288 Part III: Emigration Years
Merits of social research:
studies in the authoritarian personalityAdorno and Horkheimer worked on their book on dialectics under a
certain time pressure, since they hoped to present the finished volume
to Friedrich Pollock in spring 1944, in time for his fiftieth birthday.
However, in the midst of their labours in Pacific Palisades, they received
the surprising piece of news that the American Jewish Committee (AJC)
were interested in the research project on anti-Semitism outlined in the
Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. Moreover, the committee held
out the prospect of a significant financial subsidy. This meant that
Horkheimer was compelled, rather unwillingly, to spend several weeks
in New York in September 1942 in order to negotiate with the AJC.
Adorno took the separation from Horkheimer quite badly. Hork-
heimer had long since become his closest friend and confidant, the man
with whom he could have discussions. For this reason he always waited
impatiently for the return of ‘Mammoth’, as he, the ‘Hippopotamus’,
entitled Horkheimer. To express his joy in Horkheimer’s return to their
joint labours, he even composed a song for voice and piano, with the
title ‘Rüsselmammuts Heimkehr’.
Horkheimer’s absence meant that for long periods Adorno had to
work alone on the manuscript at a time when it was already beginning
to take shape.^84 This labour of philosophical self-clarification was now
augmented by a huge research project. For thanks to the financial
assistance of the AJC, and further grants from the Jewish Labour Com-
mittee (JLC), it was now possible to set up a research organization over
a period of years.^85 Whereas the Institute of Social Research had
sole responsibility for the project on ‘Anti-Semitism within American
Labour’,^86 the second, much larger study, with the title ‘The Function
of Anti-Semitism within the Personality’, was to be carried out in co-
operation with other researchers and research organizations. Horkheimer
had already become aware of the Public Opinion Study Group, which
was directed by the social psychologist R. Nevitt Sanford together with
Daniel Levinson and Else Frenkel-Brunswik, all of whom were active
at the University of California in Berkeley.^87 After initial contacts, a
close cooperation soon developed between Adorno and Horkheimer
and the social psychologists. But before Adorno could devote himself
wholeheartedly to this collaborative task, he had to complete the
manuscript of the Philosophical Fragments, which of course themselves
contained a historical, sociological and socio-psychological theory of
racial prejudice.
By early 1944, when his joint work with Horkheimer was finished,
Adorno was in a position to involve himself in the new project on
anti-Semitism being carried out under Horkheimer’s direction. Adorno
had anyway written a whole series of memoranda for Horkheimer
on this topic, partly in parallel to the ‘Elements of Anti-Semitism’ and