I did not expect to receive any fellowship or other aid from Cornell for my fourth year of study, when I would be working on my PhD thesis. And I did not receive anything. I did, however, apply for a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship, which I received. Prior to my oral exam, I wrote an outline of my proposed research, which reflected what I had learned about the scientific leaders when doing research for D_ in 1965. I gave this to D_, asking if he would direct me in [the] research outlined. He said he would, but he did not give the impression of enthusiasm. He expressed by implication some reservation about the topic, because it was about science. He said, something about my not being a trained scientist, "but I suppose you don't need to know science to do this topic, any more than you need to know science to study how scientists brush their teeth." I took this as an implicit put-down, but at least it was an agreement that I could do the research. I received the fellowship, which was for 18 months, from July 1976 through December 1968. The fellowship included travel funds--I wanted to go to Caltech to use the papers of George Ellery Hale and R. A. Millikan, and to the Library of Congress manuscript division. I was completely thrilled by the fellowship award, and noticed--or thought that I did--that faculty at Cornell were surprised.
I began my thesis research at once. I was not sure precisely how to begin, but I thought I should first chart the introduction of new scientific ideas, to establish a precise chronology of their arrival in the popular media, if I was [going] to determine their impact on democratic theory and the ideology of science. To do this--and not quite knowing how to--I began reading old dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the periodical guides to literature. I soon discovered that new scientific ideas were not rapidly advanced in the popular press.
At the same time, I was trying to formulate the problem of the relation between abstract scientific ideas and democratic and national values. This formulation proceeded quite slowly. I was certain that the key to the relationship was ideology, but precisely how this was a historical key, I did not know. In fact, I would not discover how it was the key until February 1968, when I spent three weeks at Caltech and read Robert Andrews Millikan's papers.
At the same time that I initiated the thesis research--the research on my "book," as I insisted on telling myself from the start--, I also devised a work schedule. Since I had an 18 month fellowship, I decided that I had to have the work largely completed in that time. So I gave myself a goal of having a polished second draft completed by that time. Assuming arbitrarily the typescript would run about 500 pages, I established as a measure of production--so to speak--that I had to write 1 to 1½ pages a day. This was an excellent guideline, and I followed it closely. I also devised several other rules for research that served me well. I made it a practice to cease writing each day at a point in the discussion where I knew what I was going to write next. This way, when I came to write the following day, I would have no writer's block and could start writing easily. I also decided that when I had written my quota for the day, that I would quit, even if it was still early in the day. This way, I would keep myself fresh.
As it turned out, this was a realistic schedule. While 1½ pages of manuscript text did not seem like a lot to write in one day, I did have to do the reading and research to write this material. There were as many days when I worked into the evening to keep to the schedule, as days when I quit by noon.
I was, finally, in getting into my research, greatly aided by securing a "locked carrel"--a large desk with shelves, in a locked cage in Olin Library, where I could [store] the books I needed. The carrel was spacious and generously served my needs.
This carrel was my study for two years. For these two years I had no obligations other than my thesis--no teaching assistantship, no employment schedule. It was the most perfect and productive research period of my life. And I loved it, I truly loved it. At last, I was working on my book; I was--in my own eyes--no longer a student; I was my own intellectual. At last, after ten years since I formulated my ambition to be a historian in my junior year of high school.
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Making My Mind
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