Purposes, Procedures, and Outcomes of the Cooperative Research Project on Convention Delegations

The official beginnings of the Cooperative Research Project on Convention Delegations date from the opening of the project office at the Association's headquarters in Washington on March 10, 1952. But the project had roots reaching far back into previous activities. Two committees of the Association had made suggestions for activities similar to those eventually put under way by the project: the Committee on Political Parties and the Committee for the Advancement of Teaching. In September, 1951, following the Association's meeting in San Francisco, the then chairmen of those committees, Bertram M. Gross and Claude E. Hawley, began actively seeking means of organizing field work and creating teaching materials on the forthcoming preconvention campaigns and national political conventions of 1952. For a time it appeared that a project along those lines might be organized under the auspices of the Brookings Institution; and the director of the present project became involved in the conversations. Later it became clear that if the project were to be organized at all, it would probably need to be under the Association's own auspices, although the cooperation of the Brookings Institution was an important factor in early planning.By November, 1951 the Executive Director of the Association had cleared a draft proposal with the other officers and began negotiations with several foundations. One of those foundations, although uninterested itself, passed on the proposal to Dr. Will W. Alexander, an adviser of a newly established family foundation in New Orleans.