UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #698
ZEITLIN, JONATHAN

ZEITLIN, Jonathan (1955- )
Professor, LaFollette School of Public Affairs, History, and Sociology
At UW: 1991-

Interviewed: 2004	
Interviewer: Charlotte Frascona
Indexed by: Erin Dix
Length: 1 hour

Educational and career background; Research; Industrial Relations Research Institute; Faculty recruitment; Closure of the IRRI.

Interview Session (November 22, 2004): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/ Interviewer’s Introduction. Question: Could you describe your educational and professional background? Answer: Zeitlin described his background leading up to his tenure at UW: He got his BA in Social Studies at Harvard. He received a Marshall Scholarship to study in the UK, where he pursued his Ph.D. in social history at the University of Warrick. He was then offered a post-doctoral fellowship at King’s College. In 1984, he turned down a job at Harvard for a lectureship in modern social economic history at Birkbeck College of London University. In 1989, Zeitlin was approached to apply for a job at the Industrial Relations school at Cornell. One of his references encouraged him to also apply at UW. In 1991, he accepted a joint appointment in history and industrial relations. 

00:05:06	Question: What was the focus of your dissertation at Warrick? Answer: It was a study on the experiences of printing workers and machinists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as skilled workers who were faced with technological changes. Question: What contributed to your interest in social studies and labor history? Answer: Zeitlin cited a combination of factors, including his involvement with the anti-war movement in the 1960s and a general interest in history. Question: It is my experience that scholars interested in industrial relations often either were involved in the 1960s intellectual ferment or had working class backgrounds. Answer: Zeitlin said that he grew up in a liberal, Jewish, middle-class household in New York. 

00:09:09	Question: When you came to Wisconsin in 1991, did you immediately become involved in IR? Answer: Zeitlin said that yes, he was hired to work with IR. He thought that it was unlikely that he would have been hired at the initiative of the history department, because interest in labor history was waning within the profession. Question: Wolfgang Streeck was here when you came, and he was teaching the comparative courses. What were you teaching? Answer: Zeitlin was sharing the comparative classes with Streeck. Streeck had hired him with the intention of creating a sort of comparative “sub-program.” Question: That program would be more for Ph.D. students rather than professional masters’ students? Answer: Zeitlin said they had not discussed that. He explained his reasons for coming to UW, and said that he may have “overlooked the precarious position” of the IRRI. 

00:12:33	Question: Did your involvement with the Institute change over time? Answer: Zeitlin discussed the changes that occurred with the Institute as Streeck moved to a quarter-time appointment. Question: Did that give you an opportunity to move further into IR? Answer: No, Zeitlin already had a fifty-percent appointment. Streeck soon left for a “dream position” at Max-Planck Institute in Germany. Question: Was Streeck’s departure a turning point for the Institute? Answer: Zeitlin thought that it was “part of a turning point.” He contrasted the UW IR Institute to similar institutes at UCLA and UC-Berkeley. 

00:16:42	Question: Was the link between IR and history not a good connection? Answer: No, Zeitlin did not think it was a good connection. He discussed a bit of the history of IR interest on campus. 

00:19:58	Question: Given the history discipline moving away from economic history and more toward cultural history, was it difficult for you to be 50% in IR? Answer: Zeitlin was disappointed that his work in IR was not counted for his merit raises or other recognition. Question: Did the relationship between your tenure department and IR change over the years? Answer: Zeitlin said that he changed his relationship to his tenure department. He discussed becoming more involved with sociology in the late 1990s, during which time he “effectively stopped teaching in history.”

00:24:23	Question: How would you define the IR Institute’s mission during the years that you were involved with it? Answer: Zeitlin could not cite a specific mission, other than a general commitment to training both academics and people going into the field. It was also committed to serving a public role in Wisconsin. 

00:27:28	Question: Was the leadership unclear or forceful? Answer: Zeitlin described the high point of labor relations at UW in the post-war period, including many leaders who were nearing retirement by the late 1980s. When Zeitlin arrived, there was not a great deal of academic activity at the Institute. 

00:31:00	Question: So the weaknesses were due to people retiring and not being replaced? [tape side change] Answer: Zeitlin discussed the strengths and uniqueness of the IR Institute. Question: I understood that the international component of the IR Institute is unique. Answer: Zeitlin mentioned several other institutions that also had international components to their IR programs. Question: Why are these other programs thriving, while the UW IR Institute is not? Answer: Zeitlin thought that the primary “crisis” of the IRI related to recruitment of faculty, which connected to a number of other factors. 

00:36:07	Question: Why do you think that the administration was willing to let IR go? Answer: Zeitlin thought that the University was strongly departmentally-oriented, and cross-disciplinary endeavors had always been difficult to sustain. He also thought that the IR Institute being situated in the College of Letters and Science was problematic. 

00:40:07	Question: A University-wide “quality reinvestment exercise” was done in 1992, and many recommended substantial cuts for schools offering professional degrees. Why did these other professional programs survive these cuts while IR didn’t? Answer: Zeitlin discussed the situation with La Follette School of Public Affairs, which had strong support from the Political Science department as well as a public role with the state legislature. He thought that anytime there had been cutbacks, the tendency had been to scale back and focus on the core disciplines. 

00:46:32	Question: What things were done to preserve the Institute that might have worked? Answer: Zeitlin discussed what he knew of the administration’s decision to “run down” IR, which was counteracted by mobilizing the Institute’s alumni. Zeitlin thought that reviving the Institute would have required fixing its structural problems. He described the effects of key faculty leaving. He discussed the efforts to recruit a new Director for the Institute from the outside in the late 1990s, which failed due to a lack of administrative support. 

00:53:51	Follow-up: Was it not a good faith effort? Answer: Zeitlin thought that it was a “not entirely good faith effort.” He briefly discussed Phil Certain’s impressions of IR being obsolete. He thought overall, the failure of the IR Institute was a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Question: Why do you think that last effort to recruit failed? Answer: Zeitlin described the attempted hiring of Adrienne Eaton as a “last ditch effort.” 

00:58:07	Question: What happened after Eaton withdrew her candidacy? Answer: Zeitlin thought that once this happened, it became clear that Certain was not making a good-faith effort to recruit someone. Zeitlin himself wrote up a turn-around plan for the Institute in which he would serve as Interim Director, which was received unfavorably. 

01:02:10	Question: If your plan had worked out, it might have just been another stringing-along. Answer: Zeitlin agreed; he said he was “grateful” that it did not work out. Question: Has the closing of the Institute left a teaching and research void in this area, or is this teaching still being done on campus? Answer: Zeitlin named a few individuals around the University who were teaching in the industrial relations area, particularly in sociology. Zeitlin said that the bigger loss was to the State, without the policy-related research. 

01:07:19	End of session

End of Oral History #698