UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #507
ARCHIBALD HALLER

HALLER, Archibald (1926- )
Graduate Student; Researcher; Professor of Rural Sociology and Sociology
At UW: 1951-56; 1965-94

Interviewed: 1997
Length: 9 hours, 40 minutes
Interviewer: Barry Teicher

Introductory statements; Sociological theory; His background; Navy service; Undergraduate education; Graduate education at UW; GI Bill; Anthropology; William Sewell; Hans Gerth; Rural Sociology Department; Dissertation; Post-doctoral research; Fulbright grant to Brazil; Employment at Michigan State University; Otis Dudley Duncan; Social stratification research; Status allocation research; Regional development in Brazil; Former graduate students; Political climate in Brazil; Sterling Hall bombing; Alejandro Portes; Fulbright grants; Decorations from Brazilian government; Consulting work; Rural Sociological Society.

First Interview Session (June 6, 1997): Tapes 1-2

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:19	AH makes an introductory statement regarding his accomplishments.  He mentions his research on the Wisconsin Model, variations in stratification structures, the socioeconomic development levels of Brazil's small areas, the investment in frontiers, and the nature of national development.

00:05:42	AH thinks his greatest teaching accomplishment is his support of promising graduate students.  He strongly believes in collaborating with former graduate students.  

00:11:01	AH relates a story about Alejandro Portes, a former graduate student and Cuban exile, who researched the political behaviors in the poor neighborhoods of Santiago, Chile.  His presence in Chile caused a controversy, and Portes found himself in physical danger.  

00:19:05	AH lists his projects that had practical consequences for the general public, including the Wisconsin Model, changes in Brazilian labor management, and geographic redefinition of regional development levels in Brazil.  

00:31:00	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:31:01	AH continues to talk about the geographic redefinition of regional development levels in Brazil.  

00:35:50	AH remarks on the changes he has noticed within sociological theory and comments on the conflict between Marxists and functionalists. 

00:44:14	AH considers himself a social dialectician, but an anti-Marxist, a position that is difficult to place within the larger field of sociology.  

00:47:41	AH discusses his goals for the research trip to Brazil that he and his students took during the turbulent summer of 1968.  

00:57:02	AH was born in San Diego and raised in Arizona.  He spent six years in Phoenix, and the one high school in the city had 13,000 students.  AH’s family moved to different locations in Arizona, wherever his father could find work.  

01:02:12	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:02:13	AH’s father aspired to be a civil engineer.  He participated in the construction boom during WWII.  

01:06:00	There was no question that AH was going to go to college.  He maintained an interest in music throughout his school years and military service.  

01:09:48	After he graduated from high school in 1943, AH joined the Navy because he was interested in learning about electronics.  He went to technology training school in both Indiana and Texas, and he thought island duty would place him in the center of the action.  However, he was stationed in Hawaii for the duration of the war.  

01:17:05	AH made some efforts to join a group of radar technicians in the first night fighter squadron, but he was not allowed.  At the battle of Okinawa, three-fourths of the squadron were killed.  
01:22:25	AH remarks on the changes in radar electronics and military technology.

01:24:39	AH explains how he ended up in St. Paul, Minnesota, employed at the 3M company.  He discusses the invention of the first copy machine.  He paid attention to the changes in the company’s communication system as the research projects became bigger.  

01:30:47	At Hamline University, AH was greatly influenced by the anthropologist Leland Cooper.

01:33:12	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

01:33:13	AH talks about the work of Rostofseff and insists that he was one of the foremost world historians.  

01:36:52	Many of the students at Hamline were returning soldiers, and most of the students were exceptionally bright.  AH relates an anecdote about being invited to Phi Beta Kappa.  

01:42:14	Ray Martin, the chair of the sociology department at Hamline, encouraged AH to go to graduate school in quantitative sociology at the University of Minnesota.  AH determined that if he did not enjoy graduate school, he would earn a teaching certificate and work in a high school.

01:47:55	AH discusses his master’s program at Minnesota and his decision to pursue his Ph.D. at UW.

01:53:46	AH became William Sewell’s research assistant at UW. The Department of Sociology had faculty members who were doing solid work, even though its reputation was not as good as it should have been.  

01:58:39	AH explains the difference between sociology and rural sociology.  

02:03:28	End of side.  End of tape.

Second Interview Session (June 12, 1997): Tapes 3-4

Tape 3/Side 1

00:00:18	AH explains the workings of the G.I. bill.  

00:05:00	AH heard about the G.I. bill when he was fifteen or sixteen years old, and he joined the Navy when he was seventeen.  He joined the military primarily because he did not want to feel like he was shirking his duty to support the United States in WWII.  

00:10:05	AH discusses the history of anthropology.  

00:16:18	AH speculates on the reasons for the split between the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology at UW.  He explains UW’s rank as a research school.

00:30:49	End of side.

Tape 3/Side 2

00:30:51	Douglas G. Marshall coordinated empirical research projects all over Minnesota, using graduate student research groups.  

00:35:25	AH discusses his research work with Sewell.

00:41:07	Sewell taught AH that effective graduate training requires people with differing levels of experience.  He believes it is important to set tasks for students that are just a little too challenging.

00:44:43	AH describes his volunteer work interviewing farmers in Sauk County.  AH researched with Sewell as a research assistant; his work with other research groups was on a volunteer basis.

00:47:54	AH mentions a few of his fellow graduate students.  

00:51:48	AH discusses Sewell’s strengths as a scholar and teacher.

00:59:55	AH talks about Hans Gerth and his classes.

01:01:42	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 4/Side 1

01:01:43	AH continues to talk about Gerth. He describes a paper he wrote for Gerth on the Dewey-Truman election.  

01:06:49	AH ruminates on politics, the Civil War, and the nature of the Democratic and Republican parties.

01:15:10	AH discusses an earlier paper he wrote for Gerth on entertainers.  He talks about Gerth’s wife. 

01:18:57	AH relates an incident concerning one of his preliminary examinations, in which one student attempted suicide and another suffered stress-induced blindness.  

01:23:15	AH describes the events surrounding Mrs. Gerth’s suicide. 

01:28:50	Standards at UW were very high for graduate students, but students put the most pressure on themselves.

01:32:26	End of side.  

Tape 4/Side 2

01:32:28	The graduate students in rural sociology were comfortable with themselves and each other, while the students in sociology were in competition with each other.

01:34:15	The E. A. Ross Club was the student sociology club.  

01:38:22	The Department of Rural Sociology was a close-knit group.  The graduate students presented their research to each other informally, and they offered each other advice.

01:41:53	AH and his fellow graduate students had a number of interests outside of the sociology department.  

01:45:12	AH was not interested in economics as a graduate student, but he has noticed a marked increase in interest in economics in his graduate students.  

01:51:12	In addition to the G.I. bill, AH funded his graduate school education through his fellowships and research assistantships with Sewell.  His wife also worked half-time.  

01:54:38	The Sociology Department was not particularly impacted by the McCarthy era.  

01:58:47	AH discusses developing his dissertation topic on the relationship between class and personality.  

02:03:36	End of side.  End of tape.      	      

Third Interview Session (June 19, 1997): Tapes 5-6

Tape 5/Side 1

00:00:20	AH decided to focus on the stratification of personality for his doctoral dissertation.  He used some of Sewell’s data.  

00:05:54	During the course of his research, AH discovered that there is a relationship between the stratification position of the parents and the resulting personality of the child.  Two weeks before his oral examinations, he discovered a flaw in his research.  

00:09:37	No one contested AH’s findings, even though they ran contrary to previously published articles. AH published his research in 1956.  

00:13:37	Before he finished his Ph.D., AH advised a master’s student’s thesis. This student let AH know that there were changes occurring in rural stratification in Brazil.  

00:18:08	AH was offered a US AID job in rural Rio de Janeiro. He continued his research with Sewell instead.  

00:21:09	AH explains the research he and Sewell conducted in Jefferson County, Wisconsin from 1954-56. He published part of the research in his book on occupational aspiration levels.

00:26:17	AH describes a status allocation study he did in Michigan. In 1964, AH returned to UW to resume research with Sewell on status orientations. He worked with his graduate student Alejandro Portes and eventually published the results to much critical acclaim. 

00:31:13	End of side.

Tape 5/Side 2

00:31:14	AH discusses his decision to research the changes in stratification in Brazil.  He received a Fulbright scholarship for his research.

00:34:46	At the time, AH was concerned that sociology focused too much on an unrealistic view of the future of society.  

00:38:26	AH mentions a magazine article on the slums of Brazil.  When AH went to Brazil, he could not speak Portuguese.  He discusses some of the practical concerns of living and researching in Brazil.  

00:45:50	AH knew the measurement techniques he used in Brazil were out of date.  He explains what he personally learned from his study.  

00:50:33	After his work in Brazil, AH was still primarily interested in status allocation rather than the country itself.  When another Fulbright scholarship was available for rural sociology in Brazil, AH suggested that it go to Frederick C. Fliegel.  

00:56:27	Even when he was working at Michigan State University, AH sent potential graduate students to UW.  He had been offered jobs at UW twice and turned them down both times.

01:02:33	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 6/Side 1

01:02:34	AH talks about international programs in sociology at Michigan State University.  The international communication program received a Ford Foundation grant.

01:06:18	AH lists the reasons that he feels the rural sociology program at UW is better than the one at Michigan State University.

01:09:53	AH discusses some of his problems with Michigan State University.  

01:13:29	AH returned to UW in 1965.  He mentions a program that Michigan State University had in Vietnam.  Michigan State’s strength was in undergraduate instruction.

01:19:06	The department of rural sociology had five or six Brazilian students when AH returned to UW.  He describes the three projects that he was working on simultaneously.  He mentions a few of the graduate students who worked with him.

01:25:57	AH taught social psychology, social stratification, and rural sociology at both UW and Michigan State.  He explains the way seminars operate at UW.  He begins a story about Otis Dudley Duncan and path analysis.

01:33:29	End of side.

Tape 6/Side2

01:33:30	AH concludes his story about Duncan.  

01:36:54	The first course AH taught at UW was a seminar in social mobility.  He tells a story about Duncan borrowing some research he had conducted at UW.  He mentions some of Duncan’s graduate students.  

01:43:31	AH discusses his social stratification research.  Obtaining data for such research is very difficult.  He mentions some of the flaws in his research.  

01:48:56	AH researched the dynamics of money and power in São Paulo’s factories.  

01:53:51	AH discusses his social mobility research on Brazil.  

01:58:12	AH’s main research interest is in the allocation process.  After the Vietnam War, school principals refused to let anyone gather data on their students.  

02:04:20	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview session.  

Fourth Interview Session (June 26, 1997): Tapes 7-8

Tape 7/Side 1

00:00:12	AH discusses flaws in stratification literature.  

00:04:40	In the 1960s, status allocation research focused almost exclusively on occupational prestige levels.  Power differentials are still largely ignored.

00:10:52	There is a hypothesis that suggests that the more developed a nation is, the more social mobility its citizens are allowed.  AH thinks this hypothesis is faulty.  He wanted to test this hypothesis on Brazil.  

00:15:37	It is difficult to tell if the regional development in Brazil is representative of national development as a whole.  AH explains regional development in Brazil.

00:21:46	AH relates an anecdote about how Brazilians started to analyze their own regional development.  He explains stratification in Brazil.  

00:31:11	End of side. 

Tape 7/Side 2

00:31:12	AH explains his findings on national development in Brazil.

00:35:25	AH expects some criticism of his findings, and he anticipates some of the arguments he will receive.

00:41:19	The Sociology Department at the University of California-Los Angeles is greatly improving in quality.  

00:42:46	AH discusses some of his former graduate students.

00:47:51	AH mentions what jobs his former students hold now.  His students were not accepted in the field of general sociology.  

00:56:06	AH talk about his friend José Israel Vargas, who is a nuclear physicist.
         
00:58:46	AH mentions some of his collaborations with former graduate students.

01:02:34	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 8/Side 1

01:02:36	AH tells a story about strikes and censorship in Brazil.  

01:05:54	He mentions some of the ways his research has impacted policies in Brazil.

01:09:13	Since Brazil was controlled by the military at the time, AH was doing much of his research, he faced some difficulties collecting data. He was occasionally interrogated by the military.

01:12:38	While AH has no activist concerns behind his research, many of his graduate students wanted to conduct research that would help Brazil.

01:19:46	Through his research, AH has set out to find out why people end up in their particular social classes and to understand how and why stratification structures vary.  He thinks he has discovered the variables that are responsible for the developmental differences among nations.

01:25:42	AH believes that his most important academic achievement has been contributing to the understanding of the processes of stratification.  

01:28:14	AH discusses his academic mentors.

01:33:08	End of side.

Tape 8/Side 2

01:33:11	AH believes another of his significant academic achievements is the training of bright graduate students.

01:34:05	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview session.

Fifth Interview Session (July 2, 1997): Tapes 9-10

Tape 9/Side 1

00:00:12	Rural sociology was moved to the WARF building after the bombing of Sterling Hall.  

00:03:04	One year before the bombing of Sterling Hall, one of AH’s colleagues heard rumors of the bombing of the Land Tenure Center at a protest meeting.  The colleague suggested that the protestors bomb Army Math instead.

00:07:12	AH recalls the bombing of Sterling Hall.  He says that during the protest movement, the majority of the students did not know who to believe.  After the bombing, students all over the nation were appalled.

00:13:05	Alejandro Portes researched the slums of Santiago, Chile for his dissertation.  Other Latin American students were jealous of his success and wrote letters to the Maoist newspaper in Santiago, claiming Portes was a CIA agent.  

00:22:33	The controversial research that Portes conducted in Chile is still used in sociology literature.  
00:26:36	AH discusses the book Shepherds of the Night, a groundbreaking work on the shanty towns in Latin America.  He also mentions The Devil to Pay in the Backlands.  

00:30:56	End of side.
  
Tape 9/Side 2

00:30:58	AH explains how he obtained his Fulbright professorships in Brazil. 

00:35:50	AH relates an anecdote about a mishap involving a telegram and the bombing of a Russian helicopter.  

00:40:45	AH explains the events that led up to his next fellowship in 1970.  He studied the occupational positioning of managers in São Paulo’s factories.

00:47:32	He makes some generalizations about his subsequent Fulbright awards.  

00:49:22	Not many Fulbright proposals involve Latin America. He believes that the number of Fulbright professorships may have been cut back in recent years.

00:52:53	AH relates the events that led up to his visiting fellowship at the Australian National University.

00:59:42	He talks about being investigated by the Brazilian government.

01:01:49	End of side.  End of tape.      

Tape 10/Side 1

01:01:50	In November, 1981, AH received a phone call from José Pastore requesting he fly to Brazil immediately, as he was going to be decorated by the Brazilian government.  He flew to Brasilia and was presented with the Order of Merit of Labor of Brazil by the Brazilian government.  He was only the second foreigner to be presented this award.

01:09:06	AH discusses the award ceremony.  He notes that six UW students have been presented with awards by the Brazilian government.

01:20:13	In 1982, AH was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor of Rural Sociology at Ohio State University.  Once there, he had to return to Madison to help write a contract in which Brazil gave the Industrial Relations Research Institute a $500,000 training grant.  While in Madison, his wife, Hazel, was diagnosed with cancer.  They remained in Madison.

01:27:26	AH discusses David Featherman, from the UW Poverty Institute.  He tells about the time Featherman turned down a job at Harvard.  Featherman eventually left UW to become president of the Social Science Research Council.  He is currently at the University of Michigan.

01:30:48	In 1989, AH served as a consultant to UNESCO.  He explains his work there.

01:32:42	End of side.
Tape 10/Side 2

01:32:43	AH discusses sociology at UNESCO.  When he arrived in 1989, the study of sociology was at a low point.

01:36:40	AH discusses his involvement with the Rural Sociological Society.  As vice-president, he worked to break the self-imposed isolation of the Society.  His major accomplishment was to steer the Society toward giving the Black land grant colleges research money.  Eventually, the insularity of the Society returned.

01:47:55	He discusses a death threat he received in the late 1960s.  Glenn Pound, he notes, disapproved of the radical student activity.  

01:52:11	AH has enjoyed his career at UW, and although he is technically retired, he plans on working at UW for a long time to come.

01:54:32	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview session. 

END