 Presentation of the library of the social CEDIAS-Musée
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The name chosen is misleading and especially reflects a modest initial project: permanently preserve and display the documents of the pavilion of Social Economy of the World's Fair of 1889. One hundred years after the French Revolution and close to twenty years after the Paris Commune, during a period of economic crisis, changes in industrial structures and the rise of workers movements, the necessity of reflection on the indispensable reforms necessary to protect – and even to reestablish – a climate of social peace in business and in society was pressing. The plan for an institution to collect and to preserve documents and information about experiences and successful projects in the social domain had defenders in various circles. These followers existed among the followers of Frédéric Le Play, who saw the means to improve the conditions of the working classe in employers' institutions and mutual insurance companies, in the circles of the social Christianity, or among those who favored the intervention of the State and the initiatives of the workers themselves, provided that they were not revolutionary.
 When the leaders of this project, Jules Siegfried, Léon Say and Émile Cheysson met the count of Chambrun the result was the creation of a private foundation in 1894, to which the latter decided to dedicate his fortune. At once recognized as a publicutility and officially inaugurated in March, 1895, the foundation which adopted the name of The Musée Social would become ia true research institute.
Endowed with many resources, the Musée Social was organized according to an original and innovative conception for time. Several sections of study and inquiry were organized with the aim of gathering documentation on novel projects and experiences which could arouse debates, contribute to the evolution of legislation, and inspire new programs. These sections organized study missions entrusted to paid researchers. These studies presented reports, which were often the subject of public lectures and were published in the periodicals of the Musée Social or in the collections of written works published under its name. The section of labor and cooperative associations, led by Léon de Seilhac, sent observers to the French and international socialist labor congresses, and to the congresses of labor unions, cooperatives or mutualist societies. They could also be found at the big strikes which mark the history of III Republic. All of the documentation gathered during these inquiries was deposited in the library of the foundation, resulting in an original and rare documentary collection. Besides the sections of studies (section of urban and rural hygiene, agricultural section, sections on labor associations and cooperatives, welfare, employers' institutions, etc.), permanent services were established with the mission of establishing a practical system of documentation to welcome and inform the public.
Although of different ideological sensibilities, the driving forces behind the Musée Social were moved by the same will to reform, which led them to inspire and to influence number of laws, to the point that that the institution was nicknamed « the anteroom of the Chamber » at the time. The influence of the lobbying done by the Musée Social is most obvious in the areas of urban planning and housing reform. In 1908, it participated actively in the campaign for the preservation of public parks in the ring of the fortifications around the outside of Paris. Later, the laws of 1919 on urban expansion and of 1928 on public housing were prepared within the Section of urban and rural hygiene before being submitted to the Parliament.
In spite of this, the foundation created by the count of Chambrun wasn't spared by the changes of the 20th century . After the second world war, its role as a laboratory of social reform lessened in favor of the activities of study and documentation. In 1963, the Musée Social merged with the Office Central des Oeuvres de Bienfaisance (Central Office of Charitable organizations), founded in 1890 by Léon Lefébure, whose goal was to list and to coordinate different charity organizations to make private assistancemore effective. It then became the CEDIAS-Musée Social (Centre for social studies, documentation, information and action) which dedicates itself to informing and reflecting on social questions, and more specifically to the problems of social action. It remains a space for meetings and exchanges.
 A living place of memory and research on the social
Since its origins the foundation's wide conception of the social corresponded to a new and visionnary conception of the documentary collection of its library, which is the masterpiece of the institution and the tangible expression of its perpetuity through time. The task assigned to the library was to take in all the French and foreign documents concerning the state and the evolution of the big social questions, both to facilitate the work of the co-workers of the social Museum and its sections, and to establish a resource center useful for all those who are interested in the study of social problems. The gathered documentation very quickly became important, thanks to a systematic policy of purchases and subscriptions but also to original modes of document collection.
 The first curator of the library had already made numerous contacts with the representatives of the main social movements, which regularly sent their publications, some of whom still continue to do so. The contacts made (with associations, unions, political parties) resulted in a collection of rare sets of periodicals, which today are able to mitigate some grave gaps of the large Parisian libraries which had more traditional aquisitions policies. One must recall that at the end of 19th and at the beginning of 20th centuries institutions and researchers who worried scientifically about social questions were rare; certain documents, of which only a few copies were published – sometimes quasi-illegally – escaped copyright registration. Also, links had been established with specialists of social questions in various countries, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the United States, which contributed to the international scope of the gathered documentation.
But the library did not only content itself with receiving documents to classify and to preserve, it also wanted to them out, and sometimes even to create them. The researchers of the Musée Social were sent where a movement had been born, where the form of social organization merited study, to observe and analyze a strike, to attend a labor or mutualist congress and collect the corresponding documents. Once collected, these documents could be of use as the basis of publications which would evetually enrich the library. A network of connections with the academic circles, with people working in social fields, or with the driving forces of different social movements was both a condition and the result of this activity.
The thought process of the founders and the other driving forces of the Musée Social explains the variety and the wealth of the collection. For the purpose of social peace, they were interested in workers' standard of living and in labor struggles, but also in any attempts to improve these conditions, whether made by employer's or the state. In the library of CEDIAS-Musée Social today there is documentation on the welfare system (in France and in the other European countries), the popular banks, popular credit associations, the statutes of cooperatives or acts of the labor union congresses. There are also documents on the policies and legislation concerning occupational accidents and retirement pensions, public housing, the family, etc. Its interest in the connection between the problems of labour movements and those of social assistance, philanthropy and social action, and between social movements and the state policies, is one of the most original aspects of this library.
Even though CEDIAS-Musée Social's library has seen its budget decrease during its history, and the Foundation is no longer capable of sponsoring inquiries and research missions itself, it continued to develop in the same spirit, thanks to its roots in scientific and social action circles. Today it still represents a meeting place between social actors and social scientists, it is able to improve and create links between both domains, research and activity on the ground, which are always rare. Because of this it occupies an exceptional place among French libraries: distinctive because of the originality and the wealth and the coherence of its collection, it is a part of our heritage.
Selective bibliography
• Books, studies
CHAMBELLAND Colette (dir.), Le Musée social en son temps, Paris, Presses de l’École normale supérieure, 1998, 402 p.
HORNE Janet R., A Social Laboratory for Modern France. The Musée social and the Rise of the Welfare State, Durham & London, Duke University Press, 2002, XIII-353p.
MAGRI Susanna, Les laboratoires de la réforme de l’habitation populaire en France : de la Société française des habitations à bon marché à la Section d’hygiène urbaine et rurale du Musée social, 1889-1909, Paris, Ministère de l’équipement, du logement, des transports et du tourisme, 1995, 104 p.
VACHER Hélène, Projection coloniale et ville rationalisée : le rôle de l’espace colonial dans la constitution de l’urbanisme en France, Aalborg, Aalborg University Press, 1997, 422 p. (rééd. 2001).
• Articles
BAUDET Marie-Béatrice, «Les belles œuvres du Musée social», le Monde, 6 septembre 1995.
BLUM Françoise, «Le Musée social : lieu de mémoire vivant de l’économie sociale», Revue de l’économie sociale, n° 19, 1990, pp. 159-164.
BLUM Françoise, HORNE Janet, «Féminisme et Musée social : 1916-1939. La Section d’études féminines du Musée social», Vie sociale, n° 8-9, août-septembre 1988, pp. 314-402.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «À travers cent ans de publications du Musée social», Vie sociale, n° 6, 1994, pp. 41-76.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «Le CEDIAS-Musée social : entretien avec Michel Dreyfus», Revue de l’économie sociale, n° 4, avril-juin 1985, pp. 253-257.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «Cent ans de Musée social», Urbanisme, n° 281, mars-avril 1995, pp. 55-56.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «En revenant de l’Expo… La fondation du Musée social», Les Études sociales, n° 121, 1993, pp. 3-11.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «Le Musée social, un champ de recherches», le Mouvement social, n° 171, avril-juin 1995, n° 171, pp. 71-78.
CHAMBELLAND Colette, «La Sorbonne du social a cent ans : propos recueillis par Bernard Gibaud», Revue des études coopératives, mutualistes et associatives (RECMA), n° 256, 2e trimestre 1995, pp. 26-34.
ELWITT Sanford, «Social Reform and Social Order in Late Nineteenth-century France : The Musée social and its Friends», French Historical Studies, vol. XII, n° 1, spring 1980, pp. 431-451.
HORNE Janet, «L’économie sociale et la naissance du Musée social», in A. Gueslin et P. Guillaume (dir.), De la charité médiévale à la Sécurité sociale, Paris, les Ed. ouvrières, 1992, pp. 107-116.
HORNE Janet, «Le Musée social à l’origine : les métamorphoses d’une idée», le Mouvement social, n° 171, avril-juin 1995, pp. 47-69.
HORNE Janet, «L’antichambre de la Chambre : le Musée social et ses réseaux réformateurs, 1894-1914», in Ch. Topalov (dir.), Laboratoires du nouveau siècle. La nébuleuse réformatrice et ses réseaux en France, 1880-1914, Paris, Ed. de l’EHESS, 1999, pp. 121-140.
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