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William Whyte’s core idea in The Organization Man is that the Protestant Ethic that characterized financial and personal success in American history had been replaced in modern times by the Social Ethic. This stressed the group as the source of creativity and emphasized that the greatest need of the individual is to belong to a group. To investigate this idea, Whyte spent years interviewing the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies when he was an editor at Fortune magazine, one of the top business publications in the United States at the time. What he found was that the recruitment and training were much more focused on “cultural fit” than on technical skill or experience level. As the ranks of new junior executives grew in post-World War II America, so did their impact on urban development and consumer spending. Droves of “package suburbs” sprang up in the fields surrounding major metropolitan areas, and a strong post-war economy coupled with funding from the GI Bill made new homes, cars, and household goods affordable for young families.
Universities are spaces for contemplation but also sociability and simply living. The University places materiality at the center of the institution's 900-year history, tracing connections between the campus's shifting physical realities--straw and stone, flesh and blood, concrete and iron--and the evolving cultural meanings of higher learning.
The Essential William H. Whyte offers the core writings of a great observer of the postwar American scene. Included are selections from The Organization Man (1956), Securing Space for Urban America: Conservation Easements (1959), The Last Landscape (1968), The Social Life of Urban Spaces (1980), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988), as well as many of Whyte's articles from Fortune magazine.