Ernest Dichter Papers - Hagley Museum and Library

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
Accession 2407
ERNEST DICHTER PAPERS
Writings & Drafts
This series consists of 25 linear feet of Dr. Dichter‟s rough writings and drafts, part of
which were originally kept in a series of three-ring binders. There is some overlap with
other series of Dr. Dichter‟s writings. Dichter kept multiple drafts of his various works,
often with different annotations. He also recycled parts of one work into another and kept
drafts of each of the stages of evolution of his books, often under different working titles.
Other drafts were simply fragments without precise title information. As a consequence,
all of the drafts that could not be identified as obvious exact copies have been preserved
and arranged alphabetically. The series documents how Dichter refined his presentations
and how he reused particular insights and illustrative examples in multiple works.
Of greater interest are Dichter‟s autobiographical writings in English and German.
There is also a typed diary from the years 1942 to 1944 which provides the only available
window into Dichter‟s private thoughts during his first years in America, when his career
was still in flux and he sought to establish himself in New York.
Dichter‟s “Subject Files” consist of samples of Dichter‟s writings and notes arranged
by subject rather than chronologically or by project or client. This file presumably
allowed Dichter and the Institute‟s staff to access quickly all of Dichter‟s more important
thoughts on a particular topic. Speeches, drafts, and proposals for studies are all doublefiled
as part of the “Subject Files.” As might be expected, the “Subject Files” cover the
heyday of the Institute from 1943 to the mid 1970s and contain some of Dichter‟s best
early writings. The text of a telephone interview with the Wall Street Journal in the
wake of the Robert Kennedy assassination captures Dichter‟s reactions, not only to the
assassinations, but also the student upheavals of 1968, and shows him having second
thoughts about his earlier pronouncements about violence on television. Files from the
1970s show an early interest in solar energy, both from the purely technical side and in
visionaries like Paolo Soleri and his Arcosanti community.
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