History 138 - Class 15

History 138: Science in the U.S.

Class 15 (9/27)
Sciences of society

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Outline

New disciplines for a new age
The social and political setting
Defining a social science by its subject

A bit of prehistory

The university in the city
The Chicago school of sociology
Empirical investigation
Reform inspirations

New disciplines for a new age (reprise)
Defining a social science by its method
(With an excursus in the middle on the rise of statistical thinking)

Names and Terms

Primary	Secondary
Gilded Age (1870s-1890s) The University of Chicago (fd. 1892) John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) Albion Small (1854-1926) American Journal of Sociology (fd. 1895) Social Gospel Jane Addams (1860-1935), Hull House social technology, social engineering social control	Eugene Debs (Presidential candidate 1912) Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Karl Marx (1818-1883) Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) American Social Science Association (fd. 1865) John Dewey (1859-1952) Charles Merriam (1874-1953) Marion Talbot (1858-1948) Sophonisba Breckenridge (1866-1948)

Assignment

Albion W. Small, "The Era of Sociology," American Journal of Sociology 1 (1895): 1-15.

What did Small intend sociology to comprise? What constituted its leading questions or domains of study?
Why did he believe it has arisen when it had?
What relationship did he see between social science and social activism? Between professional social scientists and the broad public?