A Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of ASPA and the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Author: Frank J. Thompson,Norma M. Riccucci
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X13506621
• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Date: 01 March 2014
• Subject Matter: Introduction

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2014, Vol. 34(1) 3 –6

© 2013 SAGE Publications

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0734371X13506621

rop.sagepub.com

Introduction

A Commemoration of the

75th Anniversary of the

Founding of ASPA and the

50th Anniversary of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964

Norma M. Riccucci1 and Frank J. Thompson1

On the afternoon of December 27, 1939, Louis Brownlow convened a meeting of

more than 200 academics, government officials, and other stakeholders at the annual

conference of the American Political Science Association in the nation’s capital. Those

in attendance were to decide whether to approve a proposal to create the American

Society for Public Administration (ASPA). This proposal was a natural outgrowth of

the greatly expanded administrative state that the New Deal had fostered. In 1936,

President Franklin Roosevelt had asked Brownlow to chair the President’s Committee

on Administrative Management to bring sound principles of public administration to

the rapidly growing federal establishment. Many leading figures in the field contrib-

uted to this effort. In the process, they, along with Dean William S. Mosher of the

Maxwell School at Syracuse University, became convinced of the need to create a

professional association of “those who have an interest in public administration

whether they work for government . . . or are interested in the study of administration

as members of research . . . or educational organizations . . .”1 Following presentation

of a brief two-page constitution, those at the meeting in Washington voted to create

ASPA and establish a national council to govern it. Dean Mosher became ASPA’s first

president. The following year, the first issue of the Public Administration Review

appeared with Leonard White, a professor at the University of Chicago and member of

the U.S. Civil Commission, serving as founding editor (Pugh, 1988). Among other

things, ASPA’s Constitution pledged “to foster a continuous consideration [among

practitioners and academics] of the problems of administration with reference to their

general economic, social, and political implications” (Lynn, 1985, p. 456).

A little less than 25 years later, on the evening of July 2, President Lyndon Johnson

signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Working with key congressional allies,

1Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Norma M. Riccucci, Rutgers University, Newark Campus, Newark, NJ, USA.

Email: riccucci@rutgers.edu

506621ROP34110.1177/0734371X13506621Review of Public Personnel Administration

research-article2013