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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts o... (by Charles William Wason)
Professional ethics and civic morals (by Durkheim, Emile)
Study of Child Life (by Washburne, Marion Foster, Mrs.)
The Social System (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Non-Religion of the Future, A Sociol... (by Guyau, Jean-Marie)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)

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

The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
A Theology for the Social Gospel (by Walter Rauschenbusch)
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
Outlines of sociology (by Ward, Lester Frank)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts o... (by Charles William Wason)
Professional ethics and civic morals (by Durkheim, Emile)
Study of Child Life (by Washburne, Marion Foster, Mrs.)
The Social System (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Non-Religion of the Future, A Sociol... (by Guyau, Jean-Marie)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Gestalt Psychology a Survey of Facts and... (by George W. Hartmann)
Dream Psychology : Psychoanalysis for Be... (by Sigmund Freud)
The Principles of Psychology (by William James)
Mind and Motion and Monism (by Romanes, George John)
Psychology and Social Sanity (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
Freud and the Scientific Method (by Rosenfels, Paul)
The Nervous Housewife (by Myerson, Abraham)
Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of th... (by Bergson, Henri)
Buddhist Psychology; An Inquiry into the... (by Davids, Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys)
Crime and Punishment (by Dostoevsky, Fyodor)
Fantasia of the Unconscious (by Lawrence, David Herbert)
The Misuse of Mind (by Stephen, Karin)
The Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind (by Gustave Le Bon)
The Varieties of Religious Experience (by James, William)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)

Top 100 books on Economics

Annie Besant : An Autobiography (by Annie Wood Besant)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foun... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
What Is Property (by Proudhon, Pierre Joseph)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
Woman under Capitalism (by Tichenor, Henry Mulford)
In Praise of Poverty
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
Children of the Slaves (by Graham, Stephen)
The Trade Unions : An Appeal to the Work... (by Robert Somers)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Development of Socialism from Utopia... (by Friedrich Engels)

Top 100 books on Government

The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
Two Treatises of Civil Government (by Locke, John)
Excerpts from Frame of Government of Pen... (by Penn, William)
Discourses on the First (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
The Republic, Score Plato Rep (by Plato)
A Discourse of Government with Relation ... (by Fletcher, Andrew)
The Commonwealth of Oceana (by Harrington, James)
The American Democrat : Or, Hints on the... (by James Fenimore Cooper)
Discourse on Inequality (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Historical, Political, And Diplomati... (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
Robert's Rules of Order Revised for Deli... (by Robert, Henry M. (Henry Martyn))
Virginia Declaration of Rights and Cardi... (by Mason, George)
The Petition of Right (by Relf, Frances Helen)
A Treatise on Political Economy : Or the... (by Jean Baptiste Say)
The Letters of Junius

Top 100 books on Law

Roman Law in the Modern World (by Sherman, Charles Phineas)
The Treaty Making Power of the United St... (by Butler, Charles Henry)
The Usa Patriot Act: A Legal Analysis (by Doyle, Charles)
Principles of English Law : Founded on B... (by Campbell, Robert)
Lectures on Jurisprudence (by Robert Campbell)
William Caxton (by Edward Gordon Duff)
Amendments to the United States Constitu... (by United States, Founding Fathers of the)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary : Comprisi... (by Shumaker, Walter A)
Crime and Custom in Savage Society (by Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Wealth Of Nations (by Adam_Smith)
Draft Mandates for Mesopotamia and Pales... (by League of Nations. Council)
Translation of the Law of Criminal Proce... (by Cuba)
No Treason : The Constitution of No Auth... (by Spooner, Lysander)

Top 100 books on Politics

Apology, Score Plato Apology (by Plato)
Public opinion (by Lippmann, Walter)
Politics Aristotle (by Ross, W. D.)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
The Subjection of Women (by Mill, John Stuart)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
The Human Condition : Volume 5 (by Arendt, Hannah)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (by Henry, Patrick)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
Rights of Man, Score Aor Rom Volume Vol. II (by Paine, Thomas)
Federalist Papers, The (by Hamilton, Alexander)
Lex, Rex : The Law and the Prince, A Dis...
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 4 Volume Vol. 4 (by American Anthropological Association)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
Anthropology and a Lifetime of Observati... (by Colson, Elizabeth)
General Anthropology (by Boas, Franz)
Anthropology; An Introduction to the Stu... (by Tylor, Edward Burnett, Sir)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
Sex and Repression in Savage Society (by Malinowski, Bronislaw)
A Bibliography of the Anthropology of Pe... (by George Amos Dorsey)
Kon Tiki Across the Pacific by Raft (by Thor Heyerdahl)
The races of man, and their geographical... (by Peschel, Oscar)
Handbook of the Alabama Anthropological ... (by Alabama Anthropological Society, Montgomery.)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
Anthropology : Race, Language, Culture, ... (by Kroeber, Alfred Louis)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)