Activity
Before exile
Under Horkheimer, researchers worked across economics, psychology and culture. The Institute began its journal, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, in 1932. Löwenthal edited it. Studies of workers asked whether their stated politics matched their deeper attitudes toward authority. [1], pp. 38–39, 116–117
Research in America
The Institute kept working and publishing after its move to New York. Adorno arrived in the United States in 1938 to join Paul Lazarsfeld's radio research project. The project brought him into contact with American researchers who studied radio and its audiences. [1], pp. 143–148, 236–237
During exile, Horkheimer and Adorno wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment. The edition checked here includes their prefaces to the 1944 and 1947 versions. [5], pp. xiv–xvi
Neumann, Marcuse and Kirchheimer also worked in American wartime intelligence. Their reports appeared under the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. The reports usually did not name their authors. Editor Raffaele Laudani later used archive records to identify who wrote them. He also explains how the writers worked together. [9], pp. xvii–xix
One report linked to Marcuse was dated July 22, 1944. It proposed breaking up the Nazi Party and its related groups. It also addressed Nazi support outside the party. The report shows what its author advised. Further records are needed to show which advice officials followed. [9], pp. 253–254, report 16, R&A 1655.5
Studying prejudice
In May 1944, the American Jewish Committee held a research conference. It set up a research department and supported the Studies in Prejudice book series. The series studied hatred of Jews and racial prejudice. It included The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950. [10], series foreword
The book grew from a joint project with the Berkeley Public Opinion Study. Its four authors were Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford. They shared the work and credit. This included the F-scale, a set of questions meant to measure attitudes linked to authoritarian rule. [10], preface