Small, Albion W.

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Sociological PracticeVolume 7Issue 1 The Development of Clinical and AppliedSociologyArticle 3January 1989Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States(1865-1915)Albion W. SmallUniversity of ChicagoFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/socpracPart of the Sociology CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Access Journals at DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted forinclusion in Sociological Practice by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState.Recommended CitationSmall, Albion W. (1989) "Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865-1915)," Sociological Practice: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 3.Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/socprac/vol7/iss1/3Fifty Years of Sociology in the UnitedStates (1865-1915)Albion W. SmallUniversity of ChicagoThis paper will plot some of the principal points of departure from whichto map the main movement of sociological thinking in the United States duringthe period indicated in the title. It will incidentally write into the sketch certaindetails of a semi-autobiographical character. . .... No excuses will be offered for rather liberal transgression of the con-ventionalities of impersonal writing. The years which I have spent in studyingthe social scientists of the last four centuries have lodged in my mind oneindelible impression, viz. that nearly every one of these writers might havedone more for the instruction of subsequent generations if each had left onrecord certain testimony from his personal knowledge, which he probably re-garded as trifling and which his contemporaries would probably have pro-nounced impertinent, than they did by writing much of a more pretentious naturewhich they actually transmitted ... So it has seemed to me more and more thatone of the traits of developing historical sense should be increasing considera-tion for the historians of the future, One hundred, two hundred, three hundredyears from now there will be students trying to trace the evolution of socialscience. No one who has sifted the monograph material of a past period candoubt that, so long as the volumes of this Journal are legible, here and there ahistorian will search for clues to interpretation of the period that producedthem. . .. . . Dr Harper (President of the University of Chicago) responded to an-other true prophetic instinct. He insured from the beginning mutual reinforce-ment between men who were primarily interested in the theoretical phases onthe one hand, and the applied phases on the other, of sociological knowledge.Excerpts (pp. 721–22, 770–71) from "Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865–1915),"The American Journal of Sociology, XXI/6(May, 1916):721–864.16 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1989In so far as the University of Chicago has been a factor in promoting thesociological movement, the evidence in my possession leaves no doubt in mymind that, without Dr. Harper, whatever might have been done for sociologyat Chicago would have been an exaggeration of one of these phases at theexpense of the other, and consequently in the long run to the discredit of both.Dr. Harper brought together, as the nucleus of the Department of "SocialScience," two men who were not only strangers to each other, but whoseapproach to the common problem was from opposite angles. . . Dr. Hendersonand the present writer were therefore the sociological staff until it was recruitedby Dr. Vincent and Dr. Thomas.Although Dr. Henderson's center of attention was social betterment, andmine was the methodology of social investigation, we never from first to lasthad the slightest difference of opinion about the division and correlation of ourown work and that of our students. Each of us recognized in the other's programthe correlate of his own. I have never had a shade of interest in abstract sociol-ogy except as a necessary preliminary to the most intelligent conduct of eachand every part, from least to greatest, of the whole range of human life. Dr.Henderson took the same view of the relation between general sociology andconcrete applications. While he devoted himself primarily to investigation ofconcrete conditions crying for immediate relief, he consistently regarded allplans for social betterment as tentative in the degree in which there is uncertaintyabout the underlying theories of larger social relations upon which the workingplans have been based. So long as he lived, he was frequent in generous tribute to thebasic importance of the more abstract phases of the work in the department.How consistently and profitably the department has interpreted human ex-perience in these blended phases of the general and the special is another matter.Moreover, as to both theory and practice, the relations in the country at largebetween general sociology and social technology still remain in an unsettled andunsatisfactory condition. Inability to do justice to the subject compels me tomake this survey partial by omitting the whole history of the technologicalphases of the sociological movement. I restrict myself, first, to remarking thata comprehensive view of the sociological movement in the United States for thelast fifty years would include such a survey as Professor Francis G. Peabody ofHarvard, or Professor Graham Taylor, or Miss Jane Addams, or Dr. Devinemight supply, and, secondly, to insertion of the personal profession of faith thatit will be a grievous mistake, and in its results unfortunate for both as well asfor the public whose interests must ultimately evaluate the work of both, if therepresentatives of the generalizing and of the concrete phases of the sociologicalmovement do not develop consciousness in mutually appreciative and sympa-thetic co-operation. . .

Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865-1915)

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Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865-1915)

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