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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Six Thousand Country Churches (by Gill, Charles Otis)
The social principles of Jesus (by Rauschenbusch, Walter)
Society, Its Origin and Development (by Rowe, Henry Kalloch)
Eugenics Marriage and Birth Control Prac... (by William Josephus Robinson)
Conception Control and Its Effects on th... (by Barrett, Florence Elizabeth Perry, Lady)
Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
The War and Unity : Being Lectures Deliv... (by Cranage, David Herbert Somerset)
Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (by Hankins, Frank Hamilton)
A History of Social Thought (by Emory Stephen Bogardus)
The Rise of David Levinsky; A Novel (by Cahan, Abraham)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)

Organizing Relationships: A Sociology Exhibit

Many disciplines beyond Sociology, such as Mathematics and Psychology and Economics, are utilized in the Social Sciences. In our Collections under these and other topics, contain hundreds of titles by writers and theorists who have dedicated to their lives to the study of human society. Featured books in the following collections include Herbert Spencer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Talcott Parsons and David Emile Durkheim.

Sociology of Past Power Structures

Throughout history, all sub-disciplines of Sociology, as well and religious and government groups have been studied and experimented with different methods of social organization of population. Sometimes, these attempts at social definitions and control have been tempered, but at other times, rigid – some men have use groups for their own gain. Ultimately, however, if social organization is to be implemented, it has to be understood.

From the beginning of time, both men and animals have used verbal and non-verbal cues and strategies to enforce hierarchy. With chimpanzees, it is the Alpha Male. With men: Domesday Books, mathematics and accounting, psychology and linguistics. The word “organization” is derived from the Greek word organon, which means "organ." Therefore, studies of how groups of people (with a common goal) structure themselves, is the study of mankind and its relationships as a collective.

The Domesday Book, created under the reign of William the Conqueror, has been studied to understand the role of documentation in asserting authority and also to facilitate taxation. According to Young Folks’ History of England, William the Conqueror was a Norman who conquered England. In 1086, he ordered the documentation of land, livestock and taxes under the administration of the previous rulers, to find out what would be transferred over to Norman rule. Whatever was recorded in the Domesday book could not be appealed. The data that William the Conqueror collected into the Domesday book revealed his tendency for control. In the book titled, William the Conqueror, it is said that “William would not set...over any part of his dominions before his time, and it was his policy to keep his children dependent on him. While he enriched his brothers, he did not give the smallest scrap of the spoils of England to his sons” (William the Conqueror, World Heritage Encyclopedia). Robert, his son, was angry about this and fought his father in a battle, but later asked for his pardon. Today, the Domesday Books is considered an artifact of sociological research. Domesday Studies, Being the Papers Read at the Meetings of the Domesday Commemoration 1886 examines how this document changed the course of history in the United Kingdom (Domesday Studies, Being the Papers Read at the Meetings of the Domesday Commemoration 1886, Edward P. Dove).

Debates in Defining Sociology

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet was a 19th-Century Belgian mathematician, statistician and sociologist who introduced statistical methods into the social sciences. He assigned variables to the complexity of social phenomena, in order to measure the statistical laws underlying crime, marriage or suicide rates. Other scientists thought his ideas were controversial because it contradicted freedom of choice (“Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet,” World Heritage Encyclopedia).

The author of Adolphe Quetelet, A Statistician discusses Auguste Comte as another researcher of social physics and sociology, but that Quetelet invented the method of investigation for “social physics” (Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician, Frank Hamilton Hawkins). So Comte reinvented the term sociologie (sociology) to differentiate it from Quetelet’s collection of statistics (“Adolphe Quetelet,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). Comte believed that there was an order of nature, not of man, which could be scientifically understood by unifying history, psychology and economics. Social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, or using a broader philosophy that methodologically orders scientific observations (Outlines of Sociology, Lester Frank Ward). In this book, Ward writes Comte’s use of the term “hierarchy” did not imply subordination. “There is genetic affiliation without subordination. The more complex and less exact sciences may be regarded as the children of the more simple and exact ones, but between parent and offspring there is no difference or rank.” Additionally, he wrote that Comte “laid the foundations for understanding the more complex sciences by acquainting himself with the simpler ones upon which the other sciences successively rest” (Outlines of Sociology, Lester Frank Ward). Other social scientists like Karl Marx also mixed scientific methods to measure social impacts of industrialization occurring in Europe, documented in his work Wage Labour and Capital ("Wage Labour and Capital," Karl Marx).

Studying Social Life

David Émile Durkheim was a 19th century French sociologist who believed that sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the specific actions of individuals. Barbara Anne Mendheim however, applied sociology differently in The Sociology of Gender in a Kindergarten-First Grade Classroom. She writes that people gain knowledge of the social world by identifying typicality and finding language to order their social experience. For example, girls understand that being a girl means being personally relevant and intimate with other people. Boys understand being a boy through being powerful and competent in the world (The Sociology of Gender in a Kindergarten-First Grade Classroom, Barbara Anne Mendheim). However, in Woman: Her Charm and Power, Robert Downes uses sociological methods to explore how women in Egyptian and Iranian society were given opportunity for education and in leadership. But in Roman culture, women’s roles were to birth children. Women’s positions in society are influenced by the dominant culture’s definition of their functions and role in society (Woman: Her Charm and Power, Robert Downes).

Sociology has also been used to study group relations. Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism discusses how entrepreneurs used religion to spread the system of capitalism. By tapping into religious belief systems, he proffered, people could work toward their profit making motive.

Works Cited

"August Compte." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

“David Émile Durkheim.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

"Domesday Book." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Dove, P. Edward. "Domesday Studies, Being the Papers Read at the Meetings of the Domesday Commemoration 1886." London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1886.

Downes, Robert. Woman: Her Charm and Power. London: The Epworth Press, 1900.

Hawkins, Frank Hamilton. Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician. New York: Columbia University Press, 1877.

“Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Marx, Karl. "Wage Labour and Capital." Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 1849. Reproduced: World Public Library, 2002. Web.

Mendheim, Barbara Anne. The Sociology of Gender in a Kindergarten-First Grade Classroom. Diss. University of Florida, 1979.

“Norman People.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

"Sociology." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Ward, Lester Frank. Outlines of Sociology. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1921.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribner, 1930

“William the Conqueror.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Yonge, Charlotte Mary. Young Folks’ History of England. Boston: Estes and Lauriet, 1879.

Sociology Collections

"Organizing Relationships: A Sociology Exhibit" demonstrates how sociological methods have been used to study the configuration of power, through documentation, analysis of order, and social effects. Sociology brings together different methods of thinking, to understand the complexity of society more accurately, and why we should always be vigilant of power.

Learn more about how the discipline of sociology is used, in these collections:

Top 100 books on Sociology

A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Six Thousand Country Churches (by Gill, Charles Otis)
The social principles of Jesus (by Rauschenbusch, Walter)
Society, Its Origin and Development (by Rowe, Henry Kalloch)
Eugenics Marriage and Birth Control Prac... (by William Josephus Robinson)
Conception Control and Its Effects on th... (by Barrett, Florence Elizabeth Perry, Lady)
Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
The War and Unity : Being Lectures Deliv... (by Cranage, David Herbert Somerset)
Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (by Hankins, Frank Hamilton)
A History of Social Thought (by Emory Stephen Bogardus)
The Rise of David Levinsky; A Novel (by Cahan, Abraham)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)

Top 100 books on Psychology

History of Psychology; A Sketch and an I... (by Baldwin, James Mark)
On dreams (by Freud, Sigmund)
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (by Freud, Sigmund)
Applied Psychology : A Series of Twelve ... (by Warren Hilton)
Ethical Systems (by Wilhelm Wundt)
The Freedom of Life (by Call, Annie Payson)
The teacher's word book (by Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee))
The Origin and Nature of the Emotions (by Crile, George W.)
Essay on the Creative Imagination (by Ribot, Théodule)
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (by Freud, Sigmund)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
The Photoplay; A Psychological Study (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
Behavior an Introduction to Comparative ... (by John B. Watson)
An Introduction to the Theory of Mental ... (by Thorndike, Edward Lee)
The Principles of Psychology (by William James)

Top 100 books on Economics

A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
The Rights of Property; A Refutation of ... (by Thiers, Louis Adolphe)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
The Acquisitive Society (by Tawney, Richard Henry)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
On Colonialism (by Marx, Karl)
The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (by Edwards, George W.)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Autobiography of Mother Jones, The (by Jones, Mary Harris)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)
The Servile State (by Belloc, Hilaire)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)

Top 100 books on Government

Observations on the Importance of the Am... (by Richard Price)
Communist Manifesto, The (by Marx, Karl)
Politics Aristotle (by Ross, W. D.)
Utopia (by More, Thomas)
Assize of Clarendon (by Henry, King, Ii)
Discourses on the First (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
The Letters of Junius
The Republic, Score Plato Rep (by Plato)
Lex, Rex : The Law and the Prince, A Dis...
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
Rights of Man, Score Aor Rom Volume Vol. II (by Paine, Thomas)
The Historical, Political, And Diplomati... (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Origin of the Family, Private Proper... (by Engels, Friedrich)

Top 100 books on Law

Draft Mandates for Mesopotamia and Pales... (by League of Nations. Council)
Documents on the League of Nations (by League of Nations. Covenant)
No Treason : The Constitution of No Auth... (by Spooner, Lysander)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, John Stuart)
League of Nations : Vol. 1 Volume Vol. 1
The Federalist Papers (by Hamilton, Alexander)
Crime and Custom in Savage Society (by Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942)
Ancient Law (by Maine, Henry Sumner, Sir)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)
Institutes of the Laws of England : Or a... Volume Vol. 6 (by Coke, Edward, Sir)
Americans in Eastern Asia; A Critical St... (by Dennett, Tyler)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)

Top 100 books on Politics

Conquest of bread, The (by Kropotkin, Peter)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint)
The History of the Russian Revolution Vo... (by Leon Trotsky)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, J. S.)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (by Oscar Wilde)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Art of War, The (version 2) (by Sun Tzu)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)
The Politics of Obedience : The Discours... (by De La Boetie, Étienne)
Excerpts from Frame of Government of Pen... (by Penn, William)
Federalist Papers, The (by Hamilton, Alexander)
The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (by Aristotle, Frank Hesketh Peters)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

American Anthropologist : Vol. 4 Volume Vol. 4 (by American Anthropological Association)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 06 Part 0... Volume Vol. 06 Part 01-02 (by American Anthropological Association)
Story of Man: from the First Human to Pr... (by Coon, Carleton Stevens)
General Anthropology (by Boas, Franz)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
The American Indian: An Introduction to ... (by Clark Wissler)
Crime, Its Causes and Remedies (by Lombroso, Cesare)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
Anthropology in North America (by John Reed Swanton)
Ethnography of Ancient India (by Shafer, Robert)
Education as growth; or, The culture of ...
The Genetic Relationship of the North Am... (by Radin, Paul)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 06 Part 0... Volume Vol. 06 Part 04 (by American Anthropological Association)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
Economic Anthropology : A Study in Compa... (by Herskovits, Melville Jean)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)
The Elements of the Theory of Algebraic ... (by Reid, Legh Wilber)
Projective Geometry (by Mathews, George Ballard)
Projective geometry (by Mathews, George Ballard)
The Theory of the Relativity of Motion (by Tolman, Richard Chace)
The Construction of the Wonderful Canon ... (by Napier, John)
Carl Friedrich Gauss' Untersuchungen übe... (by Hermann Maser, Carl Friedrich Gauss)
The Sand-reckoner of Archimedes, Score A... (by Heath, Thomas)
Ptolemy's Cataloque of Stars; A Revision... (by Ptolemy)
Lectures on Ten British Mathematicians o... (by Macfarlane, Alexander)
Elements of Algebra (by Euler, Leonhard)
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras (by Fabre Dolivet, Antoine)
Elements of Algebra (by Euler, Leonhard)
Logic, Deductive and Inductive (by Carveth Read)

Top 100 books on Economics

A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
The Rights of Property; A Refutation of ... (by Thiers, Louis Adolphe)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
The Acquisitive Society (by Tawney, Richard Henry)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
On Colonialism (by Marx, Karl)
The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (by Edwards, George W.)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Autobiography of Mother Jones, The (by Jones, Mary Harris)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)
The Servile State (by Belloc, Hilaire)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)