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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)
Conception Control and Its Effects on th... (by Barrett, Florence Elizabeth Perry, Lady)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Applied Eugenics (by Roswell Hill Johnson)
Quaker Hill; A Sociological Study (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)
The War and Unity : Being Lectures Deliv... (by Cranage, David Herbert Somerset)
A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Six Thousand Country Churches (by Gill, Charles Otis)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
The Sociology of Gender in a Kindergarte... (by Mendheim, Barbara Anne)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Towards the Great Peace (by Cram, Ralph Adams)

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

Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)
Conception Control and Its Effects on th... (by Barrett, Florence Elizabeth Perry, Lady)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Applied Eugenics (by Roswell Hill Johnson)
Quaker Hill; A Sociological Study (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)
The War and Unity : Being Lectures Deliv... (by Cranage, David Herbert Somerset)
A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Six Thousand Country Churches (by Gill, Charles Otis)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
The Sociology of Gender in a Kindergarte... (by Mendheim, Barbara Anne)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Towards the Great Peace (by Cram, Ralph Adams)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Sex and Society: Studies in the Social P... (by William Isaac Thomas)
Dora an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (by Sigmund Freud)
Habit (by James, William)
The Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind (by Gustave Le Bon)
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (by Freud, Sigmund)
Gestalt Psychology a Survey of Facts and... (by George W. Hartmann)
A Young Girl's Diary (by Freud, Sigmund)
The Foundations of Personality (by Myerson, Abraham)
How to Use Your Mind (by Kitson, Harry D.)
Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of th... (by Bergson, Henri)
History of Psychology; A Sketch and an I... (by Baldwin, James Mark)
Supreme Personality (by Croft, Delmer Eugene)
The Psychology of Nations, A Contributio... (by Partridge, G. E. (George Everett))
Contemporary Schools of Psychology (by Woodworth, Robert S.)
An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (by Berkeley, George)

Top 100 books on Economics

The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
Alfred Weber's Theory of the Location of... (by Weber, Alfred)
The Morality of Capitalism
Lombard Street : A Description of the Mo... (by Bagehot, Walter)
The People of the Abyss (by Jack London)
The Causes of Poverty (by Mccarthy, Callaghan)
Wage-Labor and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)
The Acquisitive Society (by Tawney, Richard Henry)
Communism in the United States (by Browder, Earl Russell)
Progress and Poverty; an Inquiry Into th... (by George, Henry, 1839-1897)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
The Grapes of Wrath (by Steinbeck, John)

Top 100 books on Government

A Discourse of Government with Relation ... (by Fletcher, Andrew)
An Introduction to the Principles of Mor... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Grea... (by Allan, Mary Ann)
The Letters of Junius
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
The Union of Utrecht (by Lucy Maynard Salmon)
On the Law of War and Peace (by Grotius, Hugo)
Politics Aristotle (by Ross, W. D.)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
The Politics of Obedience : The Discours... (by De La Boetie, Étienne)
Discourses Concerning Government Volume 1 (by Sidney, Algernon)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts : Rep... (by Massachusetts)
An Essay on the History of Civil Society (by Adam Ferguson)
Assize of Arms

Top 100 books on Law

The American's Guide: Comprising the Dec...
Two Centuries' Growth of American Law, 1... (by Yale Law School)
The Idea of a League of Nations; Prolego... (by League of Nations Union)
The Federalist Papers (by Hamilton, Alexander)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
The Usa Patriot Act: A Legal Analysis (by Doyle, Charles)
Treatise on Law Summa Theologica Questio... (by Thomas Aquinas)
The Laws of Plato; (by Plato)
Americans in Eastern Asia; A Critical St... (by Dennett, Tyler)
Bleak House (by Dickens, Charles)
The Treaty Making Power of the United St... (by Butler, Charles Henry)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Constitution and Laws of the Choctaw Nat... (by Choctaw Nation. Constitution.)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)

Top 100 books on Politics

War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
Politics Aristotle (by Ross, W. D.)
The Twelve Caesars (by Tranquillus, Gaius, Suetonius)
Public opinion (by Lippmann, Walter)
Apology of Socrates, The (by Plato)
The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (by Aristotle, Frank Hesketh Peters)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)
The Subjection of Women (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Law of Nations; (by Vattel, Emer De)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
Jungle, The (by Sinclair, Upton)
Revolutionary Socialism, A Study in Soci... (by Corey, Lewis)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The (by Twain, Mark)
Twentieth Century Political Thought (by Roucek, Joseph. S)
Art of War, The (version 2) (by Sun Tzu)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
The Witch Cult in Western Europe (by Murray, Margaret Alice)
Story of Man: from the First Human to Pr... (by Coon, Carleton Stevens)
Notes and Queries on Anthropology (by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain a...)
Early Civilization : An Introduction to ... (by Alexander A. Goldenweiser)
Journal of Ethnobiology. Volume: v. 16-17 1996-97 (by Center for Western Studies (Flagstaff, Ariz.))
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of... (by Morgan, Lewis Henry)
A Finding-List of History, Politics, Bio... (by Buffalo Library)
The Fijians : A Study of the Decay of Cu... (by Thomson, Basil)
The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Minda... (by Cole, Fay Cooper)
American Anthropologist (by The American Anthropological Association)
Handbook of American Indian Languages (by Franz Boas)
The Journal of Negro History ; Volume 1 (by Association for the Study of Negro Life and Histor...)
The Human Species (by Armand De Quatrefages De Bréau)
Animal Figures in the Maya Codices (by Tozzer, Alfred M. (Alfred Marston))