Posts Tagged ‘Vannevar Bush (MIT Raytheon NSF and much more)’
Read (with the goal of understanding!) Our Own Government’s Independent Agency Annual Financial Reports (at least parts with texts and colorful graphs) and “learn stuff.” Like NSF’s Brain Initiative, Its Big Ten Ideas, and Domestic|Foreign, Public|Private Revenue Sources. I just did…(Published Oct. 16, 2019)
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Read (with the goal of understanding) Our Own Government’s Independent Agency Annual Financial Reports (at least parts with texts and colorful graphs) and “learn stuff.” Like NSF’s Brain Initiative, Its Big Ten Ideas, and Domestic|Foreign, Public|Private Revenue Sources. I just did…(Published Oct. 16, 2019) (short-link ends “-bie”, published at 8,700 words with extra section on the NAS and some intro).
The National Science Foundation (“NSF,” 1950ff, under President Truman) history ties in closely to Vannevar Bush. So does the history of Abt Associates (1965ff) as it intersects with Raytheon. In many ways the history of the NSF illuminates the history of the United States in the 20th Century. You can’t understand much of where we are now, and why, without some acquaintance with it.

BRAINInitiative.NIH.Gov (Google the term; many web domains will come up describing it, and President Obama’s 2013 launch of parts of it!).
The NSF website has a nice version, but this enthusiastic short summary is from Research! America, a nonprofit I also researched because of its involvement with (and dependency on) the buildup of the HHS and NIH especially as promoted Mary Lasker, and because of other certain Brain Institutes (as I recall) funded by, well, rich people….
- Research! America (searchable on this blog; see tag I added to this one) waxing eloquent about the National Science Foundation and in the process giving us a nice, short summary. (Basic URL visible in top of images) in 4 images viewed Oct. 2019
- (One reason for this image gallery: note the classifications, esp. the one on bottom right: Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences)
Any history of the NSF will mention how it arose after World War II and in the early years, USA was caught off guard by Russia in the “Space Race.” “What’s it to me?” (Keep reading…)
I have a short post on Abt Associates who, possibly because of its data-crunching ability, like many companies formerly involved in U.S. government military contract, found purposes in both consumer electronics AND continued dealings with the might of the U.S. government built up for and during wartime as turned to “health, education, and welfare” purposes (1953-1980) thereafter, at least that “health” part called “Health and Human Services” — the largest grant-making department. Other groups (like MDRC or the Urban Institute) would run the social science R&D on poor people and certain types of consulting agencies would then analyze and write up the projects — like Mathematica Policy Research, MEF Associates, and Abt Associates.
Some companies, also specializing heavily in federal contracts and consulting, seem to have managed to both get grants to run the projects AND be on the evaluation teams (I’m thinking of ICF International which got so wealthy doing this it continued acquiring other companies and now is a multinational for-profit (i.e., global) corporation. Its advice was sought during the 2000 Greenbook Initiative on Overlap of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence, with participation from (then-called) Family Violence Prevention Fund, which has also since gotten fairly fat on contracts and grants — and become a real estate investor in the San Francisco Presidio, too. (Searchable on this blot).
My recent, short, Abt Associates post: