The mission of The New School for Social Research—which derives from American progressive thinkers, the legacy of the University in Exile, and the critical theorists of Europe—is grounded in the core social sciences and broadened with a commitment to philosophical and historical inquiry. In an intellectual setting where disciplinary boundaries are easily crossed, students learn to practice creative democracy—the concepts, techniques, and commitments that will be required if the world's people, with their multiple and conflicting interests, are to live together peacefully and justly.

The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 by a distinguished group of intellectuals, some of whom were teaching at Columbia University in New York City during the First World War. Fervent pacifists, they took a public stand against the war and were censured by the university's president. The outspoken professors responded by resigning from Columbia and later opening up their own university for adults in New York's Chelsea district as a place where people could exchange ideas freely with scholars and artists representing a wide range of intellectual, aesthetic, and political orientations. The original faculty of The New School—the abbreviated name by which the school was often called—included Charles Beard, Thorstein Veblen, James Harvey Robinson, Wesley Clair Mitchell, John Dewey, and Alvin Johnson.

From the very beginning, The New School maintained close ties to Europe. Its founders, in fact, modeled the school after the Volkshochschulen for adults, established in Germany after 1918. Then during the 1920s, Alvin Johnson, the school's first president, became co-editor of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. While working on this massive undertaking, Johnson collaborated regularly with colleagues in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. It was they who made him aware of the danger Hitler presented to democracy and the civilized world, alerting him to the problem before many others in the United States had grasped the seriousness of the situation. With the financial support of enlightened philanthropists like Hiram Halle and the Rockefeller Foundation, Johnson responded immediately and in 1933 created within The New School a University in Exile to provide a haven for scholars and artists whose lives were threatened by National Socialism. Later renamed the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, the University in Exile sponsored over 180 individuals and their families, providing them with visas and jobs. While some of these refugees remained at the New School for many years, many others moved on to make an impact on other institutions in the United States.

Alvin Johnson created faculty positions for ten distinguished scholars: five economists (Karl Brandt, Gerhard Colm, Arthur Feiler, Eduard Heimann, and Emil Lederer); two psychologists (Max Wertheimer and Erich von Hornbostel, who was also a leading musicologist); one expert in social policy (Frieda Wunderlich); and one sociologist (Hans Speier). A year later, in 1934, the University in Exile received authorization from the Board of Regents of the State of New York to offer master's and doctoral degrees.

Other leading figures of Europe's intelligentsia soon joined the Graduate Faculty, enhancing the school's name even further. Together they introduced students to the breadth and depth of Western traditions in the social sciences and philosophy, and The New School quickly established a reputation as a place that fostered the highest standards of scholarly inquiry while addressing issues of major political, cultural, and economic concern. Several members of the faculty, such as economist Gerhard Colm, political scientist Arnold Brecht, and sociologist Hans Speier, served as policy advisors for the Roosevelt administration during the Second World War. Others helped transform the social sciences and philosophy in this country, presenting theoretical and methodological approaches to their fields that were poorly represented in the United States.

When, for example, Max Wertheimer came to the United States and joined the faculty at The New School, he challenged behaviorism, the dominant paradigm at the time in American psychology, and introduced Gestalt, or cognitive, psychology. Still marginal in the years following World War II, cognitive psychology has become a major subfield in the discipline today. Similarly, the work of Hans Jonas was virtually ignored when the philosopher first came to the Graduate Faculty after the war, but it now frames many of the questions of scholars writing on bioethics and the environment. Perhaps most famous of all, the work of Hannah Arendt, already widely read in the 1950s and 1960s, has attracted a great deal of attention for decades, as political theorists have reevaluated their assumptions about totalitarianism, democracy, and revolution.

There were other scholars associated with the Graduate Faculty whose work remains influential today, including such major proponents of the German philosophical tradition as Alfred Schutz, Leo Strauss, and Aron Gurwitsch. There was also the economist Adolph Lowe, who introduced his critical analysis of classical economic theories and developed an institutional approach to the study of economics.

The New School promoted French scholarship as well in the American intellectual community, largely thanks to the creation, in the early 1940s, of the École Libre des Hautes Études. Receiving an official charter from de Gaulle’s Free French government in exile, the École attracted refugee scholars who taught in French, including the philosopher Jacques Maritain, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the linguist Roman Jakobson, and the political thinker Henri Bonnet, the originator of the idea of the European community. After the war, the institution eventually evolved into the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. To this day, the École continues to maintain close ties to the Graduate Faculty. In recent years distinguished members of this French institution have come to New York to teach at the New School.

What the New School achieved in the 1930s inspired other American colleges and universities at the time to try to do the same. By the time World War II broke out, thousands of Europe’s most accomplished intellectuals had escaped with their families and found positions for themselves in the United States. Even after the campaign spread, the New School remained at its center and was the symbol of hope for Europeans for years to come.

Speaking at a University in Exile convocation in 1937, Thomas Mann remarked that a plaque bearing the inscription “To the living spirit” had been torn down by the Nazis from a building at the University of Heidelberg. He suggested that the University in Exile adopt that inscription as its motto, to indicate that the “living spirit,“ mortally threatened in Europe, would have a home in this country. Alvin Johnson adopted that idea, and the motto continues to guide the division in its present-day endeavors.

In broadening our horizons, we remain true to the ideals that inspired Alvin Johnson to create a university for teachers and students from different races, religions, and ethnicities, who are willing to take risks for their intellectual and political beliefs.