The exiled Frankfurt Institute ran on grants while preparing its staff for academic careers.

Evidence

In practice, this led to the following strategy, with the usual vacillations and contradictions. From 1939 onwards, the Institute’s directors had been attempting to throw off ballast and, at the same time, to acquire new finance for research projects. On the one hand, they were preparing favourable conditions for Horkheimer’s theoretical work by arranging for him to move to the west coast, where he would be able to live at a splendid remove from the academic system. On the other hand, they were simultaneously trying to maintain the impression that the Institute was continuing its normal existence. This tendency became stronger when in 1941 the opportunity presented itself of giving salaried full-scale lectures within the faculty at Columbia, instead of merely unpaid lectures in the Extension Division. The chance of a professorship was even held out. In the end, using research grants for special projects, they succeeded in keeping a rather scaled-down, self-financing rump of the Institute going. At the same time, Horkheimer and his colleagues were to be given superb access to the academic world, so that they might one day be able to continue their work on the theory as academics, without requiring finance from the Institute. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1099

Categorization

• XREF: Details the Institute’s post-1939 survival strategy of self-financing rump plus academic integration, building toward the project’s later American phase and return to Frankfurt. — connects to: The exiled Institute employed a large permanent staff and funded 130 émigré academics. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1039; Lazarsfeld’s methodological collaboration helped the exiled Frankfurt Institute enter American academia — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 687; The exiled Frankfurt Institute isolated itself from American academic life while resenting its marginalization. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1045

Broader Connections

• Lazarsfeld’s methodological collaboration helped the exiled Frankfurt Institute enter American academia #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 687
• The exiled Frankfurt Institute isolated itself from American academic life while resenting its marginalization. #complicates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1045