Given the large number of submissions and their impressive quality, the Article Prize Committee has awarded two prizes: to Philippe Fontaine and Mark Solovey. The number and quality of the submitted and nominated articles were impressive; all contributed substantively to the history of the human sciences. The articles by Fontaine and Solovey were distinguished by their careful examination of a wide range of factors that influence the shape of social scientific theory, factors that extend not only across disciplines but beyond to government, politics, and professional practices.
Philippe Fontaine receives the 2005 Article Prize for “Blood, Politics, and Social Science: Richard Titmuss and the Institute of Economic Affairs, 1957-1973,” published in Isis(2002, 93: 401-434). The article examines how and why Richard Titmuss, a British professor of social administration, produced The Gift Relationship (1971), a book arguing for voluntary blood procurement rather than commercialized distribution. Fontaine shows how Titmuss deployed arguments for a “socialist” policy and reached beyond economic policy to matters of ethics and social unity. The study reveals, too, Titmuss' challenges to dominant economic thought.
Mark Solovey receives the 2005 Article Prize for “Riding Natural Scientists' Coattails onto the Endless Frontier: The SSRC and the Quest for Scientific Legitimacy,” published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (2004, 40: 393-422). Drawing upon extensive archival material and government documents, Solovey examines the postwar establishment of the National Science Foundation and the connected debates over the inclusion of the social sciences in the NSF. He demonstrates how social scientists’ divided views on the epistemological status of social sciences gave way to promotion of a natural-science model of social science, a model that significantly influenced subsequent scholarship. Along with uncovering this enabling moment for scientism in the social sciences, Solovey's analysis also traces some significant challenges to this natural-science approach.
2005 Article Award Committee: Jill Morawski, Daniela Barberis, and Maurice Finocchiaro