Search

Historians of sociology have long recognized the Protestant ambience within which the discipline emerged in the United States. Autobiographies elicited by L. L. Bernard in the 1920s and 1930s provide insight into the impact of this background on early American sociologists. In addition to confirming the importance of mainstream Protestantism, the autobiographies reveal a multitude of identity strategies adopted by those who came to call themselves sociologists. In negotiating the relation of religious and secular spheres, some abandoned religion en route to a sociological career. Others became sociologists of religion, separated value-laden (religious) aspects of their lives from value-neutral (sociological) endeavors, created a sociologically informed mode of Protestantism, or molded a Protestant sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Chicago sociologist William F. Ogburn's (1886–1959) views about technological unemployment, which were intimately connected to his analysis of the social impacts of technological developments and resulting social problems due to cultural lag. We trace the development of his views as seen through his well‐known 1922 book, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, his important contributions to the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933), and his lesser‐known pamphlets designed for a broader audience—Living with Machines (1933), You and Machines (1934), and Machines and Tomorrow's World (1938). He used these pamphlets to educate the public about the dangers of new machines and technological unemployment. In doing so, he drew upon sociological analysis in his professional scholarly writings and his long‐standing personal interests in social betterment and social reform. Our analysis also calls into question the adequacy of existing scholarship on Ogburn that has emphasized his commitment to a statistical, dispassionate, and "objectivist" approach to social science research. We call for a revised, richer, and more complex view of Ogburn's work and legacy as one of the nation's leading social scientists during the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the significance of the initial decade of Robert K. Merton's graduate and professional career, from 1931, when he entered the new doctoral program in sociology at Harvard, until 1939, when he joined the Department of Sociology at Tulane University as an associate professor and acting chairperson. Drawing on archival sources, as well as the professional literature, I examine how Merton engaged the exceptionally rich, interdisciplinary context of Harvard in the 1930s, including both interpersonal networks and diverse intellectual perspectives. In particular, I identify connections between Merton's early writing, “oral publications” and teaching, and three locally developed and dominant paradigms of sociology. Following an assessment of the influence of Merton's works published from 1934 to 1939, I trace continuities between Merton's achievements at Harvard and his subsequent teaching and research at Tulane and Columbia. I conclude that a fuller appreciation of Merton's “less noticed” decade in Cambridge is indispensable for understanding his overall career, and that it clarifies linkages across sociological work at three universities in the mid-twentieth century. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of the 1940s the Social Science Research Council's Committee on the Appraisal of Research, then chaired by Ernest Burgess, commissioned a restudy of the cases and methods used by Robert Angell in his well-known book The Family Encounters the Depression. The restudy involved prominent sociologists. Burgess provided a draft report, but no final report invites investigation. This paper summarizes the history and content of the draft report, and examines its meaning in the context of the methodology of the period. The nature and fate of the report reflect conflicting methodological tendencies at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper records the Polish aspects of P. F. Lazarsfeld's sociointellectual biography and examines his impact on Polish sociology. The analysis is divided into three chronological parts. In the 1930s, Lazarsfeld's empirical work inspired Polish sociologists in their studies on unemployment. In the late 1950s and 1960s, his model of empirical social research shaped the style of sociological practice in Poland. In the 1990s, some of Lazarsfeld's substantive contributions, mainly in the area of election studies, were taken up in Polish sociology. Lazarsfeld's influence on Polish sociology was conditioned by changes in Polish society and sociology, which is emphasized in this analysis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of how wartime internment reverberated in the life and work of Japanese American intellectuals, this essay discusses the career and interests of Tamotsu Shibutani, a sociologist who began his training as part of Dorothy Swaine Thomas' Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study ( JERS). Though recent scholarship has noted some of the ethical problems that attended the use of Japanese American participant observers during the war, this essay concentrates instead on how interned intellectuals responded to their double role of both researcher (and intellectual) and object of study. I argue that in the case of Shibutani, his circumstances and identity shaped his scholarship, both as an academic endeavor and a political project. By tracking Shibutani's postwar scholarly activities, I show that his wartime experiences-as an internee, military officer, and participant-observer-reverberated in his sociological publications long after the war's end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alvin W. Gouldner (1920–1980) was a prolific sociologist of the post-World War II era who spent the early part of his career (the 1950s) in the field of industrial sociology. A case study of Gouldner's early life and career is useful insofar as it intertwines with the development of industrial sociology as a distinct subfield within sociology. Through this analysis we are also better able to understand how and in what ways a burgeoning organizational studies program developed at Columbia University during the 1940s. This analysis of the historical and cultural contexts within which Gouldner came to prominence as an industrial sociologist at Columbia, and the intellectual program that resulted, can also help shed light on more recent trends in organizational studies. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to reevaluate the role of the Department of Sociology at Columbia University in the years 1929–1950. The impact of Robert M. MacIver, who played a significant role in the exchange between European and American thinkers, is examined, as well as his marginalization. It is argued that in the 1930s it was characteristic that the sociologists in the centers in Chicago and Columbia exchanged their disciplinary functions. It was MacIver's Columbia that took on the role of advocate of humanistic sociology and Mead's and Cooley's heritage. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W.I. Thomas is not given full credit for his contributions to the early development of scientific sociology in the United States and, in particular, the Chicago School of Sociology. Based on new documentary evidence regarding the Helen Culver Fund for Race Psychology and also a reconsideration of a 1912 article by Thomas, it is suggested that Thomas had been evolving his new scientific approach to sociology very early (1910 to 1913), before contact with men who were said to have influenced him (for example, Robert Park and Florian Znaniecki). in discussing the substance of his scientific approach to sociology, emphasis is placed on six traits: empirical, inductive, comparative, systematic or strategic, analytical or conceptual, and social psychological. Each quality is illustrated from his persona and professional writing from that period. The implications of Thomas's work for "schools" of sociological thought and for the role of private philanthropy are considered briefly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical deviance in the sciences is approached through the perspective of interpretive sociology. According to this approach, the professional identities of scientists are always "at risk." Over periods of time, the potentiality for either positive or negative deviance generates "moral careers" for scientists. Such careers are defined by shifting evaluations of scientists' worth by authoritative and powerful audiences. This conceptualization is developed through an in depth analysis of the career of sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin. The analysis shows how Sorokin was initially elevated for positive deviance, then stigmatized for perceived negative deviance, and ultimately restored to a place of honor in social science. The implications of the conceptual framework for future studies of deviance in science are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that the European Society for the History of Human Sciences is accepting abstracts of articles for its conference to be held on July 17 to 20, 2018. The deadline for submissions is on March 1, 2018 which must tackle any aspect of human, behavioural and social sciences including digital history. It also presents guidelines for submissions and the travel stipends available for students or scholars needing economic support.