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The cult of creativity has emerged in recent decades, promoted through books, media, education, and business. Creativity is seen as essential for success in both personal and professional life.
Creative types are said to be in demand and inheriting the earth in our knowledge/service based economy. Cities and companies cater to attracting the “creative class.”
Creativity is held up as a core part of personal identity, happiness, and self-actualization. It is linked to well-being, spirituality, play, and being fully human.
It is proclaimed as the solution to problems facing schools, healthcare, the economy, society and the planet. The potential for creativity is said to be within all people.
However, creativity is a fuzzy concept that is applied differently - sometimes as a skill, other times a trait. It ranges from great works of art to minor innovations.
Questions arise about whether promoting creativity more will actually address inequality and problems caused by overproduction. The cult of creativity raises uncertainties about what it really means and if it can deliver on ambitious claims.

In summary, the introduction outlines how creativity has emerged as a cult-like phenomenon in recent decades with grandiose claims about its benefits, while also noting conceptual fuzziness and uncertainties around these widespread views.

The passage discusses the rise of interest in and use of the term “creativity” starting in the mid-20th century. Prior to 1950, the term was rarely used and there was little academic study or discussion of the concept of creativity.
Around the end of World War II, use of the term “creativity” shot upward dramatically, in what the author calls the “Big Bang of creativity.”
The book aims to explain how and why interest in creativity arose when it did in the US after WWII. Contrary to expectations, it was not driven by artists or counterculture but by those trying to understand and foster creativity in science, technology, business, and advertising.
Those studying creativity in the postwar era sought to define it broadly as applying to both arts and sciences, everyday life as well as exceptional achievements, in an effort to reconcile tensions between individual expression and mass society, material and spiritual concerns.
The term “creativity” became popular in part because it captured a mix of meanings not fully expressed by earlier concepts like imagination, invention, genius, etc. and allowed new ways of thinking about relationships between technology, consumerism, and personal fulfillment.

This passage describes the context and social/economic forces that led to creativity becoming a prominent topic in America after World War II. The rise of “mass society” and conformity was seen as a threat to individualism and innovation in the postwar years. Large corporations and bureaucracies were believed to stamp out nonconformity and uniqueness.

At the same time, continued economic growth depended on innovation. The needs of industry were shifting from efficiency to marketing and product development. Managers worried that corporate culture focused too much on rationality and order, leaving workers ill-equipped for innovation.

There was a perceived need to “unleash individualism within order” - to revive the lone inventor spirit inside large organizations. Creativity emerged as a way to describe this pursuit. It was vaguely defined but seen as a trait that could potentially be fostered in anyone. Its promotion was meant to counter conformity, stimulate innovation, and keep capitalist progress going despite the dominance of big corporations and mass society. It addressed both economic and ideological interests in the postwar context.

The concept of creativity emerged in the postwar era in response to certain political and structural contradictions of that time. Psychologists developed tests to identify creative people, initially to serve military and corporate R&D needs, but also with the goal of freeing individuals from the psychic oppression of modern life. New creative thinking methods like brainstorming aimed to address worker alienation while also improving industrial productivity. The creative advertising industry marketed itself as both a way to boost sales and restore individual vision to the field. Corporations embraced creativity to spur innovation and appear more humane amid criticism of the military-industrial complex.

There were tensions between utilitarian and human concerns that creativity could help resolve. It endowed work with dignity by shifting the focus from products to the creative process. This allowed for a new creative subjectivity and broader views of whose labor had value. Arguments for participation often used the language of creativity.

Debates addressed tensions between individualism and mass society, optimism and pessimism, and elitism versus egalitarianism. Creativity mediated these tensions while reflecting anxieties about a lack of dynamism. Its study and promotion aimed to resolve contradictions, though coherent definitions remained elusive. Understanding how recently and practically creativity emerged illuminates our own situation and continued preoccupation with the idea.

In the late 1950s, poet Kenneth Rexroth participated in a psychological study of creativity at the Institute for Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) in Berkeley. He underwent Rorschach tests, made pictures with tiles, interpreted symbols, and had long talks with psychologists.
In the 1950s, there was a major boom in psychological research on creativity. The president of the American Psychological Association (APA) had called for more research on this neglected topic. Funding poured in from various government agencies and foundations.
Psychologists helped construct and promote the concept of creativity. Before their research, it was not really a defined psychological term. Their studies systematized knowledge about creativity and helped establish it as a concrete “thing.”
The rise of creativity research reflected tensions in psychology at the time. Psychology was influential but also felt pressure to prove its usefulness. Studying creativity helped identify talented individuals and fuel innovation, addressing funders’ concerns. However, it also pushed back against behaviorism, aiming to show psychology could serve more than just utilitarian ends.
In studying creativity, psychologists faced challenges in defining and operationalizing this slippery concept. Their approaches reflected both practical goals and beliefs about individual expression and dissent against conformity.
In the 1920s, behaviorism became a dominant force in psychology. Led by theorists like John Watson and B.F. Skinner, behaviorism sought to study human behavior scientifically by focusing only on observable behaviors and reactions to stimuli, without speculating about internal mental states. They viewed humans as conditioned by their environment in a mechanical, predictable way.
After World War II and events like the Holocaust, many criticized behaviorism for reducing humans to mere animals and denying free will. New movements in psychology arose to re-establish the complexity and dignity of human nature. Creativity research was part of this effort to move beyond the limitations of behaviorism.
Pioneers like J.P. Guilford and Calvin Taylor launched the Utah Conferences on creativity research in the 1950s, seeking to develop better tests that could identify creative talents needed for technological progress in the Cold War. They argued creativity involved unique abilities beyond just intelligence.
Their work built on early 20th century psychology but aimed to go beyond just testing intelligence. It addressed broader questions about human nature and sought to prove creativity had distinct traits, not captured by behaviorism or intelligence testing alone. This helped position psychology to regain relevance amid existential postwar concerns.
Francis Galton originally studied famous geniuses and concluded that genius was hereditary based on finding eminent relatives of geniuses. However, he did not consider environmental or cultural factors.
Alfred Binet later developed early IQ tests in 1904 to identify “feebleminded” children, which were adopted by American testers like Lewis Terman to select officers during WWI. Terman’s work cemented the link between psychometrics and the military.
Terman published studies of genius in the 1920s-30s asserting innate differences in intelligence. His longitudinal study of high-IQ children aimed to prove IQ predicted genius and encourage them to mate.
After WWII, research on the hereditary basis of intelligence declined due to associations with Nazi eugenics. However, early creativity researchers still embraced Galton’s assumptions of inborn abilities and focused on identifying elite talent rather than environmental factors.
Creativity research diverged from genius studies in not focusing on heredity/race. It also aimed to study a more widespread trait than rare genius by defining creativity in lesser achievements than celebrated works.
However, this posed challenges of distinguishing creativity from mundane imaginativeness as the scale decreased from eminent creators.
Early creativity research embraced the idea of “divergent thinking” as a key factor in creativity. Divergent thinking refers to the ability to generate multiple possible solutions to problems, as opposed to convergent thinking which arrives at a single answer.
Researchers developed tests to measure divergent thinking abilities like idea fluency, originality, and flexibility. They hypothesized that creative individuals would score higher on these tests compared to less creative people.
In order to study creativity, researchers first had to define and identify truly creative individuals. Some approaches included using reputation (critical acclaim, nominations), as well as occupations deemed creative like poets, novelists, mathematicians, and architects.
The goal was to compare people at the top of their creative fields to those in the middle and bottom, using metrics like publishing records, awards, and press coverage. Expert panels were also consulted to nominate the most creative practitioners.
However, defining and quantifying creativity proved challenging, as what counts as a “creative accomplishment” was debated. Researchers had to balance studying only true genius with having a standard that was measurable and applicable.
The researchers studying creativity claimed they wanted to identify architects who demonstrated original thinking, going beyond conventions. However, the rating form they used to score nominees only included more traditional measures of “firmness, delight, commodity, and social purpose.”
As a result, architects seem to have been chosen more based on general architectural merit and adherence to traditional standards, rather than truly original or innovative qualities.
The researchers equated eminence and recognition among peers as proof of high creativity. However, this overlooked factors like architects’ self-promotion and did not consider social impacts like class, race and gender.
Many conclusions drawn about the “creative personality” reflected the biases and tastes of the predominantly male researchers and subjects. Traits were naturalized as psychological rather than recognizing social/historical contexts.
The concept of creativity reinforced that only certain high-education, male-dominated fields could demonstrate true creativity. It did not consider creativity in areas like domestic work, and studies rarely included women.
The concept of genius had a long history of being gendered as male. For feminists, creativity offered a way to argue for women’s intellectual equality and opportunities outside the home. However, many early studies still claimed women were inherently less creative.

This passage summarizes debates around defining and measuring creativity in the 1960s and 1970s, as the field of creativity research was developing. Some key points:

Early researchers like Guilford found no difference in creativity between men and women, countering the idea that men were inherently more creative. However, socialization of girls/women was seen as a potential factor holding them back.
Friedan argued creative work was important for women’s self-actualization and economic justice, not just domestic roles. Antifeminists argued motherhood was women’s most creative role.
There was debate over whether creativity should be defined based on individuals/products deemed creative by reputation, or whether any new idea is creative to the individual who creates it.
Product-focused definitions raised issues of how to determine what makes a product truly creative/novel. Suggested metrics included patents, expert ratings, social impact/acceptance.
Insisting on social impact as the sole criterion would exclude many historically important but initially unrecognized creative works/people. The creative process itself was difficult to directly link to a product’s value or reception.

So in summary, it outlines historical perspectives and debates around defining and measuring something as complex and subjective as creativity. Differences centered on the individual vs. social dimensions of creativity.

Creativity researchers in the postwar era struggled to come up with a universal definition and criteria for creativity that everyone could agree on. Things like creative products, processes, acts of genius, everyday ingenuity, inspiration vs implementation were all debated.
This “criteria problem” hindered research and led some to conclude creativity meant different things to different people and fields. Common ground seemed impossible.
The concept of creativity emerged from a desire to move beyond just viewing genius or intelligence as the engine of progress. It implied creativity was more widely distributed, not just in rare geniuses.
This fit the priorities of psychologists at the time to have a democratic, not elitist view, and provide a concept useful for bureaucracy. Creativity suggested originality was more common and could be identified and fostered.
Creativity research had managerial applications, focused on using creative people effectively for industry and military. However, creative individuals were seen as less conformist, loyal only to their work, and difficult to direct via incentives, posing management challenges.
Alexander Osborn, founder of ad agency BBDO, developed a method called “brainstorming” in the 1940s to help groups generate ideas for campaigns, slogans, etc. His method encouraged freewheeling idea generation without criticism in order to promote creativity.
In the 1950s, spurred by J.P. Guilford’s research highlighting the importance of creativity, Osborn positioned himself as a leader in the new “creativity movement.” He founded the Creative Education Foundation to teach brainstorming and other creative thinking methods.
Osborn believed creativity was not just for geniuses but something anyone could develop through practice and methodical application. His techniques aimed to help ordinary people maximize their innate creative abilities.
His message that “you’re as rich as your ideas” resonated in postwar America. Brainstorming balanced encouraging individual inventiveness with addressing concerns about loss of agency in mass society. It presented creativity as something productive, practical and within everyone’s control.
Osborn saw himself as an evangelist promoting the good news that creativity was within everyone’s grasp. His methods updated traditional Protestant self-help values for a modern corporate environment.
Alex Osborn promoted the idea that creative thinking and ideas were the key to success in business, career, parenting, and life in general. He claimed that major accomplishments throughout history were simply the result of creative thinking.
This simplified past accomplishments and implied that everyday problem solving was on par with great works of art or literature. It invited people to see their work as contributing to civilization.
Osborn focused particularly on business applications and examples. He pointed to corporate suggestion systems as evidence that average workers could have good ideas and even earn promotions or side money from idea suggestions.
Brainstorming techniques took off in popularity in the mid-1950s, promoted by Osborn and his Creative Education Foundation. Many corporate and government organizations experimented with brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas.
The Creative Education Foundation actively campaigned to spread brainstorming techniques through press articles, demonstrations, and conferences. This generated interest from companies, individuals, and educational institutions looking to foster creativity.
The Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) held training programs starting in the early 1950s to teach Osborn’s method of brainstorming and creative problem solving. Enrollment reached almost 500 by the third year.
Many major companies like General Motors, DuPont, and others experimented with setting up creative thinking and problem solving programs that used brainstorming and other techniques. Osborn’s books promoting creativity were widely distributed.
DuPont set up an in-house brainstorming task force after executives attended CPSI. They conducted over a dozen brainstorming sessions in 1956-1957 but found it difficult to generate tangible results due to bureaucratic hurdles.
In 1958, the first scientific study of brainstorming found that group participation inhibited creative thinking compared to individuals working alone. This called into question the effectiveness of brainstorming.
There was significant backlash and criticism of brainstorming from thinkers and executives who argued that true creativity comes from individuals, not groups. Brainstorming lost popularity after the study cast doubt on its methods. Critics saw it as inhibiting the creative process.
At a conference on creativity, advertising executive Rosser Reeves criticized the brainstorming method, arguing true creativity comes from individuals, not groups.
Willard Pleuthner, who helped develop brainstorming at BBDO, defended the method, noting its success in industry. But Reeves was unconvinced brainstorming led to meaningful creativity.
Their debate revealed competing views of what constituted creativity - brainstorming advocates saw it as useful for everyday problem-solving, while Reeves saw true creativity as transformative ideas from great thinkers.
Alex Osborn, founder of brainstorming, hoped to solve all kinds of problems through creative thinking. He advocated training students in these techniques through new school programs and remaking education to emphasize creativity.
However, some professors resisted, viewing liberal arts as already cultivating creative, critical thinking. Osborn saw this resistance as reluctance to adopt pragmatic, results-oriented creative methods from industry and commerce.
Paul Osborn promoted the idea of “applied creativity” and methods like brainstorming to generate more ideas and solve problems in a collaborative way. He felt this approach could help address many social issues.
However, his ideas were viewed skeptically by some left-leaning intellectuals and academics. They saw Osborn and his corporate/business backers as lacking nuance and pushing simplistic solutions.
One example criticized was a 1955 brainstorming session on juvenile delinquency that generated over 100 ideas in 24 minutes but failed to grapple with the complexity of the issue. Critics felt brainstorming constrained real solutions.
Osborn tried to legitimize his approach through academic research led by Sidney Parnes at University of Buffalo. While studies found brainstorming skills could improve with practice, many researchers felt this captured only a narrow view of creativity.
Over time, as research suggested divergent thinking aspects of creativity could develop, academics like Torrance and organizations like the Utah conference incorporated more of Osborn’s applied creativity approach. Buffalo became a hub supporting both applied and research work.
However, Osborn always felt his ideas could transform society more if applied beyond industry to social problems, which received less conscious creative effort at the time.
Creative thinking was seen not just as a job skill but as a way for employees to feel like active agents of change and for managers to encourage new ideas despite corporate constraints.
Psychologist Carl Rogers saw creativity not just as an intellectual ability but as a fundamental life force tied to human self-actualization and fulfillment. He was concerned about conformity in industrial society and the lack of meaningful work.
Rogers’ view reflected his background in psychoanalysis and concerns about technological change disrupting society. His view came to influence creativity research and literature.
Humanistic psychologists like Rogers, Maslow, and May studied human thriving rather than dysfunction. They focused on creativity and self-expression, countering the early utilitarian focus in creativity research.
Maslow directly criticized approaches that treated creativity as a quantifiable resource or switch that could be turned on/off. He advocated a holistic view of the whole person, not just cognitive abilities. He saw creativity as tied to human excellence and fulfillment rather than just invention.
Maslow criticized narrow approaches to psychology that pursued only limited goals. He wanted psychology to address deeper philosophical questions about spirituality, meaning, and transcendence.
Maslow looked to neo-Freudian ideas that saw Freudian concepts like the unconscious in a more positive light, as something that could help people resist social conformity and thrive. He wanted to shift the focus from dysfunction to positive behaviors like creativity.
In a speech to Army engineers, Maslow said creative people were seen as “unconventional” and “a little bit queer.” Their less creative colleagues viewed them as undisciplined or childish. Meanwhile, uncreative people were orderly, punctual, and able to be bookkeepers.
Psychologists like Frank Barron wanted to rebut the “mad genius” theory that linked creativity to mental illness. Through their research, Barron and others argued creative people were not emotionally unstable but rather self-confident and industrious. Creativity came from a balance between irrational and rational tendencies.
The concept of “self-actualization” was key to linking creativity to psychological health. Creativity allowed people to reach their full potential and express themselves authentically.

In the postwar era, humanistic psychologists like Maslow, Rogers and Barron linked creativity with psychological well-being and self-actualization. They saw creativity, or inventiveness, as the fundamental human drive rather than Freud’s idea of sexual drive. Creativity represented symbolic creation and was seen as the defining human capacity.

Maslow noted in 1963 that the concepts of creativity and self-actualization were converging, as creativity came to be seen as integral to realizing one’s true self. However, there was some tension between seeing creative people as perfectly sane versus as misfits or outsiders. Humanistic psychologists resolved this by defining perfect sanity and autonomy as the same thing. They described creativity and the creative state in romantic terms, as a childlike innocence free from social demands or conventions.

While creativity was said to reject social conformity, it was also linked to being highly productive. There was a tension between elitist and egalitarian views of creativity - it was thought both exceptional and potentially accessible to all. Despite asserting its commonality, figures like Maslow still saw creative people as somehow superior. They positioned creativity and change as necessary responses to technological and social upheaval in the postwar era, though how creativity could specifically remedy issues like nuclear arms was unclear. Overall creativity was framed as integral to healthy adaptation to constant disruption and novelty in modern life.

Postwar humanistic psychologists saw creativity as a generally positive personality trait, regardless of how it was applied. This gave creativity a broader political significance during the Cold War era.
Intellectuals at the time mapped political ideologies like democracy and totalitarianism onto personality types. Studies argued democratic personalities were things like tolerant, flexible, and internally-driven, while authoritarian types were rigid conformists.
The creative personality came to be seen as another iteration of the democratic personality. Things like tolerance for ambiguity and resistance to conforming were seen as traits of both.
The creative individual represented the democratic society itself. Just as creative people valued freedom of expression, democratic societies were thought to foster creativity through such freedoms.
While politics was part of it, creativity researchers ultimately focused more on productivity and innovation rather than just democratic values. The creative traits of open-mindedness and resistance to conformity were seen as enabling problem-solving.
Humanistic psychologists emphasized the creative process in arts more than sciences. But they still saw creativity as more fundamental than just artistic production or expression.
Maslow and others viewed creativity as a “positive self-integrating force” that could improve well-being and turn people into “better people,” not just produce art. The goal of art education was personal growth, not art products.
They saw creativity as something that manifested outside of art, like in parenting, homemaking, etc. However, there was still something inherently “artsy” about creativity.
Maslow argued definitions of creativity were biased towards male examples and excluded women’s creativity. He felt studying women’s creativity could challenge psychological assumptions.
Researchers embraced the idea that mild effeminacy or being in touch with one’s “feminine side” could foster creativity in men. This reflected changing views of gender roles and masculinity in the postwar era.
Maslow saw creativity and science as reconciling masculine and feminine qualities in himself. However, he privately feared being seen as too feminine or ceding his own masculinity.
Over time, Maslow’s focus turned more to management and applying creativity ideas to business. He advocated an “enlightened” style focused on self-actualization, autonomy, and aligning individual/company goals to boost innovation.

So in summary, it discusses Maslow’s expanding views of creativity beyond art, challenges to gender biases, and eventual application of creativity ideas to management and business environments.

In the post-war era, creativity research sought to harmonize psychological well-being, liberal political values, and economic innovation imperatives. Theorists like Maslow argued creativity was essential for personal fulfillment and economic progress.
Maslow’s ideas helped reshape corporate culture, promoting flat hierarchies, sensitivity training, and playful work environments. However, critics questioned how realistic continuous creativity was for average white-collar workers.
The United Shoe Machinery Corporation was looking for ways to generate new product ideas to diversify. They were introduced to the Synectics method, which used analogical thinking and seemingly random associations to spark creativity.
Synectics was founded by ex-Arthur D. Little consultants George Prince and William Gordon. They believed traditional R&D was inefficient and sought to apply scientific process to creativity using empirical observation and group dynamics.
Synectics sessions involved deliberately irrational, playful techniques to access the unconscious mind. This was a novel approach that challenged views of creativity as mysterious. However, some found the methods bizarre.
In summary, postwar creativity research aimed to advance society and business, but questions remained around balancing creativity with organizational realities and individual capacities. Synectics applied scientific principles to spark innovation, though their unconventional methods raised skepticism.
William Gordon and George Prince developed the Synectics method for creativity and problem-solving through their research at Arthur D. Little analyzing problem-solving sessions on tape to refine their techniques.
They promoted their method called “Synectics” as an alternative to brainstorming. Gordon wrote up their findings in the book Synectics in 1961.
They formed their own company, Synectics Inc., America’s first creativity and innovation consulting firm. Their clients included major corporations seeking new products and solutions.
Convincing companies to pay for creativity consulting was challenging at first. Synectics had to demonstrate how it could generate new ideas and improve productivity.
Their unconventional method used metaphor, analogy and seemingly irrational associations to access the “pre-conscious” mind and spark new ideas. It had elements of group therapy and helped integrate non-rational thinking.
Engineers initially found the process strange but Synectics believed it could ignite creative energy in any field by addressing the “whole person.” It aimed to heal the split between rational and irrational thought.
Synectics served as a model for applying creative processes from art and poetry to business innovation and problem-solving. It helped make engineering more human and creative.
Synectics aimed to bring marketing and R&D personnel together earlier in the product development process, by having marketing people come up with ideas in innovation sessions and R&D people think of marketing angles. This coordination of different specialties may have been part of what made Synectics sessions effective.
In the consumer economy of the 1960s, companies like the shoe manufacturer needed to transition from purely technical problem-solving to more entrepreneurial invention of new products without defined problems. Synectics’ mixing of specialties and emphasis on creativity may have helped with this transition by providing a framework for coordinating different roles.
While it’s unclear if any specific ideas from their sessions were implemented, the shoe company was successful in diversifying into new industries beyond shoes by the 1970s, which their use of Synectics and creative problem-solving approaches may have facilitated to some degree.
Synectics claimed credit for some successful products like Pringles and Swiffer that applied existing technologies to new unmet needs, though it’s difficult to verify all results due to confidential client work and training-based business model.
Ellis Paul Torrance was a psychologist who received a grant in 1958 to study gifted children after the Soviet launch of Sputnik sparked fears about American technological and educational inferiority.
Torrance believed standard IQ and aptitude tests only identified conformist students and failed to recognize truly creative minds. He wanted to develop ways to identify and foster creative talent.
Torrance created the Torrance Tests for Creative Thinking, the first widely used tests designed specifically to measure creative ability in children. This allowed systematic study of childhood creativity.
Torrance saw creativity as a way to transcend divisions between progressives and traditionalists in education after Sputnik. He believed creativity was both a practical skill and personal quality everyone possessed.
Torrance’s work helped redefine assumptions about the ideal child and purpose of education. He advocated for recognizing and nurturing creative students who didn’t conform to standard measures of giftedness. His research was influential and inspiring to teachers and parents.

The passage discusses E. Paul Torrance’s work on defining and assessing creativity in children through testing. Torrance sought to balance progressive emphasis on creativity with non-progressive focus on workforce skills. He aimed to “salvage creativity from discipline of modern schooling.”

Torrance defined creativity not as production of new works, but as a thinking process involving problem identification, idea generation, testing ideas. This allowed assessing children’s potential through tests rather than accomplishments. He adapted existing tests into the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) assessing factors like idea fluency, flexibility, originality.

Testing found a “fourth grade slump” in scores, confirming schools kill creativity. But training in divergent thinking exercises helped maintain creativity. Torrance advocated such exercises and promoting creativity in schools to avoid issues like dropout rates. His work sought both to identify naturally creative children and develop creativity in all, merging the tensions between recognizing innate ability versus stimulating potential.

In 1959, the organizers of the Utah Conference invited Torrance to head a new subcommittee on developing creative potential. The conference was renamed to focus on identifying and developing scientific talent.
Psychologists began to view creativity not just as an innate ability, but as a skill that could be developed in all people across ages, cultures, and fields. The concept of creativity expanded.
Torrance’s work gained relevance in the educational debates of the time. He struck a balance between progressive, egalitarian views and Cold War needs to cultivate talented individuals.
Liberal reformers sought to reconcile the competing goals of democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility in education. They viewed schools as pluralistic institutions that nurtured both individual expression and national success.
Torrance argued creativity could foster individualism while also serving strategic interests by developing general thinking skills like problem-solving and adaptability.
Though criticized, Torrance was a hero to many parents and teachers who saw his tests as validating creative, troubled students and helping address their needs. His message gave hope to these students and their families.

The advertising industry in the late 1950s was facing several challenges. Despite increased ad spending, the 1958 recession shrunk budgets and clients were skeptical about ads’ effectiveness. Further, the average American saw over 1,500 ad impressions daily, so ads needed to stand out.

The industry also had an image problem due to critics like Vance Packard who portrayed ads as manipulative and conformist. This threatened the industry with further regulation.

To address these issues, the industry emphasized the need for more creativity in ads. Creative ads would be more interesting and memorable, improving quality. It would also boost the industry’s reputation.

However, agencies themselves had grown bloated through mergers, hampering creativity. Executive Walter Guild argued creative people like copywriters needed liberation from bureaucracy. Others like Draper Daniels agreed, saying bureaucracy had replaced pioneering entrepreneurs. Research departments also interfered with artistic decisions.

In summary, the industry argued more creative ads were needed to address budget cuts, client skepticism, and public relations challenges. But bureaucracy in large agencies was seen as stifling the creativity that was supposedly the solution. There was a push to empower individual creative talent over research and management.

Here is a summary of the provided text:

The passage discusses the growing focus on “creativity” within the advertising industry in the late 1950s. It describes a conference held by the Art Directors Club of New York in 1958 that brought together 500 advertising executives to discuss creativity. The conference featured speakers from both within and outside the advertising industry on topics like creativity in visual communication, engineering, industry, music, and more.

The organizer of the conference felt the advertising industry, which employed many “creative” people like writers and artists, could benefit from recent psychological research on creativity. The conference helped position creativity not just as a skill for making ads, but as a general human faculty. It aimed to show creativity was shared across fields like art, science, and technology. This reframed creativity as a legitimate pursuit for both creative types and more “hard-headed” businesspeople.

The passage argues the growing focus on creativity was driven primarily by those managing creative workers, not the creative workers themselves. Managers wanted to understand how to maximize creativity within their teams and growing bureaucracies. Most advice centered around giving creative people freedom and space to do creative work. The idea of “creativity” was becoming an important concept for the advertising industry to promote itself and legitimize the work of creative professionals.

During the postwar period in the 1950s-60s, the advertising industry faced criticism for being manipulative and lacking creativity. There was a push for more creative and artistic ads.
Executives proposed giving creative employees like copywriters and artists more flexibility, like flexible hours and freedom from administrative tasks. They argued creative people needed a loose and permissive environment to thrive.
Research from psychologists like Guilford was cited to show creative people tended to be less conventional and authoritarian, and less inclined to accept authority blindly. Too much criticism or pressure could stifle creativity.
Many admen looked to the 1920s as a past golden age when ads were works of art designed by studio artists. They wanted to move away from just scientific research and marketing tactics dominating advertising.
Figures like Bill Bernbach argued advertising was an art, not a science, and intuition was important. Too much focus on research and statistics could limit creative ideas. Creative work needed freedom from these constraints.
However, others argued creative employees still needed discipline and structure. Unfettered freedom was not practical for business. The debate pitted those prioritizing creativity against those focusing on scientific, client-driven practices.
Most admen tried to find a middle ground, giving creative workers more flexibility but still within the structure and goals of the advertising business. It was a push for a balance between creativity and commercial constraints.
The passage discusses the concept of “creativity” in advertising in the mid-20th century and its increasing importance and acceptance. Creativity was seen not just as an artistic indulgence but as fundamental to developing new ideas and distinguishing products.
Bill Bernbach was a key figure associated with the “creative revolution” in advertising. Though independently minded, his ads were functional and found ways to stand out from the crowd through restraint and functionality.
There was a sense that “creative people” in advertising were different and needed to be managed differently than other employees. Their autonomy was seen as important to the future of capitalism and the economy.
The passage explores how advertising evolved from primarily focusing on product characteristics to selling ideas and meanings associated with products. This shift aligned with the growth of consumerism and mass affluence but raised moral concerns about “manufacturing desire.”
Market researcher Ernest Dichter argued that creativity in advertising allowed imbuing products with meanings that fulfilled deeper psychological needs and drove a self-actualizing consumer society, countering critiques of advertising as manipulative. Creativity was a way to change consumer perceptions of products.
Ernest Dichter reinvented himself in his later career as a creativity consultant, offering seminars and materials on creative thinking for business executives. However, it’s unclear how successful this venture was.
In the 1960s, the advertising industry underwent a “Creative Revolution” where unconventional creative thinkers dominated agencies. Ads incorporated psychedelic imagery and countercultural styles to appeal to wealthy youth.
This era was kicked off by Bill Bernbach’s Volkswagen campaigns for DDB in 1959, which took an honest, anti-establishment tone that resonated with anti-consumerist sentiment. The campaigns positioned VW as the “anti-automobile.”
Creativity became a key concept and identity in the industry. It provided purpose during a time of crisis and signaled a disruption to business as usual. While overtly psychedelic ads faded, creativity remained central to the industry’s self-image as cultural innovators.
Later campaigns from companies like Apple and Pepsi continued this tradition of anti-establishment marketing to drive consumption. The identity of the “creative professional” expanded beyond advertising in the aesthetic/creative economy.
In the 1960s, creativity research had made progress in developing tests and assessments to identify creative ability in individuals. Major figures published books highlighting the field’s advances.
However, some psychologists were critical of creativity research, arguing there was no evidence tests could truly predict real-world creative performance. They questioned if creativity was actually distinct from intelligence.
In particular, tests like the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking showed low correlations between test scores and later creative accomplishments. Tests also did not show good “intercorrelation” - the traits they measured did not cluster consistently in individuals.
This called into question whether something like a general “c” factor of creativity actually exists, in the way general intelligence “g” does. Research suggested creativity traits are more domain-specific than originally thought.
The use of terms like “creative thinking” and labeling people as “creative” based on tests was critiqued as reifying creativity into a quantifiable trait, rather than real-world accomplishments. In response to these critiques, questions remained about defining and measuring creativity.
Researchers in the 1950s-60s studied “creativity” but struggled to clearly define the concept. They used it as a catch-all term for many positive qualities without a shared psychological definition.
Critics argued “creativity” was vague and not clearly distinguished from other virtues like intelligence or hard work. Researchers acknowledged the definitional issues but believed creativity was still a valid concept to study.
Studies found creative people tended to be hard workers who devoted significant time and effort to their work. However, researchers dismissed persistence as the main factor and kept looking for other psychological explanations related to creativity.
By the late 1960s, funding for major creativity projects dried up as doubts emerged. Researchers admitted the field had fallen short. While the concept of creativity remained psychologically ambiguous, applied fields like creative problem solving kept the idea alive. Overall, the summary argues the post-war creativity boom was built on an ambiguously defined concept that research struggled to validate psychologically.
From the 1960s-1980s, Barron, Torrance, and Guilford were leaders in the organization for research on creativity, as their research was finding less favor in traditional academic journals. This brought together disparate approaches to studying creativity.
Creativity research reflected a desire to reframe how psychologists categorized human abilities and talents in the postwar world. Creativity signified something more democratic than genius but more heroic than intelligence. It connected military, cultural, and spiritual progress.
The expansiveness of the creativity concept made consolidating knowledge difficult but facilitated different methodologies and perspectives coming together. Researchers from humanistic and psychometric approaches found common ground despite initial misgivings.
Humanistic ideas helped psychometric researchers articulate a broader social mission beyond just the military, while humanists found urgency knowing their work was relevant to national security. This synthesis brought different viewpoints together in the room and reflected a Cold War desire to balance rationalism with humanism.
The film “Why Man Creates” was produced for Kaiser Aluminum to help address a crisis of faith in technology and critique of mass society during a time when the notion of progress was compromised. It portrayed creativity as an alternative driving force while also assimilating critiques into the economic system.
After WWII, there was ambivalence about science, technology and progress due to issues like military-industrial complex, blurring lines between research/development, science serving profit/military over truth.
Creativity was seen by some as a way for scientists/engineers to take responsibility for technology’s impacts and direction. Promoting intrinsic motivation and broader significance in work.
John Arnold argued creativity could make engineers think more about social problems and design for human/emotional needs, not just function. Creative engineers would blend scientist and artist minds.
For companies like Kaiser Aluminum, embracing creativity shifted focus from vague/abstract products to the creative process itself. This recast technology as the result of passionate individuals vs a dehumanizing system. Gave scientific work a new transcendent value.
By focusing on the supposedly neutral/innocent creative process rather than outputs/impacts, creativity helped sidestep moral dilemmas around technology and recast it in a more positive light. Shifted accountability away from outputs/systems.
Arnold promoted the idea of the “creative engineer” - an engineer who takes a holistic, human-centered approach to problem-solving by drawing on social sciences, arts, and physical sciences. His view was that engineering should focus more on satisfying human needs rather than just technical or economic considerations.
However, Arnold’s vision was ultimately quite technocratic and rationalistic. He believed engineers could solve social problems like inequality better than politicians through technical innovation and optimization of resources/efficiency.
The 1958 Scientific American issue promoted the idea that science and art are psychologically similar acts of creation driven by individual minds. Figures like Jacob Bronowski argued scientists have an artistic, inventive side just like artists.
Bronowski’s view helped reconcile scientists’ identities with the applied, collaborative nature of postwar research by portraying all knowledge as creative invention rather than objective discovery. It portrayed science as a solitary, individualistic pursuit like art despite its institutional context.
This view that everything is an invented creation, not pure discovery, may have eased tensions for scientists working on directed, practical programs rather than open-ended research. It allowed seeing themselves as autonomous thinkers like artists.
Shortly before an innovation issue of Scientific American, the editor Dennis Flanagan argued that true creativity in science is the discovery of new principles, not just the application of existing ones. He drew a distinction between science and technology.
Flanagan believed “longhairs” or unconventional thinkers were able to pursue knowledge and discovery for their own sake through pure curiosity, similar to how artists are driven to create. He thought fundamental scientific discovery resembled art more than practical problem-solving.
Many large technology companies in the 1950s emphasized creativity in their advertising to appeal to potential employees and the public. They wanted to portray themselves as nurturing individual creativity rather than just bureaucratic problem-solving.
Ads referenced creativity in science and art as a universal human drive. They showed technology as artistic creations of the imagination rather than just pragmatic products. This was meant to counter views of large corporations as impersonal or militaristic.
The ads reflected the challenging work of establishing legitimacy for engineering at a time of concerns about white-collar work, militarism, and technocracy. Appeals to creativity offered a more personal framing beyond just professionalism.
The postwar economic order started to break down in the 1970s due to slowing growth, stagflation, and other issues. This led to a rise in neoliberal policies promoting free markets and deregulation.
Economies transitioned to postindustrialism as manufacturing jobs moved overseas and service jobs increased domestically. Remaining strong sectors focused on knowledge/creative work like finance, media, engineering, design.
This “new economy” was framed as an information/knowledge/creative economy focused more on experiences, brands, identities than tangible goods. Companies emphasized innovation, disruption, and flexibility over stability.
Job security declined as project-based, contract work became more common. Precarity replaced stability as the norm across industries. Workers were encouraged to follow their passions.
A new culture emphasized entrepreneurship, self-actualization, and personal liberation, dovetailing with consumer capitalism. The ideals of creativity promoted in earlier decades continued to animate this new economic order.

Based on the passage, one thing that remained intact over time in the institutions of creativity is the use of divergent thinking tests like the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and Guilford’s battery of tests. The passage notes that many studies in both social psychology and neuroscience have continued to utilize these divergent thinking tests, despite long-standing questions about their predictive validity. So the use of these classic divergent thinking tests as a measure of creativity appears to have remained consistent over the decades discussed in the passage.

The passage discusses the ongoing discourse around creativity and how certain ideas about it have persisted as “permanent myths” even after decades of research aiming to dispel them.
It notes that creativity experts continually argue against myths that creativity is only for artists or geniuses, even as they study famous creative figures. This rhetorical move helps define the space that creativity literature occupies.
The concept of “creative industries” expanded definitions of culture and the arts to include more commercial and technical fields. This blending of creativity, economics and innovation helped rebrand certain sectors.
The “creative class” framework similarly recategorized knowledge workers and cultural producers as a new mainstream group driving social and economic change through their creative talents and bohemian values.
Overall, the passage suggests concepts like “creative industries” and “creative class” are not just descriptive but aspirational, using creativity to accord value and cultural hierarchy to certain occupations and norms of work.
Richard Florida developed the concept of the “creative class” - people in creative fields like technology, arts, media, who drive economic growth in cities.
He ranked cities based on their “3 Ts” - Technology, Talent, and Tolerance (measured by LGBT acceptance). This became his “Creativity Index.”
Florida advised cities on attracting the creative class through amenities like walkability, culture, diversity. He felt this could revitalize struggling cities.
The “creative cities” movement took off, with many cities consulting Florida’s company on development strategies. This brought together ideas from urban planning, arts, and economic development.
However, critics argue the creative city model hides contradictions. It ignores divisions within the creative class. Real estate speculation drove up rents, displacing original artists. It normalized precarity and exploited aspiring creatives.
While popularity, the concept of creativity allows glossing over these issues by focusing on innovation, growth, and reconciling art and commerce. The creative rhetoric masks political choices behind capitalism.
The concept of creativity emerged in the post-World War 2 era as a way to promote individual expression and resist rationalization/bureaucracy. However, it has since been co-opted by capitalism to drive innovation and economic growth.
Some argue true creativity actively resists capitalism, but most creative acts still occur within a capitalist system. The idea that capitalism suppresses creativity isn’t really accurate - capitalism thrives on novelty.
While creativity is not inherently capitalistic, it has also been embraced by those on the left to locate individual power within oppressive systems and subtly reshape boundaries.
Creativity resonates widely today because it embraces flux/change over absolute truths, and reconciles tensions between utility/art, work desires/realities. However, it also constrains possibilities by equating all novelty with progress.
Instead of rejecting creativity, we should recognize its roots and be pragmatic in how we deploy it. But we could also emphasize alternate motivations like communication, understanding, care over constant differentiation/IP. This could reshape how we think about art, science and progress.

So in summary, the passage analyzes the contradictions of how creativity has been conceptualized and marketed, but argues for a pragmatic rather than prescriptive stance while also suggesting some alternative ways of framing human expression and problem-solving.

The passage critiques some key aspects of the “cult of creativity” and argues for a shift in perspective. It makes several points:

The idea that creativity is what makes us human is too limiting, as other human traits like caring, maintaining, copying etc. are also important.
Many social problems have known solutions, what’s lacking is political will, not new ideas. Emphasizing individual creativity promotes a piecemeal approach over collective action.
The pandemic revealed which jobs are truly essential for sustaining society (not always creative ones) and our interdependence as social beings beyond productivity.
Environmental crises show that constant innovation, growth and disruption encouraged by this cult are literally killing the planet.
Maintenance, infrastructure-building and caring for existing systems may be just as or more important than new ideas. Collective goals and questioning what should be produced are important.
Moving to an “ethic of care and maintenance” and questioning constant newness could offer a better ideal than obsessively pursuing individual creativity to “change the world.” Appreciating art for more than new ideas is also recommended.

So in summary, it critiques some assumptions of the creativity cult and argues for balancing it with other values like collective action, maintenance, and questioning constant newness and growth.

The author thanks several people who were generous with their time and expertise in helping the author understand the history of creativity, including psychologists, historians, and academics.
Thanks are also given to archivists who provided archives and recollections.
The author acknowledges the support from fellowships and initiatives at Stanford University that helped make the book possible.
Gratitude is expressed to colleagues at Delft University of Technology who provided a new understanding of the professional relevance of creativity.
Special thanks are given to a mentor and friend who supported the author through the difficult process of writing the book.
The editor, publishing team, and anonymous reviewers are thanked for their guidance in developing the project.
Additional colleagues and friends are thanked for their encouragement when the author doubted being able to complete the project.
Finally, the author’s parents are thanked for instilling the confidence to take on such an ambitious project, and the author’s partner is deeply appreciated for bearing much of the burden of the work.

Here are the key points from the summarized sources:

Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (2009) by Eric Bennett discusses how creative writing workshops at universities like Iowa emerged during the Cold War as a way to promote American culture and values abroad.
Workshops of Empire (2015) by Eric Bennet examines how creative writing programs at Iowa and other universities were influenced by the Cold War and used to promote American ideals during that period.
However, phrases like “the tradition of the new” and calls to “make it new” that characterized modern art may have overemphasized innovation alone.
By the 1960s, many artists rejected the cult of originality and instead saw themselves as art workers or facilitators rather than sole creators of innovative works.
The rise of creative writing programs was situated within the broader postwar cultural politics and idea of creativity during the Cold War period, according to these sources.

Here is a summary of the key points from the passages:

Alex Osborn, founder of advertising agency BBDO, developed and promoted the technique of brainstorming in the 1940s as a way to stimulate creative thinking and problem solving in groups. He authored several books outlining brainstorming techniques.
Osborn argued brainstorming should follow four basic rules - criticism is ruled out, freewheeling is welcomed, quantity is wanted, and combination and improvement are sought. The goal was to suspend judgment and encourage wild, uninhibited ideas.
Brainstorming was adopted by other companies in the 1950s-60s as a way to generate new ideas and solve problems. It became a popular technique taught in creative and design fields.
Some historians and sociologists argue techniques like brainstorming served to extract and control workers’ intellectual property for corporations during this period. Workers’ autonomy and innovation was curtailed as ideas became proprietary assets of firms.
Overall the passages provide historical context on the development of brainstorming as a creative technique by Alex Osborn in advertising and how it spread as a way to systematically solicit and harness workers’ ideas for commercial purposes in mid-20th century corporations.

Here are summaries of the sources:

Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975) by David F. Noble - Examines the rise of corporate capitalism and the roles of science and technology. Looks at how large corporations influenced the development of technologies like machine tools to centralize control of production.

America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York: Knopf, 1977) by David F. Noble - Traces the emergence of corporate control over science and technology in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Argues large corporations shaped the development of new technologies like machine tools to assert control over production and labor.

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (New York: Knopf, 1984) by David F. Noble - Examines the history of automation and its social and economic impacts. Addresses how automation technologies were developed and applied in ways that increased corporate control over production and disempowered workers. Traces debates over who has and should have control over new technologies.

Abraham Maslow published several works in the 1970s elaborating on his theories of creativity and self-actualization, including “A Holistic Approach to Creativity” and “The Creative Attitude” which focused on developing creativity and transcending barriers.
Maslow suggested creative people achieve “plateaus” and need support from society. His ideas influenced humanistic psychology and the 1960s counterculture.
Frank Barron also studied creativity in the 1950s-60s, seeing imagination and originality as important traits. He connected creativity to psychological health and believed society should nurture creative talents.
Timothy Leary experimented with using psychedelic drugs to enhance creative experiences.
Synectics emerged in the 1950s-60s as an applied creativity technique using metaphors and analogy to spark innovation in business. It presented an alternative to scientific management models and encouraged freer thinking.
Creativity was becoming a buzzword in education and child development in the 1950s-60s as experts argued school should nurture students’ natural creative capacities. This reflected broader social values around individual fulfillment and challenging conventions.

Here is a summary of key points from The Creative Child by Kristin Brossard:

The book examines the life and work of E. Paul Torrance, a pioneer in creativity research and assessments. It traces how he developed interest and research in creativity in the 1950s-60s.
Torrance helped establish creativity as a field of study in psychology through his development of tools like the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. These tests measured divergent thinking abilities.
Torrance’s research was influenced by the rising focus on creativity in fields like education, business, and technology in the postwar era. There was interest in fostering creativity and innovation.
Torrance highlighted the importance of creativity for individuals and society. He saw creative thinking as a way to address social and global problems. However, his positive view of creativity faced some skepticism from those who saw it as immeasurable.
The book examines how Torrance’s research fit into and influenced broader debates around creativity, intelligence, assessment, and education in the mid-20th century. It positioned him as a leading figure in establishing creativity as a domain of scientific study.
Through Torrance, the book also explores how ideas about creativity evolved from the 1950s through the rest of the century, becoming an important concept in fields like education, psychology, business and beyond.

Here is a summary of key points from the interview with E.P. Torrance:

Torrance conducted a landmark longitudinal study on the development of creativity through his Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. He is considered a pioneering researcher in creativity and gifted education.
In the interview, Torrance discussed his view that creativity is a learned ability that can be developed through practice and experience. He did not see creativity as solely the result of innate talents.
Torrance emphasized the importance of curiosity, risk-taking, and openness to new experiences in nurturing creativity. He felt these qualities were often discouraged in traditional school environments.
Based on his research, Torrance argued creativity peaks in late adolescence/early adulthood then plateaus or declines if not further developed. Continuous learning, problem-solving, and exposure to new domains can help maintain creativity at a high level.
He discussed the need for assessments to identify creative strengths and potential in students to better support their development. His Torrance Tests were designed to measure thinking skills related to creativity like fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.
Torrance felt more interdisciplinary learning experiences could foster creative skills by exposing students to new ways of thinking outside their usual areas of study. He advocated breaking down barriers between academic disciplines.

That covers the key points about E.P. Torrance’s views on creativity based on his interview with the ion Foundation. Let me know if you need any clarification or have additional questions.

Here is a summary of key points from sbaum, Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire (New York: HarperBusiness, 2013), 6–7:

The book argues that creativity is not just about individual genius, but rather is a process that anyone can harness. Creativity comes from making connections between diverse ideas and perspectives.
Three core aspects of creative intelligence are discussed: create, connect, inspire. To create means generating novel and useful ideas. To connect means making unexpected connections between different fields, cultures, or bodies of knowledge. To inspire means influencing and engaging others through your ideas and vision.
Fostering creative intelligence requires becoming comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. It also requires engaging broadly with diverse people and information to spark new perspectives and connections.
Environments that encourage exploration, play, collaboration and sharing ideas can help develop creative intelligence in individuals and organizations. Strict hierarchies and isolated “silos” tend to stifle creative thought.
Overall the intro argues that creativity is not mystical genius but rather an intelligence that can be developed through openness to new information and bringing together diverse viewpoints in novel ways. The book aims to provide practical guidance for nurturing creative intelligence.

Here is a summary of the selected sections:

era, 186–89

Discusses the post-industrial era beginning in the late 20th century, characterized by increased emphasis on creativity, innovation, and knowledge work. Creative industries like advertising saw growth. Old Fordist order focused on manual labor was replaced by a new creative economy.

ubiquity of creativity, 196–202

Notes how creativity has become ubiquitous in modern society and economy. References the creative class, creative cities, creative economy paradigm, and the idea of creative everything. However, also discusses some cultural contradictions and paradoxes that have arisen from the cult of creativity, like the pressure to constantly come up with new ideas.
Abraham Maslow’s views on creativity emphasized autonomy, self-actualization, and Primary Creativeness. He saw creativity as something everyone is capable of and felt artists exemplified self-actualization. He also discussed the gendering of creativity.
Torrance expanded on Guilford’s work and developed the widely used Torrance Tests for Creative Thinking (TTCT). He emphasized nurturing creativity in education and conducted research on creative children. While widely influential, his work has also received some critiques.
Alexander Faickney Osborn founded the Creative Education Foundation and developed brainstorming as a technique to spur creativity. He believed creativity could be taught and emphasized its importance for solving social problems.
Sydney J. Parnes and the University of Buffalo hosted conferences on identifying creativity that helped establish the field of creativity research. Parnes also co-authored influential publications.
Several articles and books summarize key debates and ideas regarding defining and measuring creativity from the 1950s-1970s as the field was emerging. Critics argue more attention to social factors was needed.
Brainstorming was developed in the 1940s by ad executive Alex Osborn as a technique to generate creative ideas in groups. It encourages wild, uncritical ideas to overcome psychological barriers. However, some research questions its effectiveness.
Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were early 20th century inventors and innovators. Max Wertheimer was a psychologist who founded Gestalt psychology which studied the brain’s innate capacities to perceive patterns and make sense of complex concepts.
The Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Energy Division in Pittsburgh developed nuclear reactors for submarines and power plants in the postwar period, employing over 10,000 people in technical fields by the late 1950s.
After WWII, white-collar administrative and technical jobs expanded rapidly as the workforce modernized and many women joined the labor force in these new occupations. However, gender stereotypes persisted.
An article by Robert Bass analyzed conceptions of creativity through history and across disciplines like philosophy, psychology and theology. William Whyte studied corporate culture and organization at IBM in the postwar era.
Several individuals are mentioned but not described in detail, including a nuclear engineer, an ad agency, and scholars who researched Soviet and gender perspectives on creativity.

#book-summary

The Cult of Creativity A Surprisingly Recent History - Samuel W. Franklin;