Download Annotated Bibliography

Sociology, Social Activism, and the Quest for Objectivity
Larry Stern, Department of Sociology
Annotated Bibliography
Introduction
From its inception, the discipline of Sociology has been marked by a fundamental
dilemma and tension that has sparked serious debate time and again throughout its one
hundred twenty five year history. On the one side are those sociologists who exhibit a
critical stance toward existing social arrangements, seek to pinpoint the causes and
consequences of social problems, and proffer remedies they believe would reduce the
extent to which these problems exist. They typically share a commitment to greater social
equality and the collective use of reason to create a better and more just social world. On
the other side are sociologists who argue that in order for the discipline to be taken
seriously as a legitimate area of inquiry – for it to attain and retain some degree of
intellectual authority – sociology must be seen as a thoroughly scientific and objective
enterprise. If sociology wants the public to trust what it says about society it must, like all
pure sciences, deal with “facts,” not morals or ethics, and be seen as disinterested, detached,
value‐free, and apolitical. The goal of this study grant was to trace the history of these
recurring debates.
These debates also provide an interesting case in the sociology of sociology – a
specialty I have pursued for many years. Sociological work, like all scientific work, does not
proceed in a vacuum and is affected and shaped by the various social and historical
circumstances in which it is embedded. It should come as no surprise, then, that the
prominence of one or the other of these positions has been cyclical and greatly affected by
social and historical circumstances. As shall be seen, a strong activist and reformist
orientation spurred the founding of sociology as a discipline. Next came a period when the
discipline became more concerned with packaging itself as a pure science in order to
secure public acceptance and legitimacy. During the 1930s, activist and reformist
tendencies resurfaced, to be followed in the 1940s by concerted efforts – to meld the two
sides under the banner of “applied sociology.” Concerns about how its public persona
appeared in the face of McCarthyism and the fervor of anti – Communist movements
greatly affected the discipline, as did the civil rights era, the turbulent decade of the sixties,
and this past decade as a reinvigorated concern with “public sociology” and “service
learning” has taken hold. How all this played out, how the debates were conducted,
periodically resolved, and how they resurfaced in different guises are questions that have
guided my readings.
The bibliography submitted in the study grant proposal listed thirteen books and
thirty-two articles/chapters. During the course of the grant period, leads to other relevant
sources were found and, thus, additional readings were added – in one or two instances
replacing those in the original proposal. As a result, the following annotated bibliography
lists nineteen books and thirty-one articles. Those listed here that are not contained in the
original proposal are preceded by an asterisk (*). It should be obvious that reading these
fifty sources would not have been possible during the eight week summer session allotted
to this project; the readings began upon the award of the grant in April 2011 and
proceeded from that time throughout the entire summer.
Roots of American Sociology – Reformist & Activist Beginnings (late 19th
and early 20th century)
*Joyce E. Williams and Vickey M. MacLean, “In search of the Kingdom: The Social Gospel,
Settlement Sociology, and the Science of Reform in America’s progressive Era,” Journal of
the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 48(4), 339–362 Autumn (Fall) 2012
Williams and MacLean’s excellent article documents the religious roots of early
American sociology – how, in particular, the Social Gospel movement and the
various settlement houses that sprung up in major cities, shaped the development of
the discipline as it focused upon various social problems associated with
industrialization, urbanization, and immigration during the Progressive Era.
Williams and MacLean clearly demonstrate that many members of the clergy – and
first generation sociologists - believed that the role of Christianity should be the
salvation of society rather than individual souls and that a Kingdom of God should
be established in this world rather than the next. This, in turn, prompted many
clergymen to study the social world and use their findings to reform various social
problems that plagued America.
Linda J. Rynbrandt, “Caroline Bartlett Crane and the History of Sociology: Salvation,
Sanitation, and the Social Gospel,” The American Sociologist, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring, 1998),
pp. 71‐82
To illustrate the connection between the Social Gospel and the development of
Sociology – as well as the important role that women, heretofore unrecognized,
played in the discipline’s formation – Rynbrandt focuses upon the work of Caroline
Bartlett Crane, a Unitarian minister and student in the sociology department at the
University of Chicago. In her analysis, Rynbrandt uses Crane’s work on municipal or
civic sanitation – she conducted scientific sanitary surveys of more than sixty
American cities – to show the connection between academic sociologists and their
religious counterparts in society as they address social issues. Through tracing
Crane’s career, Rynbrandt also clearly demonstrates the difficulties that women
faced from when wading into an academic world dominated by men.
Patricia Lengermann and Gillian Niebrugge, “Thrice Told: Narratives of Sociology’s Relation
to Social Work,” Pp. 65‐114 in Craig Calhoun, ed., Sociology in America: A History, University
of Chicago Press, 2007
Lengermann and Niebrugge carefully traces the early history of sociology and the
tension between those who sought to establish sociology as an objective, unbiased
science and those who believed that the goal of the new discipline should be reform
and the social amelioration of the problems facing society. Their account, amply
documented, chronicles the tensions between, the eventual split, and then the
different trajectories of professional “sociology” – focused upon objective data
collection and the workings of society – and social work – focused upon individual’s
problems.
Mary Jo Deegan, Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892‐1918, Transaction
Books, 1988
Drawing upon extensive archival sources, Deegan examines the uneasy and
ambivalent relationship between Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House and
leading urban reformer, and the men that created and populated the University of
Chicago’s department of Sociology. Deegan persuasively argues that the network of
women working with Addams – and Addams herself – were marginalized by he men
who, nevertheless, came to draw upon her methodological approach to the
discipline and findings. Moreover, some of these men, who were inclined to consider
social reform, frequently visited Hull House to hear various speakers as well as to
conduct informal seminars. This incisive analysis of what appears to have been a
symbiotic relationship between Addams’ network and the Chicago school of
sociology is a must read.
Ellen Fitzpatrick, Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform, Oxford
University Press, 1990
In her meticulous study, Fitzpatrick examines the careers of four women, each
trained at the University of Chicago who, despite various obstacles, successfully
used their training to effect meaningful social reform. Two of these women,
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, were lifelong collaborators, focusing on
the plight of the urban poor inhabiting the slums of Chicago. However, although they
published in mainstream sociology journals, Fitzpatrick shows how they were still
kept on the margins of the discipline and relegated to the University of Chicago’s
School of Social Service Administration where they were dubbed “social workers.”
The third reformer examined, Katharine Bement Davis, was also denied access to
the academy. Undeterred, she worked tirelessly and became a leading figure in
prison reform. Fitzpatrick provides a provocative account of Davis’ struggles as she
became the first superintendent of the New York State reformatory for Women at
Bedford Hills, established the Laboratory of Social Hygiene, and eventually became
New York City’s Commissioner of Corrections. Last, Fitzpatrick follows the career of
Francis Kellor from her studies at Chicago. Kellor conducted some of the first
research on female criminology and southern prisons and black inmates. She
stressed the importance of race and ethnicity in affecting one’s life-chances, founded
the National league for the Protection of Colored Women, and became active in
getting legislation passed to tighten child labor laws. Fitzpatrick carefully shows
how each of there reformers navigated through a man’s world to accomplish their
goals.
*Mary O. Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American
Social Science, 1865 – 1905, Transaction Publishers, 2010
Focusing on the development of economics, political science and sociology, Furner
examines how early social scientists sought to reconcile the reform interests that
attracted them to social science in the first place with their need for recognition as
objective, dispassionate scientists capable of providing disinterested guidance for
society. This excellent book places the development of sociology in a broader
context as it compares, relying on archival sources, the tactics and strategies used by
members of the different disciplines.
Birth Pains: Objectivity vs. Activism
Robert Bannister, Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, University of
North Carolina Press, 1987
Bannister’s study is a classic in the field. At this point in time, the discipline was
struggling for recognition and credibility and trying to convince the government and
various funding agencies that it was a “profession,” every bit as objective as its rival
disciplines, economics and political science. Focusing on the champions of
objectivity – Lester Ward, Albion Small, Franklin Giddings, William Graham Sumner,
Luther Lee Bernard, F. Stuart Chapin, and William Fielding Ogburn – Bannister
shows how these men fought to free sociology from its reformist concerns and turn
it into a mature science that would be granted legitimacy by society‐at‐large.
Michael Willrich, City of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago, Cambridge
University Press, 2003
In this “must read” book, Willrich masterfully examines the emergence of a new
legal-philosophical theory – sociological jurisprudence – and how it was applied at
the turn of the 20th century in the municipal courts of Chicago. Arguing that classical
legal thought that mechanically applied abstract notions to specific cases, jurists
such as Roscoe Pound, Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes urged judges to
“stop thinking like lawyers and start thinking more like social scientists, to tailor
their decisions to the social context and consequences of the cases before them – in
Pound’s term, a new ‘sociological jurisprudence.’” Rather than be neutral arbiters,
the courts should rely on the specialized knowledge of “experts” – psychologists,
social workers – and intervene directly into social affairs. To document this social
experiment Willrich, drawing upon previously unexamined archival sources,
examines the creation and practice of (1) The Court of Domestic Relations, intent
upon ensuring that husbands “Keep sober, work, and support his family, (2) The
Morals Court, to protect women from the greed and passions of men, (3) The Boys
Court, to steer boys on the threshold of manhood away from crime, and (4) The
Psychopathic Laboratory, where eugenic principles aimed at “keeping the life
stream pure” were put in place.
Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What?: The Place of Social Science in American Culture,
Princeton University Press, 1939
In this short but important book – the materials were originally presented as four
Stafford little Lectures at Princeton University in the spring of 1938 – Lynd
addresses head on the apparent tension in sociology between “objectivity” and
“advocacy” and argues that one need not preclude the other. The rigorous collection
of data and objective unbiased interpretation is of course, Lynd argues, the hallmark
of scholarly inquiry. But the choice of which problems to investigate and then
recommendations on how to proceed can nevertheless be guided by the scholar’s
values. After discussing contemporary patterns of American culture, Lynd argues
that the professional credo of the social scientist should include that they are men of
conscience and that the study of and finding solutions for social problems (rather
than pure theoretical work) should be their main concern. This was an important
statement at the time (1938), when the discipline was still seeking professional
recognition from government sources of funding.
The Turbulent 1930s: Radical, Socialist, & Trotskyite Social Scientists
*Peter J. Kuznick, Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America,
University of Chicago Press, 1987
Kuznick’s extremely valuable work places social scientists’ activist turn in a broader
context. Here, Kuznick discusses the activities of socially engaged natural scientists
– previously thought to be paragons of “objective” science – in response to the
Depression and the rise of fascism abroad. He traces the development of the Science
and Society Movement under the auspices of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science as well as both the American Committee for Democracy and
Intellectual Freedom and The American Association of Scientific Workers. Of
particular note is Kuznick’s chapter on the anthropologist Franz Boas and his
attempts to mobilize scientists against the rising tide of fascism
Charles H. Page, 50 Years in the Sociological Enterprise: A Lucky Journey, The University of
Massachusetts Press, 1982; Chapter 3: “City College in the Thirties: Seedbed of Modern
American Sociology”
Nathan Glazer, “From Socialism to Sociology,” Pp. 190‐212 in Bennett M. Berger, ed.,
Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists,
University of California Press, 1990
*Seymour Martin Lipset, “Steady Work: An Academic Memoir,” Annual Review of Sociology,
Vol. 22 (1996), pp. 1‐27
*Irving Kristol, “Memoirs of a Trotskyist, New York Times Magazine, January 23, 1977, p. 56
Each of these autobiographical memoirs is a lively account of what it was like to be a
part of the City College of New York environment during the late 1930s and early
1940s and how it affected their intellectual development. Dubbed the “little red
schoolhouse,” City College was the first tuition free college in the United States.
Admission was restricted to the top 10% of high school graduates and the student
body was predominantly Jewish, many of whom were second-generation Americans
and sons of socialists and labor unionists. Page’s account is the most analytical. A
young instructor during this period – he was concurrently a graduate student
completing his dissertation at Columbia University – Page provides an overview of
the ‘milieu’ at City College and thumbnail sketches of those students he met that,
upon graduation, earned their doctorates at Columbia and became distinguished
sociologists: Philip Selznick, Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Nathan Glazer,
Peter Rossi, and Alvin Gouldner. These scholars – some retaining, others shedding
their early political and philosophical positions – fostered the development of
specialties devoted to study such topics as social stratification, bureaucracy, political
sociology, social movements and social change. Both Glazer and Lipset discuss in
their essays how their early radical interests led them to study sociology that, each
believed, provided a more flexible vehicle to study society and added rigor to their
analyses. Over time, each came to abandon their earlier positions and became part
of a new neo-conservative movement. Each of these three prominent sociologists –
along with Irving Kristol – highlight the importance of the “alcoves” in the
lunchroom at City College where students met to thrash out ideas. Alcove No. 1 was
the meeting place for a conglomeration of anti-Stalinist socialists of various kinds,
Trotskyists, and independent leftists, united by their common opposition to the proStalinist line-following Communists who occupied Alcove No. 2.
*Joseph Dorman, Arguing the World: The New York Intellectuals in Their Own Words, The
Free Press, 2000
The companion volume for a PBS special of the same name, this remarkable book
takes the transcripts of dozens of interviews and weaves them into one continuous
narrative. It clearly shows the intellectual ferment of the 1930s and beyond in New
York when, as Dorman puts it, “ideas mattered and were worth fighting for.” In this
tour de farce, we hear from Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer, two up and coming
sociologists, Irving Howe, the founder and editor of Dissent magazine, Irving Kristol
who, until his death in 2009 was a leading voice among those dubbed
“neoconservatives,” and a whole host of other New York intellectuals such as
William Phillips and Philup Rahv, co-founders in 1934 of Partisan Review, Victor
Navasky, longtime editor of The Nation, and Norman Podhoretz, editor of
Commentary for thirty-five years. A pleasure to read, the reader is given privileged
access to conversations between some of the giants of literary circles. “Hearing”
them argue – incessantly – about the world will definitely change your vision of the
world, as well as wish that the serious issues of today prompted comparable
stimulating intellectual discourse.
The 1940s: War Work and the Bureau for Applied Social Research
*Joseph Ryan, Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey: Sociologists and Soldiers during the Second
World War, University of Tennessee Press, 2012
Ryan provides an excellent account of how sociologists and social psychologists
were recruited for “war work” for the Army Information and Education Division’s
Research Branch under the leadership of Samuel Stouffer. These sociologists and
social psychologists – which included some of the most eminent in their respective
disciplines – surveyed and interviewed more than a half-million GIs during World
war II, investigating, among other things, their beliefs about the enemy, their morale,
their view of promotions and fighting alongside people of color. The results of this
research, the multi-volume series on The American Soldier, produced numerous new
sociological concepts and middle-range theories that energized the discipline. More
to the point, it demonstrated that our leading institutions believed that sociology
could produce objective data that was of some importance.
*Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and Applied Social Research: Invention of the University
Applied Social Research Institute,” Social Science History. Vol. 3, No. 3/4 (1979), pp. 4-44
This informative and valuable contribution to the history of sociology focuses upon
the development of Columbia University’s Bureau of Applied Social Research. Led by
Paul F. Lazarsfeld, the discipline’s foremost methodologist, the Bureau primarily
conducted contract research for clients in the government, philanthropic
foundations, and various economic entities. To do so, it had to convince its
benefactors that it was producing carefully conducted, objective scientific research.
This is a pivotal episode in the history of the activist-value free debates of the time
and Barton’s account is the definitive work in the area.
The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)
Benjamin Harris, “Reviewing 50 Years of the Psychology of Social Issues,” Journal of Social
Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 1‐20
Lorenz J. Finison, “The Psychological Insurgency: 1936‐1945,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol.
42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 21‐33
Ross Stagner, “Reminiscences About the Founding of SPSSI,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42,
Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 35‐42
S. Stansfeld Sargent and Benjamin Harris, “Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties,
and SPSSI,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 43‐67
Ernest Hilgard, “From the Social Gospel to the Psychology of Social Issues: A
Reminiscence,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 107‐110
Rhoda K. Unger, “Looking Toward the Future by Looking at the Past: Social
Activism and Social History,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): pp. 215‐
227
Ian Nicholson, “The Politics of Scientific Social Reform, 1936‐1960: Goodwin Watson
and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues,” Journal of the History of
the Behavioral Sciences Vol. 33 (1), 39‐60, Winter 1997
Ben Harris, “The Perils of a Public Intellectual: George W. Hartmann, 1939 Chair of
SPSSI,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 79‐118, 1998
The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), founded in 1936,
took as its mandate the use of psychological research and insights as the means to
build a more humane society. SPSSI, over the years, led efforts to study the issues of
unemployment, industrial conflict, war, racial hatred, and the abridgment of civil
liberties. It has since championed the causes of civil rights, feminism, and the rights
of homosexuals, and the inclusion and equality of socially marginalized groups into
the discipline. Even as SPSSI was being officially established, concerns were
expressed that members’ political agendas would taint their authority as scientists
such that the organization would not be seen as credible. Each article is an
important historical document, placing the founding of this important society in the
social context of the turbulent 1930s and discussing the political issues and
controversies the society faced. These personal reminiscences of the founders
convey their trials, tribulations, successes, and failures.
Society for the Study of Social Problems
Elizabeth Briant Lee and Alfred McClung Lee Source, “The Society for the Study
of Social Problems: Parental Recollections and Hopes,” Social Problems: Special Issue: SSSP
as a Social Movement, Vol. 24, No. 1, (Oct., 1976): pp. 4‐14
Barry Skura, “Constraints on a Reform Movement: Relationships between SSSP
and ASA, 1951‐1970,” Social Problems: Special Issue: SSSP as a Social Movement, Vol. 24, No.
1, (Oct., 1976): pp. 15‐36
James M. Henslin and Paul M. Roesti, “Trends and Topics in "Social Problems"
1953‐1975: A Content Analysis and a Critique,” Social Problems: Special Issue: SSSP as a
Social Movement, Vol. 24, No. 1, (Oct., 1976): pp. 54‐68
Melvin L. Kohn, “Looking Back – A 25‐Year Review and Appraisal of Social
Problems Research,” Social Problems: Special Issue: SSSP as a Social Movement, Vol. 24, No.
1, (Oct., 1976): pp. 94‐112
S. M. Miller, “The SSSP – Engagements and Contradictions, Social Problems, Vol. 48,
No. 1 (February, 2001), pp. 144‐147
Ellen Reese, “Deepening Our Commitment, Hitting the Streets: A Call to Action,
Social Problems, Vol. 48, No. 1 (February, 2001), pp. 152‐157
Founded in 1951, those sociologists who joined the Society for the Study of Social
Problems were interested in using social research to contribute to the solution of
persistent social problems and to promote social justice locally, nationally, and in
the wider world. Founding members were a self‐proclaimed dissident group,
imbued with missionary zeal, who thought of themselves as the "self‐appointed
conscience” of the American Sociological Association. In a Special Issue
commemorating its 25th anniversary, the Lee husband-wife team and Skura
chronicle SSSP’s controversial and stormy emergence, while Henslin and Roesti, and
Kohn examine and appraise the work accomplished thus far. These “insider’s” views
are important documents in the history of sociology and highlight the continuing
battles between those advocating the objectivist and activist positions. The last two
articles, by Miller and Reese, are recent presidential addresses, the first, assessing
the social and political contingencies that place constraints on social problems
research, the second, a more vigorous call to arms.
Case Study – The Study of Race and Prejudice
Stuart Svorkin, Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties,
Columbia University Press, 1997
In this excellent book, Svonkin draws upon archival records of America's three major
Jewish defense groups―the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Jewish Congress, and examines these
organizations’ efforts to better understand and combat prejudice and discrimination.
Working closely with social psychologists and sociologists, these organizations funded
landmark research on the authoritarian personality, interracial housing, and the impact of
mass media in combating prejudice. Svonkin’s analysis of the genesis of these works and
their eventual impact sets the standard for subsequent work in this area.
Franz Samuelson, “Authoritarianism from Berlin to Berkeley: On Social Psychology and
History,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 191‐208
In this excellent article, Samuelson traces the history of research on the concept of
he authoritarian personality, beginning with the work of Max Horkheimer and his
colleagues affiliated with the Frankfurt School in Berlin, and then more fully
examined by these scholars upon their arrival in New York and subsequent move to
Berkeley. The fruits of their research, The Authoritarian Personality which was
funded by the American Jewish Committee, has become a classic in the field.
Nevitt Sanford, “A Personal Account of the Study of Authoritarianism: Comment on
Samuelson,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 209‐214
One of the co-authors of The Authoritarian Personality, Sanford’s rich memoir of the
research carried out at Berkeley – including the difficulties involved in data
collection, the interpretation of a vast amount of data, and the actual publication of
the work – provides “insider information” that rounds out a more complete account
of this historical episode.
Fran Cherry and Catherine Borshuk, “Social Action Research and the Commission on
Community Interrelations,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 119‐142, 1998
Drawing upon a wealth of archival materials, Cherry and Borshuk examine the role
of the Commission on Community Interrelations (CCI). Launched and funded by the
American Jewish Congress, the CCI’s goal was to combat prejudice and
discrimination through carefully conducted research that would lead to community
intervention. As the authors show, many of the leading social psychologists of the
era – such notables as Kurt Lewin, Isidor Chein, Gordan Allport, Kenneth Clark, and
Stuart Cook – served as either consultants of research directors for the many
projects conducted between 1944 and 1952. The authors’ important historical
account of the CCI’s contributions is a welcome addition to research in this area.
The Use Social Science, Left and Right
John P. Jackson, Jr., Social Scientists for Social Justice: Making the Case Against
Segregation, New York University Press, 2001
In this remarkable book, Jackson closely examines the role that social scientists
played in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that led
to school desegregation. In so doing, Jackson relies on archival materials to
document the behind the scenes maneuverings of the NAACP legal team, the
American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, and the many eminent
psychologists and sociologists who both produced relevant research and advised
counsel. Jackson clearly demonstrates how these social scientists contributed much
more than the famous doll studies, documenting how these activist and reformminded scholars, through their research indicating the debilitating effects of racism
and segregation and their testimony in numerous lower court cases, helped pave the
way for some of the basic legal protections against discrimination we take for
granted today. At the same time, Jackson presents an incisive analysis of research on
race and prejudice that informed the legal arguments put forward. This is a “must
read” for those interested in the events surrounding this landmark Supreme Court
decision.
I. A. Newby, Challenge to the Court: Social Scientists and the Defense of Segregation,
1954‐1966, Louisiana State University Press, Revised edition [1967] 1969
Newby’s book should be read as a companion piece to Jackson – and it is equally
important. Here, Newby focuses upon a number of social scientists who, after the
Brown decision, sought to challenge it by producing – and in some instances
resurrecting – sociological and psychological evidence that, in their opinion, not
only refuted findings accepted by the court, but also provided a rationale and
justification for racial desegregation. To provide much needed context, Newby
reviews – and debunks – much of the early work in psychology (and eugenics) that
argued that innate differences exist between the races. Rebuttals by eight of the
social scientists Newby discusses, taking exception to the account Newby provided
in the first, 1967 edition, appear in the last section of this revised edition.
Andrew S. Winston, “Science in the Service of the Far Right: Henry E. Garrett, the
IAAEE and the Liberty Lobby,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 179‐210, 1998
In this fascinating essay, Winston focuses on the career of Henry E. Garrett and, in
examining how psychological research was used to both preserve segregation and
to promote various neofascist ideas, cements the point that social activism may be
found at both ends of the political spectrum, He documents how Garrett, while
occupying important positions in academia – he was the President of the American
Psychological Association in 1946 and Chair of Psychology at Columbia University
from 1941 to 1955, played an important role in organizing an international group of
scholars dedicated to preventing race mixing, preserving segregation, and
promoting the principles of early 20th century eugenics and “race hygiene.” Delving
into the archives, Winston shows how Garrett became a leader in the fight against
integration and collaborated with those who sought to revitalize the ideology of
National Socialism. Winston also documents links between Garrett and the
International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE),
the journal Mankind Quarterly, the neofascist Northern League, and the ultra-rightwing political group, the Liberty Lobby.
Backlash: FBI Surveillance and McCarthyism
Mike Forrest Keen, Stalking the Sociological Imagination: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI
Surveillance of American Sociology, Greenwood Press, 1999
Throughout the history of American sociology, many of its prominent contributors
have been under the surveillance of the FBI for suspected “radical” or otherwise
“un‐American” activities, such as questioning accepted ideas, discussing Marxist
theory in the classroom, signing various petitions, or simply being critical of the
policies of the Bureau (Hoover actually believed that advocacy of racial justice was a
subversive act!). In this fascinating volume, Keen draws upon FBI files obtained
through the Freedom of Information Act to indicate the extent to which J. Edgar
Hoover went to “ferret out” supposed radicals in the discipline. Some of the
sociologists investigated might not surprise the reader: W.E.B. duBois and E.
Franklin Frazier were certainly involved with issues of race, Robert Lynd was
known as an incisive critic of society, Sorokin was, after all, a Soviet refugee (the FBI
didn’t deem it important that Sorokin was jailed by the communists), and C. Wright
Mills was known for his radical ideas. More surprising, however, are the chapters,
again drawing upon copious FRI reports, devoted to Ernest Burgess and William F.
Ogburn, two sociologists from the University of Chicago known as staunch
proponents of the detached, unbiased, objectivist stance of the discipline, Talcott
Parsons, the foremost theoretician in the field, later criticized by leftist sociologists
in the 1960s for his conservative approach, Samuel Stouffer, chosen by the
government and funding agencies to head the famous American Soldier studies,
Herbert Blumer, and Edwin Sutherland, the foremost criminologist in sociology. The
materials presented, of course, tell us more about the informants and the agents
interpreting the reports than of the suspects themselves. As such, the book uncovers
the inner workings of the FBI. My one regret is that Keen offers little in the way of
analysis of these rich materials.
*David H. Price, Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of
Activist Anthropologists, Duke University Press, 2004.
To demonstrate the traumatic effect McCarthyism and FBI surveillance had upon
activist anthropologists, Price examines previously unpublished correspondence,
oral histories and more than 30,000 pages of FBI and other government papers
released under the Freedom of Information Act. Among those whose cases Price
examines are Melville Jacobs, Gene Weltfish, Bernhard Stern, Margaret Mead, and
Ashley Montague. Happily, Price provides insightful analysis along with his
descriptive materials. For example, he compares the different treatment that
Weltfish, a woman, and Stern, a man teaching in the Sociology department received
while they taught at the same time at the same university. In Price’s view, it wasn’t
membership in the Communist Party or Marxist believes that occasioned such
scrutiny but, rather, the individual’s more general social activism, particularly the
concern for racial justice.
*Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens, Jr., The Academic Mind: Social Scientists in Time of
Crisis, Free Press, 1958
During the height of McCarthyism, The Fund for the Republic, an offshoot of the
Ford Foundation expressed concern over the apparent erosion of civil liberties on
American campuses. With their financial support, Paul Lazarsfeld, a noted
sociologist, conducted an elaborate survey of 2,451 social scientists from 165
different campuses to assess how they were responding to McCarthyism. This
fascinating study reveals much about the tenor of the time and the mood of social
scientists. Roughly two‐thirds of the social science faculty members surveyed had
been visited by the FBI at least once, and one‐third had been visited three or more
times during the 1950s. Several professors were convinced that an FBI agent
attended their classes. Based on the analysis of their data, these authors conclude
that McCarthyism most certainly had a dampening effect: a large number of social
scientists had withdrawn from participation in community activities, and some had
confined themselves to a narrower, less political type of research. To get a better
understanding of the mood in the academy during these difficult times, I highly
recommend this book.
Ellen W. Shrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, Oxford
University Press, 1986
In this excellent, Schrecker convincingly shows that the traumatic and dampening effect
of McCarthyism was just as devastating for high school teachers, college professors,
administrators, trustees and students as it was for government employees and Hollywood
screenwriters. After providing an overview of the development of the notion of
“Academic Freedom,” the emergence and growth of radical ideas and the rise of
academic communists in the 1930s and 1940s, Schrecker draws upon government
archives and dozens of extensive interviews that she conducted with professors in elite
and general colleges and universities to demonstrate how McCarthyism operated to
intimidate scholars and the impact it had on their research and social activism.
*Sigmund Diamond, Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the
Intelligence Community, 1945-1955, Oxford University Press,
In this meticulously researched volume, Diamond examines the elaborate
interconnections between such universities as Harvard, Columbia, and Yale with the
intelligence community between 1945-1955. Diamond, dismissed from Harvard in
the 1950s for refusing to talk to the FBI about former associates – uses documents
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to shed light on the ways in which
university presidents, professors, research bureaus and students were used by
governmental agencies to both ferret out potential subversives and to provide
research that could be used for political and military purposes during this time
period.
The Return of Radical/Critical Sociology in the 1960s
Alvin Gouldner, “Anti‐Minotaur: The Myth of a Value‐Free Sociology,” Social
Problems Vol. 9, No. 3 (Winter, 1962), pp. 199‐213 [Presidential Address]
The 1960s, of course, changed everything (again). Some of the “old guard” sociologists
reemerged, finding a more hospitable environment for their once radical ideas, while a
new generation of social scientists, drawn to the discipline by the social upheaval of the
era, emerged with many embracing even more radical ideas. But many in the discipline
were wary and concerned that the legitimacy that sociology had fought so hard to attain
by convincing the public of its “scientific status” would unravel. As a result, the old issue
of whether sociology could – or should – be value‐ free resurfaced with a vengeance. In
his Presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1961,
Gouldner confronts what he calls the myth of a value-free sociology head on,
examining it as one would examine any ideological statement: by exploring its social
roots and consequences. According to Gouldner, sociology is experiencing a crisis,
characterized by a clash between the critical intellectual sociologist and the valuefree professional sociologist. In his view, values shape sociologists’ selection of
problems, his preference for certain hypotheses or conceptual schemes, and his
neglect of others. These are unavoidable and, in this sense, there is and can be no
value-free sociology. And, echoing Lynd’s argument posed thirty years earlier in
Knowledge For What, Gouldner comes down squarely on the side of partisanship.
This article, along with the one that follows - Becker’s Presidential Address in 1966
– galvanized a new generation of sociologists.
Howard Becker, “Whose Side Are We On,” Social Problems, 14 (Winter 1967) pp.
239–47 [Presidential Address]
In his Presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1966
Becker, like Gouldner, argues that some type of bias is inevitable in all research on
human subjects. Since total neutrality is impossible, he writes, “the question is not
whether we should take sides, since we inevitably will, but whose side we are on.” His
answer: to gain a full understanding of the world it is essential that we consciously
take the perspective of those in a subordinate position – the oppressed rather than
the oppressor. Nevertheless, Becker endorses the notion that sociology
is more than a value-determined set of opinions – it does not imply that “anything
goes.” The analyst must still present “hard” data that can be replicated so that it will
convince those with different values and interests.
Alan Sica and Stephen Turner, eds., The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in
the Sixties, The University of Chicago Press, 2005
During the 1960s sociology peaked in popularity among undergraduate students.
This was due, in no small part to the cultural shifts brought on by a new generation
no longer complacent with a world wracked with social problems. In this
remarkable volume, editors Sica and Turner bring together 18 well-known
sociologists, each presenting autobiographical accounts that detail how the
formative experiences of the sixties influenced the development of their academic lives
– why they chose some issues and problems for study rather than others, why they
applied certain interpretative schemes to make sense out of their data rather than others,
and how the mainstream sociology responded to their efforts. The diversity of the
contributors – they do not share the same theoretical orientations or substantive concerns
and five grew up in Europe – makes this book a fascinating exercise in the sociology of
knowledge. The chapters by Andrew Abbott (“Losing Faith”), Jeffrey Alexander (“The
Sixties and Me: From Cultural Revolution to Cultural Theory”), Michael Burawoy
(“Antinomian Marxist”), Craig Calhoun (“My Back Pages”), Patricia Hill Collins (“Thats
Not Why I Went to School”), Karen Schweers Cook (“The Sociology of Power and
Justice: Coming of Age in the Sixties”), Karen Knorr Cetina (“Culture of Life”), Stephen
Turner (“High on Insubordination”), Steve Woolgar (“Ontological Disobedience –
Definitely! Maybe”), and Erik Olin Wright (“Falling into Marxism”) are not to be missed.
Nor are the Preface and Introduction, by Sica and Turner, who set each of these chapters
in their broader social and cultural context.
Martin Oppenheimer, Martin J. Murray, and Rhonda F. Levine, eds., Radical
Sociologists and the Movement: Experiences, Lessons, and Legacies, Temple University
Press, 1991
This volume edited by Oppenheimer, Murray, and Levine, contains fourteen
autobiographical essays by scholars intimately involved with what came to be known as
“radical sociology” and the emergence of the Sociology Liberation Movement. They, too,
recount the early “heady” days of the movement and chronicle the many battles fought to
gain some semblance of acceptance. As the editors note, the contributors trace the roots
of their radical consciousness by examining how the economic and political conditions of
the 1960s acted as an “intellectual incubator” that served to radicalize a significant
number of budding sociologists. Aiming to “redefine sociology to correspond to social
reality,” these scholars left a lasting impact on the field and these essays provide
informative accounts of sociology in the making.
Public Sociology and Social Justice in the 21st Century
Joe R. Feagin, “Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty‐First Century,”
American Sociological Review, Vol. 66 (February: 2001), pp.1‐20. [Presidential Address]
In his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association, Feagin argues
that, given the serious challenges now facing the world, sociologists need to
rediscover their roots in a sociology committed to social justice. The “big issues” –
such economic exploitation, social oppression, and climate – need be addressed and
social justice, he argues, must be the discipline’s overarching concern.
Michael Burawoy, “For Public Sociology,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 70 (February,
2005), pp. 4‐28 [Presidential Address]
Burawoy’s Presidential Address is a clarion call for sociologists to engage with the
wider non-academic audiences. He contrasts what he refers to as “public sociology”
with what he refers to as “professional sociology” where practitioners simply talk to
themselves and each other without regard for debates over social policy. This
impassioned plea for sociologists to embrace their values rather than bury them,
and to choose research sites that “matter,” has generated much debate and this
original source is must reading to see how the discipline is evolving.
Dan Clawson, Robert Zussman, Joya Misra, Naomi Gerstel, Randall Stokes, Douglas
Anderton, and Michael Burawoy, eds., Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists
Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty‐First Century, University of
California Press, 2007
Lawrence T. Nichols, ed., Public Sociology: The Contemporary Debate, Transaction Books,
2007
Each of these two valuable volumes bring together eminent sociologists to debate
the call for “public sociology.” This approach has been greeted with enthusiasm by
supporters, and with skepticism and anxiety among critics. Both the perceived perils
of such a stance, as well as the vast potential of doing so, are fully aired. The
contributors to the Clawson et al volume are Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy,
Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays,
Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn SmithLovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein,
William Julius Wilson, Robert Zussman.
Those contributing to the debate in the Nichol’s volume are David Boyns and Jesse
Fletcher, "Public Relations, Disciplinary Identity, and the Strong Program in
Professional Sociology," Jonathan H. Turner, "Is Public Sociology Such a Good Idea?"
Steven Brint, "Guide to the Perplexed," Vincent Jeffries, "Piritim A. Sorokin's
Integralism and Public Sociology," Norella M. Putney, Dawn E. Alley, and Vern L.
Bengston, "Social Gerontology as Public Sociology in Action," Edna Bonacich,
"Working with the Labor Movement: A Personal Journey in Organic Public
Sociology," Christopher Chase-Dunn, "Globabl Public Social Science," Neil McLauglin,
Lisa Kowalchuk, and Kerry Turcotte, "Why Sociology Does Not Need to be Saved,"
Michael Burawoy, "Third-Wave Sociology and the End of Pure Science," Patricia
Madoo Lengerman and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley, "Back to the Future: Settlement
Sociology, 1885-1930," Sean McMahon, "From the Platform: Public Sociology in the
Speeches of Edward A. Ross," Chet Ballard, "The Origin and Early History of the
Association for Humanist Sociology," and Robert Prus, "The Intellectual Canons of
Public Sociology."