"Educational administration and the social sciences", the landmark text coedited by Baron and Taylor in 1969, represented the study of educational administration as an applied interdisciplinary field. George Baron's own academic career reveals the struggles involved in the construction of this new field and the resistance and opposition that it encountered. It also highlights both the strengths and the incipient tensions of the field that "Educational administration and the social sciences" failed to take into account in its optimistic narrative of expansion and partnership.