Daniel Katz's papers document his research and teaching activities from 1925 to 1997. His papers reflect the major issues and trends in social psychology, from its early development through its edification as a discipline. The development of Katz's thinking and work is illuminated through his extensive correspondence with contemporaries, articles and other publications, and research materials.
The Katz collection is divided into nine series: Personal; Professional Correspondence; Office of War Information; Professional organizations and related; Research and Surveys; Teaching and course materials; Articles; Published/Unpublished Materials; and Topical Files.
University of Michigan psychology professor Daniel Katz was a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of social psychology and organizational behavior; he also made major contributions to the study of national attitudes and race relations. He is perhaps best known as the co-author (with Robert L. Kahn) of The Social Psychology of Organizations, which was published in 1966 and is widely considered to have been a seminal work in the discipline of social psychology.
Katz was born in Trenton, New Jersey on July 19, 1903. He received his BA from the University of Buffalo in 1925, and then enrolled at Syracuse University where he earned an MA in 1926 and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology in 1928. He married Christine Ross Braley in 1930, and they had two daughters.
Between 1928 and 1943, Katz was on the faculty of Princeton University's Psychology Department; he left in 1943 to become the first chairman of the Department of Psychology at Brooklyn College. During the Second World War he served as research director for the Division of Surveys of the Office of War Information, and as a research analyst for the War Department. Katz and a number of the social scientists he worked with during the war years formed the core of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan.
In 1947, Katz became director of ISR, where he researched human relations and management practices, including the role of worker participation in decision-making. Simultaneously, Katz became a professor of psychology. With Theodore Newcomb, he was instrumental in developing Michigan's doctoral program in social psychology. The Katz-Newcomb Lecture, an annual University event established in 1970, honors both professors.
Professor Katz carried out much of his research abroad, visiting Norway as a Fulbright scholar in 1951, and returning as a National Science Foundation Senior Fellow in 1957. As part of "A Study of National Attitudes and Values," Katz worked at the Belgrade Center from 1968 to 1969, where he directed field surveys in four Yugoslav republics. He also worked in Greece during this period, and was visiting professor at the University of Aarhus, Denmark from 1971 to 1972.
Over the course of his career, Katz published numerous articles and co-authored several books. He also edited or served on the editorial board of a variety of journals, including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Public Opinion Quarterly. Katz was an adviser to the John Wiley Company psychology section during the 1960s and early 1970s, serving as editor of the publisher's Foundations of Social Psychology series.
Katz was active in several professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the Industrial Relations Research Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Organization for Comparative Social Relations. On his retirement from the University of Michigan in May 1974, Katz was named Professor Emeritus of Psychology.
Katz died February 28, 1998 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
