Patterns of mobility 1910-1950: the norristown study

A method for measuring migration and occupational mobility in the community

Operating under a grant from the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Ford Foundation, the Behavioral Research Council of the University of Pennsylvania established an inter departmental graduate research training seminar in the Fall of 1951. This seminar was designed to offer training in inter disciplinary research to students from the Departments of History, Sociology, Anthropology, and American Civilization.
In the belief that effective training in interdisciplinary research can only be accomplished in connection with an organized research project of considerable magnitude and historical depth, the directors of the seminar, Dr. Dorothy S. Thomas of the Department of Sociology and Dr. Thomas C. Cochran of the Department of History, selected as the theme of the seminar, "Technological Change and Social Adjustment." Norristown, Pennsylvania, a community twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia, was chosen as the setting in which the seminar members could conduct the research appropriate to their particular interests. Norristown was selected as the subject of study for a variety of reasons, including its medium size, its relative nearness to the University and yet its relative independence of Philadelphia, its diversified economy, the availability of excellent records for historical, statistical, and ethnographic analyses.