New Subject: Dr. John Dollard

The other day, I began to look at Dr. John Dollard’s archives. He was not a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He was, in fact, a psychoanalyst and Anthropologist professor at Yale. In the early 1940s, he conducted a survey of ALB veterans, attempting to study fear and morale in fighting. His research, though not sponsored by the War Department, was intended to help the then current soldiers of World War Two. His aim was to disperse life-saving tips and lessons learned by ALB vets while better understanding the psychology of the soldier. The survey includes 300 interviews of ALB vets, and some interviews are included in the archive. I began by looking at several newspaper clips speaking of Dollard. In some kind of business or sale magazine, Dollard is mentioned. It says that Dollard’s fear study could have implications on business. Perhaps knowledge of combating fear in stressful situations could help businesses train new salesmen. In retrospect, this level of research in stress management seems elementary almost intuitive, but perhaps this kind of information had never before been elucidated in an academic sense. In any case, I'm not entirely fascinated on "new" techniques of salesmen training. Hopefully, my next attempt at his archive will prove to be more fruitful.