Peter H. Rossi (1921-2006)
Peter Henry Rossi of Amherst, MA, died
peacefully at home on Saturday, October
7, 2006.
Born December 27, 1921, in New York
City, he was Stuart A. Rice Professor of
Sociology Emeritus at the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst. Son of Italian
immigrant parents, he was a graduate of
Townsend Harris High School and the City
College of New York (1943). He obtained
his PhD in Sociology from Columbia
University on the GI Bill in
1951. He held faculty positions
at Harvard University,
University of Chicago
(Professor), and Johns Hopkins
University (Professor and
Department Chair) prior to his
appointment at the University
of Massachusetts.
Author of more than 40
books and 200 scholarly
journal articles, he was highly
regarded for his work on
evaluating social programs.
He was elected fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. He was past
president of the American Sociological
Association and former director of the
National Opinion Research Center,
University of Chicago. His textbook,
Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, now its
7th edition has become the classic text in
the field of evaluation of social programs.
His work on the evaluation of social
programs has earned him world-wide
recognition. Included in this work are his
controversial studies of the homeless problem
in America (Down and Out in America:
The Origins of Homelessness, University of
Chicago Press). In this research, he made
Sociological Research on Health Disparities Is Core of NIH Conference
the first systematic attempts to count the
homeless, finding dramatically smaller
numbers than claimed by advocates for
the homeless. He found that homelessness
is largely a temporary rather than
permanent problem and, therefore, that
short infusions of aid could make a large
difference. Most recently, he focused on
federal food programs (Feeding the Poor:
Assessing Federal Food Programs). His work
on assessing the severity of crimes via
surveys of the American public (Public
Opinion on Sentencing Federal
Criminals and Just Punishments:
Sentencing Guidelines and Public
Opinion Compared) has influenced
the U.S. Sentencing
Commission. His studies of how
cities in America responded to
the riots of the late 1960s (The
Roots of Urban Discontent) grew
out of work for the Kerner
Commission. His efforts on
evaluating public welfare and
anti-crime programs was highly
influential and was frequently
cited by Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan and other policy makers.
He has received numerous awards.
These include election into the Townsend
Harris Hall of Fame (1998), the Common
Wealth Award for distinguished contributions
to Sociology (1985), Distinguished
Career Award for the Practice of
Sociology (1999, ASA), and the Paul F.
Lazarsfeld Award for contributions to
research methodology (1995, ASA), and
the Chancellor's Medal at the University
of Massachusetts.
In addition to his scholarly works, he
was a valued colleague and mentor to
generations of doctoral students in sociol-ogy, many of whom went on
to lead distinguished careers
in academe and public
service.
Highlights of his academic
career, spanning four institutions
and six decades, include his stewardship
of the National Opinion Research
Center at the University of Chicago and
the Social and Demographic Research
Institute at University of Massachusetts.
As director of the National Opinion
Research center, he brought the center to
national prominence and promoted the
development of many top scholars in the
field of sociology.
He served in the United States Army
in World War II as a forward artillery
observer and as a military policeman.
He leaves behind his wife of 55
years, Alice S. Rossi, as well as his three
children Kris, Nina and Peter and six
grandchildren, Ben, Emily, Jon, Nick,
Nina and Will.
* * *
Peter Rossi was a great and complicated
man. He had an edge that could be
terrifying and endearing. He was never
easy in life, and his nature is not easily
captured in a few 100 words.
I met Pete when in graduate school
at Johns Hopkins. He arrived from the
University of Chicago and proceeded to
offer a research seminar on poverty in
America. This was during the nation's
War on Poverty and popular sentiment
was for the underdog. Pete ran the seminar
like a boot camp where data dominated.
"Good politics" by itself got you
the equivalent of 50 push-ups; you were
of no help to the poor unless you could
bring the facts to bear. Facts led you to the
politics, not the other way around.
Soon after, Pete took on a major
research initiative with the President's
Commission on Civil Disorders to
understand the causes of the recent urban
unrest. Several of us from the poverty
seminar readily accepted his invitation
to join and promptly learned that the
primary audience was not other academics
but active stakeholders. Although Pete
sometimes joked that we would do well
by doing good, the point was to have a
direct and constructive impact on the
most pressing social problems of the day.
Shortly after the research got underway,
Martin Luther King was assassinated,
and the control group almost
literally went up in smoke. But Pete
readily accepted the challenge and even
relished it. The result was a series of innovative
and important analyses that would
not have been done had the original
comparison design remained intact. These
analyses were challenging and initially
beyond the technical skills of any of us.
We worked together to gain control over
the required statistical procedures. Pete
became a student, which meant retooling
when he was at the top of the profession.
When other mentors might have delegated
the statistical analyses, he was a full
partner, learning by doing and unafraid to
show ignorance.
These incidents from four decades
ago reveal how Pete approached his
work. Just as facts trumped politics, facts
trumped theory. He knew when he had
Colleagues Remember the Expansive
Interests and Wit of Peter Rossi
done a good piece of empirical research
because everyone was mad at him. His
attachment to facts meant that he was
endlessly searching for them, and the
more challenging the setting the better.
One of his favorite aphorisms was "If
you know it can be done, it is not worth
doing." One important consequence is
that he never stopped improving his
technical skills because finding facts
meant having the right tools. He cared
little about findings that would amuse or
impress his academic colleagues. He cared
deeply about facts that would make a real
difference in people's lives.
Pete's approach to his work life characterized
much of his personal life. It helped
us become close friends as well as close
colleagues. Over his last several months,
questions about how he was doing were
answered with "pretty well ... adjusting
for age, ethnicity, and life style." As his
health began to fail him, he spoke of the
"race between each of my vital organs to
see who will get the chance to kill me."
This was brave talk, minimizing the pain
of those who cared about him, and always
eliciting a comforting chuckle. Pete will be
sorely missed.
Richard Berk, University of Pennsylvania
In the post-WWII period, a small number
of the new crop of sociologists were
concerned with methods and statistics to
bring the field into the modern world. Peter
Rossi was one who had little tolerance
for living in the past, and we happened to
be on a government committee to review
graduate programs. He did a site visit to a
department long established but living in
the past, and the chair of that department
went to Washington to complain about the
review. He complained that I was prejudiced,
not Pete, in the review when I had
not been involved at all. The point here is
that having Pete confused with me made
my day, as I thought that in that generation
of sociologists, Pete was as good as
was possible. I never have wavered from
the opinion he was a great scholar and
sociologist!
Edgar F. Borgatta
* * *
I met Pete Rossi at the 1961 ASA
meeting in St. Louis, MO, where the ASA
Council threatened to leave the hotel if
the hotel did not make the swimming
pool available to all attendees. The hotel
conceded, Chuck Willie became the first
African American to use their swimming
facility, and Pete chaired a session at
which I made my first ASA presentation.
When Bill Form and I finished
Influentials in Two Border Cities, we sent it
to Pete for a critique. Generous with his
time and his criticism, he declared it a
first-rate comparative analysis and told
me not to waste time trying to enrich the
theoretical part. I can still hear his voice
today: "Look, you have a very good
empirical study; be happy! Don't mess
with it."
My years at Notre Dame overlapped
with his at Chicago, so we saw each other
frequently. As our friendship deepened,
he greeted me with "Eh, goombah." We
talked regularly on social and academic
matters of family, ethnicity, religion,
and Italian cooking. We discussed ethnicity
and religion—sometimes jokingly and
sometimes seriously. When it came to
Italian cooking, we agreed that our wives,
Alice and Lorraine, were unmatched in
their abilities to create gourmet Italian
dinners.
When Alice and Pete moved to
Amherst in 1974, and I was chair at the
University of Connecticut, I invited Pete
to give a talk on some hot topic of the
moment, and he agreed on the condition
that his honorarium would be an
Italian dinner prepared by Lorraine. Fair
enough, Lorraine prepared the dinner,
and our two youngest daughters served
us in a hilarious spoof as the very obedient
Italian daughters. He was delighted,
and promised to return for a replay.
In 1984, as ASA Executive Officer, I
was coming to grips with the new world
of office computers. At the suggestion of
Alice, who was on Council at the time,
Pete agreed to help with the computers,
again on the condition of a dinner at
Galileos, the best Italian restaurant in DC.
His advice was well worth the price, and
Council was easier to deal with, given the
proposal from the computer company. Of
course, the new system would allow us to
reduce staff and paper usage. In retrospect,
that was a small step for ASA, but it
seemed huge at the time.
From 1979-91, The Common Wealth
Trust and the ASA (with six other associations)
honored outstanding scholars/
leaders in their professions. Among the
sociologists honored were Peter (1985)
and Alice Rossi (1989). Pete received his
award at the ASA meeting as part of the
ASA awards ceremony. While the award
was distinctive, it was simply part of
the overall ASA event. There was some
dismay among attendees at the length of
the introduction by the Common Wealth
official. By the time he got to Pete, people
were getting anxious, so Pete barely had
time to say "thank you." By 1988, the
Common Wealth Trust hosted its annual
awards weekends in the Wilmington
Hotel DuPont. When Alice Rossi received
her award, Pete was bubbling over with
enthusiasm, reminding me in a variety
of phrases what a smart, talented, and
brilliant woman she was. Alice was the
only awardee to receive a standing ovation
upon the completion of her remarks.
Standing next to Pete and seeing him
beaming with pleasure and pride at
that moment remains as a fitting way to
remember Pete.
William V. D'Antonio, Catholic University
* * *
The youngest of three sons of Italian
immigrants, Pete Rossi's educational
beginnings were not auspicious. He spoke
so little English in Queens kindergarten
that one teacher recommended him for
a school for the retarded; in elementary
school, his seeming deviousness made
him a (usually innocent) suspect for organizing
disruptive behaviors—though not
for running the successful numbers game
that was an early portent of the career to
follow. Four turning points marked his
early years: a move to a new elementary
school and later
an elite high school that
discovered and nurtured his potential;
attending CUNY, where his mostly
socialist and later distinguished
classmates included his best friend
throughout high school and college,
Marty Lipset; three years as an
Army enlisted man, which persuaded
him he could be a leader; and, while at
Columbia, a research assistant offer from
his exemplar Paul Lazarsfeld that came
as a life preserver while he was thrashing
in Mertonian waters. His subsequent
career speaks for itself. With no competing
passions or avocations, sociology
was truly his life. After retiring in 1992,
he remained productive until the end. A
computer-nik of the first order, his home
office was a virtual scholarly factory.
Pete's public persona was not as a
paragon of sweetness. He spoke truth
to powerful and powerless alike; never
flinched from controversy and woe betide
the fools that crossed his path. A hall of
fame punster with a barbed tongue, Pete
often seemed a giant among dwarfs—in
part because his saber-like wit cut so
many of us off at the knees. But there was
deep loyalty and affection awaiting those
who persevered into his private world.
Most of his jibes were puckish, and I have
yet to hear of one student whose PhD
diploma was actually stamped as threatened:
"Null and void for teaching and
research in the continental United States."
Pete met his surviving wife, Alice,
at Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social
Research, and their 55-year marriage was
among the most luminous in sociological
annals—a true model Of Human Bonding,
the title of their one book together. A
founding member of NOW, she too was
President of the American Sociological
Association. At an as-yet-unscheduled
memorial service for him next spring,
Alice, their three children, and six grandchildren
will no doubt be joined by a far
larger community of devoted intellectual
kin and progeny to celebrate his dedication,
achievements, and punchlines.
Jay Demerath, University of Massachusetts-
Amherst
* * *
Peter Rossi was a tough guy, tough
on himself and tough on others. He
was reared in a city where you have to
look after yourself, but was lucky to
attend schools where his talents were
recognized. His toughness had to be
challenged before you could become
his friend. Once when Peter spoke on
community power at Michigan State, I
challenged his findings. After a heated
exchange, he stared down at me and said,
"My data are better than yours." End of
discussion. Quality of data was the first
essential. Without it, theory was useless
speculation. The tighter and sparser the
theory, the better. The more difficult and
prevalent the problem, the greater the
need to investigate it. When he testified
before Congress, he provided data rather
than vague talk on the importance of sociological
research. He taught colleagues
how to do research on public policy. Why
do people move? Who owns guns? How
many homeless men live in the central
city? Moreover, he demonstrated that
applied research was a good way to test
and improve sociological theory.
It mattered little where Peter worked—Columbia, Harvard, Chicago,
Johns Hopkins, the University of
Massachusetts. If necessary, he traveled
to get the data first hand. Wherever
Peter was, sociological research was
there.
When I first tried to get close to Peter,
he would test me. When I told him about
my research, he asked tough questions.
He mellowed when he decided that I
knew what I was up to. I once casually
mentioned that my parents were
Italian immigrants. Looking at me
doubtfully, he said, "When do you peel
eggplant?" "Never," I replied. He smiled
and grunted, "Okay, you're in." When
writing a piece on C. Wright Mills, I
learned that Lazarsfeld sent Peter to
Decatur as Mills' research assistant. Mills
was pursuing his own interests rather
than directing Lazarfeld's project; Mills'
reports did not satisfy Lazarsfeld. Peter
ultimately wrote the report that
Lazarsfeld incorporated in his book with
Elihu Katz.
The autobiography that Peter wrote
for his children and grandchildren
revealed a warm and sensitive person, a
person who was just as tough on himself
as he appeared to be on others. His influence
will be with us for a long time.
William Form, Ohio State University
* * *
I met Pete shortly after I started teaching
at the University of Massachusetts.
I still hear his voice, making some key
argument (with fewer words but more
insight than his more talkative colleagues),
offering a terse but helpful
comment, or making a witty remark with
a gleam in his eyes. His few words could
show his impatience with an unproductive
senior colleague or his amusement
as he promoted a junior one, for Pete did
not heed standard hierarchies but gave
generously of his time and skills to those
far younger than he—without a hint of
arrogance or pomposity.
One day soon after I arrived, I was
in the elevator with Pete after attending
a graduate student's comprehensives
exam. He asked me what I thought about
the exam, and I stuttered something
about there not being an adequate theoretical
frame, hoping I sounded sophisticated.
He chuckled, saying something
like, "That would be a waste of our
time." I trembled. I later came to hear far
more about his commitment to applied
sociology and the evaluation of social
programs, his belief that sociology had
to matter and that we were wasting our
time if we did not think out the policy or
practical consequences of our research.
His work did matter.
Sometimes when I would ask him
a question, he would say"with great
pride-"Ask Alice; she knows better
than I do." And then Alice would say
something like, "Ask Peter; though
you might not realize it from his gruff
demeanor, he is nicer than I am."
Many of us did see below that
exterior. His style was tough (maybe
because of his childhood in New York
neighborhoods and his stints in the army,
Columbia, Chicago, and Harvard). But
he was always interesting, witty, and
generous. I laughed a lot when Pete was
in the hallway. I cherish the memories.
Naomi Gerstel, University of
Massachusetts-Amherst
* * *
It was 4:30 PM in one of the small first
floor classrooms in the Social Science
Building at the University of Chicago or
"the University" as we call it. A seminar
had gathered to listen to Peter H. Rossi's
presentation of the themes of his book
The Politics of Urban Renewal. "In social
science," he began, his face deadpan,
"data tend to run from medium soft to
mushy. For this seminar wear your snow
shoes." More laughter than that somber,
stuffy room had heard in a half century.
Pete loved it. He could, given the occasion,
play the role of a stand-up comic.
Once you caught that dimension of his
very complex and occasionally morose
character, you knew how to deal with
him. Just feed him the lines so he could
laugh at himself.
He said to me once when I was a
day late in producing a chapter for The
Education of Catholic Americans, "Get it
done or it's back to the parish for you.
Parish or publish." Again, given the right
circumstances the puns would spill out
of his mouth with reckless abandon. As
he explained, there were always two
tapes playing in his head, a trick he had
learned when he mastered stuttering. He
had also to master the English language
since he grew up in an Italian-speaking
household. One would never know of
either challenge, unless he decided to tell
you.
In my early days at National Opinion
Research Center he wasn't quite sure
what to call me. He was too much of the
Italian anticlerical to call me "Father"
but too much the Italian Catholic to call
me "Andy." Finally I told him that the
latter was quite acceptable. Even then
he was uneasy and compromised. I
became "Father Greeley" with a mocking
emphasis on the first word. There was a
lot of laughter in our odd couple team,
laughter which I will always remember,
which I missed when he left the
University, and which I mourn now that
the monthly phone calls have come to an
end. Vale atque Ave.
Andrew Greeley, National Opinion Research
Center
* * *
Peter Rossi was one of the hardest
working sociologists I ever met. Though
he had plenty of personal experience
with urban ills as well as a highly developed
sense of fairness, he never lost his
conviction that social scientists should
report what they found, not what they
wanted to find. Advocacy and ideology
ought never to trump science.
Probably best known for his research
on the origin of homelessness, Peter's
life-long pursuit involved devising ways
to evaluate federally-funded initiatives
in education, health services, crime control,
and housing, a field that he claimed
was hardly out of infancy. Concern
for large-scale evaluations originated
during President Johnson's War on
Poverty in the 1960s, but even as poverty
slipped from public consciousness and
Reagonomics and high stock prices came
to dominate the American political scene,
Peter demonstrated how to continue the
fight against poverty in a highly rational
and disinterested way. Systematic
evaluation could highlight the effects
of government programs on American
lives and thereby enable policymakers,
politicians, and voters to make better
decisions.
To my knowledge, Peter has rarely (if
ever) been given credit for his espousal
of feminist ideas about fair play in labor
market and family at a time when feminism
was nearly unknown in academia.
Happily married to a pioneer feminist
sociologist (and one of the founders
of NOW), Peter would be exposed on
occasion to amazingly vituperative
interruptions by angry colleagues, wellestablished
sociologists who saw him as
a traitor to his sex. That he was more or
less amused by these outbursts bespeaks
a person who was very certain of his
command of the relevant data. You could
always be sure that he knew how to sort
the wheat from the chaff.
Joan Huber, Ohio State University
* * *
Peter H. Rossi made fundamental
contributions to our understanding of a
prodigiously vast array of phenomena,
centered on the big three sociobehavioral
forces—status, power, and justice—and
their unfolding: why families move, the
power structures of American communities,
urban discontent and civil disorders,
sentencing norms governing convicted
criminals, criminal victimization, sexual
harassment, the prestige of people and
occupations, justice judgments about
earnings, homelessness, and behavior in
disasters.
Whenever the task of answering
a question demanded it, he did not
hesitate to stop and learn a new tool or
invent a new method. To me, the most
dazzling of his methodological contributions,
for its elegant simplicity and its
far-reaching applicability, is his pioneering
development of the factorial survey
method. Rossi devised a procedure to
construct vignettes describing lifelike
persons and situations, and to use them
to obtain respondents' ideas of the way
things are and the way things ought
to be. Estimates of these ideas and the
equations in which they are embedded
pave the way to exploring a wide variety
of new questions, including assessment
of the intricate patterns of inter-individual
agreements and disagreements and
the exciting uniqueness of individuals.
Beyond his contributions to sociology,
we will remember Peter Rossi for many
things—the joyous clarity of his mind,
his delight in reasoning, his utter devotion
to social science. And his ideas and
reasonings will remain an anchor and
beacon as sociological knowledge grows.
Guillermina Jasso, New York University
* * *
Pete was a good friend as well as
a mentor in many ways. A sometimes
harsh critic of the work of others, he
was equally hard on himself. I often
seemed to follow Pete in ASA activities,
as a Council member, Secretary, and
President. He was a hard act to follow.
We met occasionally on other projects
and reviewed each other's work, much
to my benefit. It was always a pleasure
to work with him. I admired his no-nonsense
manner, his great sense of humor,
and his pragmatic approach to life. He
leaves a void in the lives of many.