| This dissertation examines the projects and writings of Lawrence Kelso Frank (1890-1968), who was an important champion of "bio-technocracy" in the United States during the twentieth century. Thus, as a foundation executive who promoted child development and parent and family life education as well as other programs in social science, education, and mental hygiene, Frank came to formulate and advance a distinctive vision of the role of knowledge and expertise in modern society. Frank believed that knowledge in such fields as child development and culture and personality and in the social sciences more generally should be directed not merely at the description of social life and the processes involved in the "socialization" of the child, but should actively produce, enhance, and manage the social sector by means of the fostering of cooperative, "friendly," and sociable personalities. Hence, according to Frank, experts in various fields should collaborate with each other in various interdisciplinary programs in order to develop a "preventive politics" which would alleviate social problems and disorder and thereby construct an orderly and pacified social life. Although Frank hoped--with an almost utopian enthusiasm--that his bio-technocratic formulations and projects would help to enable humanity to assume control of its destiny, this dissertation argues that these formulations and projects entailed a profound "dislocation of the political" and therefore were in certain respects deeply disturbing in their implications. Frank dedicated himself to furthering his bio-technocratic vision in his activities with the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, the Spelman Fund, the General Education Board, and the Macy Foundation during the period 1923-1942. Moreover, he articulated this vision in a detailed manner in journal articles, books, and unpublished manuscripts from the 1910s to the 1960s. This dissertation is based on extensive research conducted at the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the Rockefeller Archive Center in North Tarrytown, New York--as well as on an elaborate survey of Frank's published writings. |
