Robert Merton Dies at 92

This article features Robert Merton, who died recently at age 92. Merton came into this world as a Jewish baby named Meyer Schkolnick. He lived in South Philly where his parents wrenched a living as blue-collar workers. Merton chose an Anglicized name to move into the Yankee dominated America of the 20's and 30's. At Harvard, he studied under Sorokin and Parsons. The rest of his life he spent briefly at Tulane University and then remainder at Columbia University. There he rose to the very top of the field of sociology. With 20 books and 200 articles, many in the field read him and most college frosh were introduced to "Merton's Paradigm." His paradigm applied both to groups and later Inciardi individualized it so that applications could be made at the personal level. Merton was the first sociologist to be invited to the National Academy of Sciences. He won a Guggenheim, Parson prize and National Medal of Sciences. He became the president of the American Sociological Society. He would have been a recipient of the Nobel, but it is not given to sociologists. His passing ends the generation that saw the peak of sociology and all the cultural wars that surrounded it, here in the United States of America. America was good to Merton and some day will realize that he dearly repaid his country. (Contains 3 resources.)