Former CAS Director and Professor Emeritus of History, Gary Cohen, speaks with Lotte Bailyn

The Botstiber Institute for Austrian American Studies welcomed former CAS Director and UMN Professor of History Emeritus, Gary Cohen, to their podcast as a guest host, where he interviewed Lotte Lazarsfeld Bailyn, T Wilson Professor of Management Emerita at MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Born in Vienna in 1930, Bailyn is the daughter of the the eminent social psychologist Marie Jahoda (1907-2001) and Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976). Bailyn's parents divorced in the 1930s, and Lazarsfeld left for the United States in 1933, and later founded Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research. Jahoda was imprisoned by the Austrofascist government due to her activity with the Socialist Party, which had been outlawed following the Austrian Civil War in 1934. Following her imprisonment, Jahoda went into exile after the Schuschnigg Regime revoked her citizenship. Bailyn herself left Austria in 1937, and did not see her mother again until after the end of World War II. Bailyn later received her B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from the Radcliffe Graduate School (now part of Harvard University). After teaching at various institutions Bailyn began at MIT in 1980, where she became Sloan's first woman faculty member. 

Bailyn followed in her parents' footsteps and also became a social psychologist. She went on to complete groundbreaking research on the effects of industrialization on the world of work. In a piece in Harvard Magazine, Bailyn is cited as being "an expert in work and family dynamics, who researched the relationship between institutional and organizational processes and employee’s lives, emphasizing the importance of diversity in educational and business settings. In her 1993 book, Breaking the Mold, Bailyn argued that considering work and family life as separate spheres is no longer tenable in the current competitive business environment."  

In the inteview with Professor Cohen, Bailyn discusses her life story, and the role her Austrian background has played in both her professional and personal life.