Academic Bureaucrats and Sensitive Townspeople

Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community was published by Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman in January 1958. The book detailed the social, economic, political, and personal lives of “Springdale” residents. Springdale was a pseudonym for my small hometown of Candor, New York.

As I delved into researching and writing about Candor, a town I do not look fondly on, I expected to side with the academics, their arguments, and their firm stance on their research. It feels necessary for me to apologize to Candor here, because despite my biased and immediate judgment of my hometown, its residents were right to be upset.

A well-worn copy of Small Town in Mass Society, owned by the author’s grandmother.

Candor’s first taste of Vidich and Bensman’s book upon its publication was a review in the Owego Times on January 31, 1958: “The Small Town in Mass Society–[Springdale] Says It Isn’t So.” The reviewer details what would become the persistent criticisms of the book: the authors’  central argument that Candor was being controlled by one man and his cohort, but also that gossip was taken as fact; and that “no attempt was made to disguise the individuals who may be readily identified by anyone having knowledge of [Springdale].”¹

The publication of the book obviously and immediately caused scandal, followed by apprehension from Candor’s residents and back-pedaling by academics.  From the get-go, I was absolutely sure I would side with Vidich. He was an academic, something I was striving to be when I was first told this story, and Candor had quite a disdain for people like him.

But the story didn’t take me where I thought it would. A rite of passage for every historian.

The Candor Courier (upper right corner of the front page), “Project Head Explains Book” from February 13, 1958. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

On February 13, 1958, following the book’s publication in January, the Candor Courier published a letter to the editor from Urie Bronfenbrenner, the project director of the Cornell Project, of which Vidich was a part of and through which he had collected data on “Springdale.”

Bronfenbrenner stated that the book “in no way reflects the intentions of views of the Cornell Project,” arguing that he had been in contact with Vidich with regard to eliminating or revising some of the material within the book but that those changes had not been made.² Some of these suggested revisions included material concerning the “invisible government” who ran the town, the Polish community that was theoretically being controlled by local political leaders and one specific intermediary, and numerous depictions of certain individuals, like one minister described as “radical” or the school principal who was “a little too inhuman.”³ In an editorial from Human Organization in the summer of 1958, Brofenbrenner argued that he had agreed to let Vidich use the project data from the entire team if Vidich removed objectionable parts from the book—which Vidich agreed to. But as Human Organization explains, “a comparison of the book with Bronfenbrenner’s written objections indicates that, in most cases, changes were not made.”⁴

In a three-part series at the Ithaca Journal from May to June 1958, Vidich responded to the controversy, arguing that “one can’t gear social science writing to the expected reactions of any audience, and if one does, the writing quickly degenerates into dishonesty, all objectivity in the sense that one can speak of objectivity in the social sciences is lost.”⁵

The third part of the Ithaca Journal series exclusively focused on the reactions of the residents, including members of the “ invisible government.” C. Arthur Beebe (“Sam Lee” in the book) and C. Paul Ward (“Howard Jones”) both said they felt Vidich had not judged them or the town fairly, instead judging them by “urban” standards. Others took issue with the accuracy of the book altogether. Winston S. Ives (“John Flint”) said, “My principal objection to the book is that there are unfortunately a number of factual inaccuracies which in some cases create a distinctly misleading impression.”⁶

Newspaper clipping of “Book’s Sales Spiral in Subject Village,” Ithaca Journal, June 13, 1958. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

Outside of the invisible government members, there are very few quotes in the articles from other “Springdale” residents. What stood out to me wasn’t all of the powerful Candor men interviewed, but the anonymous person who said, “The book did more to allay apathy in [Springdale] than anything in a long time.”⁷ Every named man from the community had a stake in what the book said. They were quoted and interviewed over and over, given that they were the ones who were purportedly the most harmed and betrayed by Vidich. But the Candor citizens who didn’t wield power or have the right last name within the village borders–how did they see the book and caricatures of men they knew? Was the book a hallelujah moment or truly just a bunch of gossip hidden underneath the prestige of academia?

All of this disdain, betrayal, and controversy finally culminated in a dramatic display of the sort only a small town could produce: public humiliation. In the annual Fourth of July parade of 1958, Candor “got even” with Vidich, featuring floats dedicated to smearing the book and Vidich himself. One float included a copy of the book cover, another of the “invisible government” members with bags over their heads and their fictitious names written on them, and the final scene, “a manure spreader filled with very rich barnyard fertilizer, over which was bending an effigy of the ‘The Author’.”⁸

“Candor Gets Even” from the Candor Courier, July 5, 1958, detailing the Fourth of July parade. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

It is not hard to imagine the hard work and dedication that the residents put into planning, building, and executing this absolute pinnacle of pettiness and spite for a Fourth of July parade. Candor is prideful, a fatal flaw I recognize instinctively.

Yet, this public humiliation is only known by a select few. When I shared this hilarious anecdote of our hometown with my best friend, they remarked, “They never taught us this and it’s so Candor.”⁹

When I declared as a history major, my grandmother shipped the book to me in a bubbled envelope; it stayed on my bookshelf in that envelope for at least two years. She lent it to me, and I never got past the introduction. I had already made up my mind about Candor.

I eventually learned about this forgotten chapter in Candor’s history, unknown to most unless you find yourself scouring the archives or exploring the historical society—or unless you have a grandparent or great-grandparent who remembers the infamous scandal.

In 1964, Vidich and Bensman responded to the scandal with “The Springdale Case: Academic Bureaucrats and Sensitive Townspeople.” The title of the article, and subsequent revisions to the book, tell me that Vidich never took the residents’ arguments seriously; even when he acknowledges those arguments, it’s with a mocking tone. Most of all, I find it telling that Vidich made no direct response to the Candor community itself after the Ithaca Journal series, instead hiding his detailed responses within the academic publishing sphere, a space inaccessible to Candor’s residents.

Bronfenbrenner and ‘Springdale’ residents had argued for years that Vidich and Bensman had failed to truly anonymize Candor residents in Small Town in Mass Society. In “The Springfield Case,” the co-authors argued that the broader Cornell team had actually gone out of its way to protect certain townspeople, and that they were too worried about maintaining personal relationships with the town to write an “objective” study—something Vidich and Bensman believed they had accomplished with Small Town in Mass Society. This claim ignores the possibility that Vidich and Bensman might have let perspective—even prejudice—influence their work, let alone the fact that Vidich and his family had lived in “Springdale” for three years before the book was published, forming personal relationships with members of the community.

The hypocrisy in Vidich’s arguments years after the book’s publication became more aggravating as I dug into this decades-long scandal. Vidich went on and on about the effects of the scandal on him and his family, the public humiliation contained in a few newspaper articles and a small town’s memory, but never about Candor and its residents, never about the people and neighbors Vidich befriended during his time there.

Any respect I had for him and his work vanished after learning Vidich refused to take real accountability for decades. But Candor didn’t forget, especially as revised editions of the book continued to appear in print. A year before the final revised edition of Small Town in Mass Society was published in 2000, the residents once again brought out the infamous 1958 Fourth of July float.

Fourth of July parade float depicting the Small Town in Mass Society scandal, July 4, 1999. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

Fourth of July parade float depicting the Small Town in Mass Society scandal in transit, July 4, 1999. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

These four decades not only concluded with the final revision of the book, but also with a letter from the editor of The Journal of Critical Thought, Paul Piccone, who owned an “upstate” home in Candor. In response to a letter from Carol Henry, Candor’s historian, Piccone remarked “the book never succeeded entirely in smearing Candor” and enclosed a draft of the last revised introduction Vidich would write for Small Town in Mass Society, noting that while Vidich acknowledged some criticism, he did not apologize “for having misjudged 1950s social realities so badly.”¹⁰

Letter from Paul Piccone to Carol Henry, July 18, 1999. Courtesy of the Candor Historical Society.

Reading about an academic versus a small town in New York’s Southern Tier, 67 years after the fact, only reminded me why I fled to college to leave my hometown. I don’t feel betrayed by Vidich’s words about Candor—there are hard truths within the book and there is also harm within those pages—but I do see an example of who I shouldn’t be as a historian.

As “The Beebe,” the son of Arthur Beebe (“Sam Lee”), recalled in 2011, “The author and the book have made its mark on the Candor Community and now some 60 years later after the fact as I sit down and write this story, I’m reminded of the many times we had the Vidichs [sic] over for dinner and their introductions to the Community Club. But most of all I remember the expression on my parents face especially my dad’s, the day he was betrayed.”¹¹

1. Reprinted in Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman, “The Springdale Case: Academic Bureaucrats and Sensitive Townspeople,” in Reflections on Community Studies, ed. Arthur J. Vidich, Joseph Bensman, and Maurice R. Stein (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1964), 339-340.
2. Urie Bronfenbrenner, “Project Head Explains Book,” Candor Courier, Feb. 13, 1958. For Vidich and Bensman’s statement, see Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1960), xii.
3. Vidich and Bensman, “The Springdale Case,” 332. A footnote on this detailed reprimand includes a discussion of Vidich’s refusal to take accountability for the supposed harm inflicted on what he assumes is a businessman in Springdale, because “the small businessman will seize on any easily available object of resentment so long as the object in question absolutely lacks defense” Vidich and Bensman, “The Springdale Case,” 338.
4. “Freedom and Responsibility in Research: The ‘Springdale’ Case,” Human Organization 17, no. 2 (Summer 1958): 1-2. From 1958 to 1960, Human Organization published one editorial and four comment pieces regarding the “Springdale Case.” Comments and articles from Earl H. Bell, Bronfenbrenner, William M. Evan, and Robert Risely were published, most of which argued against Vidich and his book
5. Donald Greet, “Springdale and Candor: II – Reactions Come Fast to Author of Book,” Ithaca Journal, June 12, 1958.
6. Donald Greet, “Springdale and Candor: III – Book’s Sales Spiral In Subject Village,” Ithaca Journal, June 13, 1958.
7. Greet, “Book’s Sales Spiral.”
8. ‘The Beebe,’ “The Book That Made Candor Infamous,” The Candor Statement, June 29, 2011; Candor Courier, “Candor Gets Even,” July 5, 1958.
9. Editor’s note, because she happened to notice: the book and resultant scandal rate one sentence on Candor’s Wikipedia page, with no links to the authors or the book itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candor,_New_York#History
10. Paul Piccone to Carol Henry, July 18, 1999, Small Town in Mass Society collection, Candor Historical Society, Candor, NY.
11. ‘The Beebe,’ “The Book That Made Candor Infamous.”