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This paper first reviews the descriptions and structural explanations for variations, in urban population densities in the United States over several decades. The research reviewed focuses on shifts in the technology and economics of travel as being the major influences on urban density distributions. These variables appear to be somewhat less adequate as explanations of the process in recent decades. After reviewing these findings and suggesting several research questions, we attempt to assess the evidence relating variations in population density to several other aspects of human behavior. A review of the research relating high population densities to various "social pathologies" indicates that little of the variance in rates of these pathologies can be attributed to density independently of other social structural variables. Some important consequences of population density have been reported, however, and possible research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is the analysis of the interactional patterns of Wisconsin farm couples with their parents. Step-wise multiple regression analysis provides a technique to solve a sequence of one or more multiple linear models by step-wise application of the least sum-of-squares method. The predictor variables used in this analysis include: distance, husband's age, stage in the family life-cycle, husband's education, wife's education, gross farm income, agricultural training of the husband, productive-man-work-units, and level of living. The results showed that distance is an important factor in the interaction between generations in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the address given by the author during the general session of the Midwest Sociological Society's 25th anniversary meeting on April 13, 1962, in Des Moines, Iowa. It discusses the author's experience with the society and his participation in its previous annual conferences. During his term as secretary of the society he has observed the changes in the structure and the functions of the society since its reorganization in 1937. The most important phenomenon having implications for a regional society is the decline in regionalism of American sociology. Regionalism, in the sense that it existed in 1937 has disappeared. The birth of the society have a significant impact on the origins of modern American sociology. The educational institutions established by notable members of the society have contributed to the production of doctor of philosophy degree in sociology.

The main leaders of a large rural county were identified and classed into visible, symbolic, and concealed leader-types by Bonjean's technique. The composition of each type was summarized. The leadership pattern in this county was found to be distinctly different from the leadership pattern of places previously studied. Leaders were more visible and had stronger anchorage to public offices. Little variation existed in the locations of the leader-types in the generalized social structure of the community. The typology was, nonetheless, useful. It served as a good index for the factional and clique memberships of the leaders, which were recognized as crucial in the decision-making structure of the county. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Shils has pointed out, the study of the life of immigrants was one of the original justifications for the existence of American sociology. The earlier widespread sociological concern with immigrants and ethnic groups is confirmed by the voluminous literature, both analytical and descriptive, produced on these subjects. Since 1935 and particularly after World War II, however, the attention of sociologists to these subjects has continually been declining, as can be evidenced by comparative statistics on the "race and ethnic relations" specialty of the members of the American Sociological Association (while before 1955, 8.2 per cent had listed this field as their specialty, the percentage declined to 8.4 per cent in 1959); and by a decline in the scope and number of sociological publications on immigrants and ethnic groups. In contrast, it should be noted that a comparable decline of interest does not prevail among historians and anthropologists. The historians appear even to have increased their interest in recent years, as we note in the works of Handlin, Bjork, Hoglund, Jones, and Govorchin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An area of research in which sociologists and historians would seem to share a rather obvious concern is that of social change. In his presidential address before the joint meeting of the Canadian Historical and Canadian Political Science Association, S. D. Clark emphasized this. "We cannot become students of change," he said, "without becoming historians. It is only by looking at what has happened to societies of the past, and over time, that the sociologist can derive the data on which to build his principles of social change." That is to say that the study of social change requires recognition of processes in time and must deal, insofar as time past is involved, with evidence that is historical. The student of social change must become a historian and the historian, insofar as he is interested in understanding and interpreting general processes, must become a social scientist. When, however, one searches the literature for particular studies of historical social change, one's findings are meager indeed, especially if one's standards, theoretically and methodologically, are reflective of those of contemporary social science, and one's historiographical standards, of contemporary history. If, in addition, one is searching for social change studies of a particular national history, then the material is even more limited. For this reason I have expanded this review, which was originally concerned with the American nineteenth century only, to include two studies of English history, because these two studies include important theoretical and methodological contributions to the study of history and social change in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the thirties, excitement ran high over the possibility of closing the gap between theory and technique in American sociology. The great Chicago tradition of Veblen, Dewey, Park, and Mead seemed about to join with that of Cooley at Michigan to reduce grand theory to method, while Ogburn, Stouffer, and Burgess, working to develop techniques based on statistical inference and case studies, were attempting to close the gap between technique and theory. In the Middle West at least, it was recognized that unless something was done to relate theory and technique, sociology could not be taken seriously as a science. As one wag puts it, American sociology was the only human study that passed from theory to technique without developing a methodology. Unfortunately, the hopes of the thirties have not been fulfilled. The gap between theory and technique has not closed-indeed, some believe that it is even wider than it was in 1934. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]