The materials for this paper come from extensive archival research and oral histories conducted from 1973 to 1985. The materials are used to show how and why the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and related organizations developed as they did. I argue that these organizations developed in four principal contexts: first, the employment crises of social scientists during the thirties; second, the central contradiction between social scientists' self‐perception as “value free” and their perceived responsibility to respond to the economic and cultural crises of the period; third, the relative positions of various leftist political groups of the time, their sectarian strife, and the influence of the Popular Front; and fourth, connections to power elites during World W