

Bell was a generous correspondent, writing to interested students and scholars frequently to answer questions. Bell’s correspondence is filled with his theories and thoughts, and it is a rich area for researchers that are interested in Bell’s discussions with other scholars. Bell described his style of correspondence and thinking as “Talmudic,” with an emphasis placed on the text itself. This means that his correspondence is filled with detailed argumentation, but this detail could lead to more fervent disagreement between correspondents. Bell’s correspondence also sheds light on his interest in buying and selling prints, and his time on the boards of the print collections at the Harvard Art Museums and Boston’s Museum of Fine Art.

Organization and association files document Bell's activities as the editor and contributing editor to several academic journals including The New Leader, The Public Interest, Daedalus, Partisan Review, The American Scholar,The American Prospect, and Dissent. Other organization files document Bell's activities as a member of several government commissions and public policy organizations including the President's Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Manuscripts and drafts found among Bell's writings in this collection document his intellectual work for over a fifty year period. Among the most prominent files are those related to Bell's most influential books, The End of Ideology (1960), The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), and The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society (1973). The collection also contains records produced by Bell as a professor at the University of Chicago (1945-1948), Columbia University (1959-1969), and at Harvard University (1969-1989, emeritus 1990). Personal materials include diplomas, family correspondence, letters and diary excerpts from Bell’s youth, photographs, and a limited amount of material related to Bell's wife, literary critic Pearl Bell. Talk and lecture files document Bell's participation at conferences, roundtable discussions, workshops, and seminars on a wide variety of topics both in the United States and abroad. Scattered among the files are photographs, film negatives, compact disks, and video cassette tapes.