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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
The Rise of David Levinsky; A Novel (by Cahan, Abraham)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of C... (by Weber, Max)
Towards the Great Peace (by Cram, Ralph Adams)
Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (by Hankins, Frank Hamilton)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
The Structure of Social Action; A Study ... (by Parsons, Talcott)
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Capital : A Critique of Political Econom... (by Marx, Karl)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
The Sexual Question : A Scientific, Psyc... (by Auguste Forel)
Criminal Sociology (by Ferri, Enrico)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)

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

Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
The Rise of David Levinsky; A Novel (by Cahan, Abraham)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of C... (by Weber, Max)
Towards the Great Peace (by Cram, Ralph Adams)
Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (by Hankins, Frank Hamilton)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
The Structure of Social Action; A Study ... (by Parsons, Talcott)
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Capital : A Critique of Political Econom... (by Marx, Karl)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
The Sexual Question : A Scientific, Psyc... (by Auguste Forel)
Criminal Sociology (by Ferri, Enrico)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Psychologie de L'Éducation (by Gustave Le Bon)
Gestalt Psychology a Survey of Facts and... (by George W. Hartmann)
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (by Sigmund Freud)
The Sociology and Psychology of Terroris... (by Hudson, Rex A.)
A Mind That Found Itself (by Beers, Clifford Whittingham)
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (by Freud, Sigmund)
History of Psychology; A Sketch and an I... (by Baldwin, James Mark)
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing (by Cutten, George Barton)
Self Mastery through Conscious Autosugge... (by Coue, Emile)
The Interpretation of Dreams (by Freud, Sigmund)
Animal Intelligence : Experimental Studi... (by Thorndike, Edward Lee)
The Foundations of Personality (by Myerson, Abraham)
Analyzing Character, The New Science of ... (by Blackford, Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
The Photoplay; A Psychological Study (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
Malignant Self Love (by Vaknin, Sam)

Top 100 books on Economics

Essays on Political Economy (by Frédéric Bastiat)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Leviathan (Books I and II) (by Hobbes, Thomas)
The Theory of Business Enterprise (by Veblen, Thorstein)
Minorities Versus Majorities (by Goldman, Emma)
On the Principles of Political Economy, ... (by David Ricardo)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
The Decline of American Capitalism (by Corey, Lewis)
The Conquest of Bread (by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, Kniaz)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
An Essay on the Principle of Population (by Malthus, Thomas)
Two Treatises of Civil Government (by Locke, John)
Theory of Moral Sentiments, The (First E... (by Smith, Adam)

Top 100 books on Government

Communist Manifesto, The (by Marx, Karl)
On the Law of War and Peace (by Grotius, Hugo)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Union of Utrecht (by Lucy Maynard Salmon)
The Historical, Political, And Diplomati... (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
Lao-Tzu : A Study in Chinese Philosophy (by Watters, Thomas)
On Liberty (by Winthrop, John)
Institutes of Natural Law : Being the Su... Volume Vol. 1 (by Rutherforth, T., Thomas)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
Das Kapital (by Karl Marx)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
An Essay on the Principle of Population (by Malthus, Thomas)
Columbia Law Review (by Columbia University. School of Law)
The Constitutional Documents of the Puri... (by Gardiner, Samuel Rawson)
Chronological Tables of the Chinese Dyna... (by E. R. Lyman, Tso-Ting Wang, Theodore Wong)

Top 100 books on Law

Confucianism (by Anonymous)
Sovereign Immunity : Hearing before the ... Volume Part: 1 (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On Indi...)
Your Right to Federal Records Questions ...
The Summa Theologica Volume I (by Thomas Aquinas)
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
Marrow of Tradition, The (by Chesnutt, Charles Waddell)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
The United States Patent Law. Instructio... (by Munn and Company (New York, N. Y.))
Codification, Annotation, And Revision o... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee On Revis...)
Oliver Twist (by Dickens, Charles)
Introduction to Roman Law (by Hadley, James)
Democracy in America (by Tocqueville, Alexis De)
Constitution and Act of Incorporation of... (by Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition o...)
Constitution and Laws of the Cherokee Na... (by Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma)
League of Nations : Vol. 1 Volume Vol. 1

Top 100 books on Politics

Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
Conquest of bread, The (by Kropotkin, Peter)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
The Principles of Natural and Politic La... (by Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)
The Origins of Totalitarianism (by Arendt, Hannah)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, J. S.)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
The Philosophical Works of John Locke : ... (by John Locke)
Heart of Darkness (by Conrad, Joseph)
History of the Peloponnesian War (by Thucydides)
Albany Plan of Union (by Franklin, Benjamin)
A Modest Proposal (by Swift, Jonathan)
Uncle Tom's cabin : or, Life among the l... (by Stowe, Harriet Beecher)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
American Anthropologist (by American Anthropological Association)
Anthropology : An Introduction to the St... (by Edward Burnett Tylor)
The Andaman Islanders; a Study in Social... (by Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (Alfred Reginald), 1881-195...)
The Witch Cult in Western Europe (by Murray, Margaret Alice)
Economic Anthropology : A Study in Compa... (by Herskovits, Melville Jean)
Anthropology as a Practical Science. Add... (by Temple, Richard Carnac, Sir)
A Bibliography of the Anthropology of Pe... (by George Amos Dorsey)
The Gift; Forms and Functions of Exchang... (by Mauss, Marcel)
The Golden Bough Volume Xii : A Study in... (by Frazer, Sir James George)
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological... (by Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ire...)
Criminal Sociology (by Ferri, Enrico)
Introduction to Anthropology (by Waitz, Theodore)
The Scope of Social Anthropology; A Lect... (by Frazer, James George, Sir)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)