Abstract Summary
Historians of science have explored the many ways in which 1960s radicalism disrupted the discipline of science. More recently, historians have begun to look at the 1970s as its own distinct era of transformation, one characterized as an “age of fracture” and “the great shift,” in the words of Daniel Rogers and Bruce Schulman. At this time, movements for racial and gender equality, social justice, and for decolonization evolved, while new patterns of culture, geopolitics, and social activism emerged. The proposed panel will examine the ways in which scientists of Western Europe and the United States both reacted to and participated in the dramatic changes of the 1970s. The three papers reflect a scientific community rooted in social activism by the 1970s. Sarah Bridger analyzes three working scientists who also, through their work, lived out the ideals of racial and gender equality as well as a critique of materialism. Alison Kraft’s case study looks at the antinuclear scientists of Pugwash, who adapted their agenda to address Third World development when Cold War détente made their arms control efforts mostly obsolete. Paul Rubinson discusses the eagerness with which U.S. scientists joined the broader human rights movement of the 1970s and in the process solidified the connection between U.S. interests and scientific internationalism. Scientists in the 1970s embraced the concept of social responsibility and through their actions they addressed the changes of the 1970s, efforts that also exposed their work to politicization and backlash that would emerge in the 1980s.
