Author Archives: Maribel Morey

About Maribel Morey

Maribel Morey is an assistant professor of history at Clemson University, and a 2016–18 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She is currently working on two book manuscripts detailing elite foundations' changing approaches to racial inequality in the United States throughout the span of the twentieth century. Her work has been published in journals such as Law, Culture & the Humanities, New York University Law Review, and Reviews in American History. She is a cofounder and editor of HistPhil, a web publication on the history of philanthropy.

Gunnar Myrdal in the Latest Issue of Humanity

March 30, 2017 by
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This post originally appeared at HistPhil, where Maribel Morey is co-editor. She discusses the Gunnar Myrdal symposium featured in Humanity’s latest issue. Americans generally remember Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) as the astute Swedish observer of American race relations who authored the monumental study of black Americans that had been commissioned and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944). Cataloguing the various ways that white Americans discriminated against black Americans, Myrdal argued in the two-volume manuscript that Continue reading →

Introduction

March 19, 2017 by and
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To find the practical formulas for this never-ending reconstruction of society is the supreme task of social science. The world catastrophe places tremendous difficulties in our way and may shake our confidence to the depths. Yet we have today in social science a greater trust in the improvability of man and society than we have ever had since the Enlightenment. —Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944) Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) was the twentieth century’s most influential social democratic internationalist.1 Throughout his long career—first as economist, then Continue reading → Continue reading →

Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944) as a Swedish Text: A Further Analysis

March 19, 2017 by
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An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Gunnar Myrdal New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944 In the fall of 1938, the economist and former member of the Swedish parliament Gunnar Myrdal traveled from Stockholm to New York City with his wife and research collaborator, Alva Reimer Myrdal, their three children, and two nannies.1 He was in the United States to begin work on the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s comprehensive study of black Americans.2 Far from being Myrdal’s own idea, the study was Continue reading → Continue reading →