Early Years
BORN January 27, 1910 Robert S. Hartman (nee: Robert Schirokauer) born Berlin, Germany.
1914 Hartman’s father accepted as a volunteer in the Kaiser’s army. (Hartman’s first memories of the darkness of war and death).
1925 Hartman began to question German values and wrote essays rebuking capital punishment and extolling the value of human life.
Education and Teaching
1926-1932 Hartman attended: German College of Political Science, the University of Paris, the London School of Economics, and Berlin University.
1929-1932 spoke out against the Nazi Party and wrote anti-Nazi articles for Das Freie Wort.
1932 Wrote Die Frau Hitler (The Woman Hitler) – a defamatory article about Nazi leadership.
1932 Received the Legum Baccalaureus from Berlin University.
1932 Briefly taught administrative law and philosophy of law at the University of Berlin and worked as an assistant district court judge.
Early Career and Family Life
1932 Hartman left Germany for Britain, using a fake passport and changed his name to Robert S. Hartman.
1932- 1934 Hartman worked as a professional photographer in London and Paris.
1934-1941 Worked for Walt Disney Productions as a copyright representative in Scandanavia, Mexico, and Central America.
1936 Married Rita Emanuel.
1938 Hartman moved his family to Mexico.
1941 Hartman and family immigrated to the United States and became a citizen.
1942 Published the essay, “Prime Number and Cosmical Number” in Philosophy of Science.
Publishing and Teaching
1946 Doctoral work in philosophy at Northwestern University. Published “Can Field Theory be Applied to Ethics?”
1945-1948 Professor of philosophy at the College of Wooster in Ohio.
1948 Author of Profit Sharing Manual, Columbus, OH: Council of Profit Sharing Industries. Hartman has been credited with being the founding spirit behind the prevailing business-retirement plan in the United States today, the 401K Plan.
1948-1956 Professor of philosophy at Ohio State University.
1949-1955 Published report on Value Theory for the Institut International de Philosophis.
1950-1957 Chairman of the Commission on Peace for the International Council of Community Churches. He served as Executive Director of the Council of Profit-Sharing Industries. A founder of the Deutsche Institute fur Social-Wirtschaftliche Betriebsgestaltung (industrial organization). He was a founding sponsor of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology.
1953 (1958) Published: “Die Partnerschaft von Kapital und Arbeit: Theorie und Praxis eines neuen Wirtschaftssystems”, Opladen-Cologne: Westdeiitscjer Verlag.
1955-1956 Visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts.
1956- 1957 Smith Mundt State Department Research Fellow and Exchange Professor at the National University of Mexico.
1957 Presented “The Science of Value” at M.I.T. conference on human values organized by the Research Society for Creative Altruism. Paper published in 1959 in New Knowledge in Human Values, Abraham H. Maslow, ed.
1957 Published: Axiologia Formal: La Ciencia de la Valoración, Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
1957-1973 Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mexico.
1959-1961 The "Hartman-Cardenas Seminar on Formal Axiology and Humanistic Psychoanalysis." was developed and taught at UNAM. From this seminar evolved the first technical applications of formal axiology employing the forms Hartman developed in collaboration with Cardenas Trigos. This became the value inventory or valuemetric instrument called the Hartman Value Profile (HVP). It was first published in Spanish by El Manual Moderno in Mexico.
1959 Published: “La Estructura del Valor: Fundamentos de la Axiologia cientifica” Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
1963 Published: “La Participacion de Utilidades en Mexico” Mexico City: Asesores de Pensiones.
1963 Hartman published his chapter, “The Measurement of Value,” in Albert Ellis’s Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy.
1963-1964 Hartman, ever a proponent of world peace, proposed a “Peace Fund of the Non-Nuclear Nations” and sent letters to Mexico, Ghana, India, Indonesia, The United Arab Republic, Finland, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Poland, and Pope Paul VI. He proposed that nuclear power is under the control of the United Nations to prevent proliferation and worldwide threat.
1963 Hartman wrote his autobiographical Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story for use in a management seminar he taught at the Nationwide Insurance Company during 1962 and 1963.
Later Works and Value Profile Development
1965 Hartman began preparing the values test The Hartman Inventory, a precursor to The Hartman Value Profile.
1965 Published: “La Ciencia del Valor” Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico.
1965 Published: “El Conocimiento del Bien: Critica de la Razón Axiológica” Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
1966 Visiting professor at Yale University.
1966 Miller Associates was incorporated to market one of the earliest applications of the HVP.
1967/1969 Published The Structure of Value, Foundations of Scientific Axiology in the United States, Southern Illinois University Press at Carbondale, Illinois. A slightly modified softback edition was published in 1969.
1967 Published: “El Inventario de Valores Hartman” Mexico City: El Manual Moderno
1967 The Hartman Value Inventory published Boston: Miller Associates, 1967, Austin: Axiometrics Incorporated, 1969. Translations in Spanish, German, Swedish, Japanese, and Hebrew.
1968 Hartman obtained an appointment as a Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Hartman then divided his time between Knoxville and the University of Mexico in Mexico City, usually teaching six months in Tennessee and six months in Mexico City.
1968 Dave Mefford became Hartman’s Teaching Assistant.
1968 -1970 Future RSHI Founders and early adopters of the Hartman Value Profile first meet Hartman and began studying with him: Dave Mefford, Wayne Carpenter, Kurt Kaltreider, Richard C. Leggett, Mark A. Moore, Rem B. Edwards, Gary Acquaviva, Art Ellis, Bill Curley, John Austin, and Richard Clarke.
Late 1960s: Hartman served on the board of editors of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology with Viktor Frankl, Sidney M. Jourard, Abraham H. Maslow, Arthur Koestler and Robert Tannenbaum.
1968 Hartman chaired a section on “Ethics and the Philosophy of Values” at the Fourteenth International Congress of Philosophy in Vienna where he met Dr. Viktor Frankl. Hartman and Dr. Frankl discussed establishing an Institute for Value Analysis and Logotherapy in the United States, but the Institute never materialized.
1969 Hartman conducted off-campus HVP classes using his early Manual of Interpretation. David Mefford, Gary Acquaviva, Art Ellis, and Bill Curley were given certificates by Hartman that sanctioned them as thoroughly trained and qualified to interpret the HVP.
1969 Hartman established Axiometrics, Inc. in Texas which became Axiometric Testing Service in Tennessee. At this time, Hartman authorized Research Concepts to market HVP.
1970 A memo submitted to the National Institute of Mental Health suggested that the Hartman Value Profile could be used as a predictor of violent behavior and useful as a screening test.
1970 Published: The Hartman Value Profile. Alcoa, Tenn.: Axiometric Testing Service.
1970 Published: Research Manual of the Hartman Value Profile. Alcoa, Tenn.: Axiometric Testing Service.
1970 Published: “Manual de Interpretación del Inventario de Valores Hartman” Mexico City: Servicios Psicoaxiológos.
1971 Hartman submitted a proposal to the Rehabilitation Services Administration to utilize the Hartman Value Profile as an assessment for vocational rehabilitation clients.
1971 First president of the American Society for Value Inquiry (founded by James Wilbur).
1972 Value and Valuation, Axiological Studies in Honor of Robert S. Hartman, by John W. Davis published.
1972 Published: La Situación Moral: Fundamentos de la Teleologia Cientifica. Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
1972 Published: La Estructura del Valor Intrinseco: Introducción Axiológica a la Etica y la Estética. Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
1972 The Journal of Value Inquiry published Hartman's article, The Value Structure of Creativity
1973 Hartman nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
DIED September 20, 1973 Cuernavaca, Mexico
