In 1947, no physics department in the United States had a center for research in general relativity. At Syracuse, Bergmann established one of the first research centers devoted to studying the general theory of relativity to reconcile it with quantum theory. A 1949 Physical Review paper by Bergmann's program contained the key ideas of nonperturbative canonical general relativity. For the rest of his career, he oriented his research on those concepts. He was concerned with the interpretation of general covariance and initiated the search for observables whose commutation relations are necessary for the successful quantization of gravity. Bergmann and his students were the primary contributors to the literature of general relativity until the mid-1950s. Twenty years later, there were more than a dozen general relativity research centers and now it is in the mainstream of current physics research.