The Men of the Chicago School The Men of the Chicago School 
The Chicago School of Sociology is unique in the annals of thediscipline. Many books and articles have been written on thisearly sociological institution and the men who staffed it. [44] There is a continual theme underlying most of these efforts:that the University of Chicago was significant from 1892 to 1918because of its role in establishing and legitimating the discipline. Historical precedence, administration, teaching, and a visionof what could be achieved are the major strengths assigned tothe period examined here. [45] Only W. I. Thomas is widely recognizedas an early intellectual force. In fact, there is a kind of embarrassmentover the early scholarship of the male faculty at Chicago (andthe women faculty are not even evaluated as an influence or figuresin the drama). This book, then, is a study of these early menas well as Addams. Both the men and Addams were erased in manyways from accounts of the intellectual growth and developmentof sociology due to the bias of their successors, frequently ungratefulstudents, who were faculty at the University of Chicago duringthe 1920s. Furthermore, the men of the Chicago School after 1918often claimed that their ideas originated within themselves, disassociatingthemselves from their reform roots and intellectual forebears.
The men of the Chicago School were a strongly in-bred group. As Figure 1.1 shows, the early men were largely trained withinthe university itself after the original staff was recruited byPresident William Rainey Harper. During 1892-1918, only Parkwas "imported" from "outside" the university. (The next "outsider" to be recruited was W.F. Ogburn,who came from Columbia University in 1928.) [46]
FIGURE 1.1
George Herbert Mead, the Chicago philosopher, is included as aChicago Sociologist because of his nearly universal recognitionas a major figure there. [47] He is now recognized as the foundingfigure of "symbolic interactionism" along with his Chicagocolleagues W.I. Thomas, Robert E. Park, and Ellsworth Faris. [48]
The major criteria for including the men, with the exception ofMead noted above, were employment at the university as a sociologistand service there for over fifteen years (the shortest tenurewas Zeublin's seventeen years). It is clear from Figure 1.1 thatall of the men except Zeublin enjoyed close collegial ties, lengthyyears of service, and mutual influences.
There were three additional men who were important influencesor served on the faculty for an extended period who were excluded:Graham Taylor, Ira Woods Howerth, and Edward Bemis. The two formermen are briefly mentioned here. Graham Taylor was a "theologicalsociologist" at the Chicago Theological Seminary. [49] Althoughaffiliated with the University of Chicago, the seminary was neveran administrative unit. Taylor held an appointment in the Departmentof Sociology at the University of Chicago formally for over twoyears. Since he was a close colleague of Addams, if his workwere included here, her influence on the Chicago School wouldbe documented as even more pervasive. Ira Woods Howerth workedin the Extension Division, as did Zeublin, but no references tohis work with the other men or Addams came to light during thecourse of my investigations. [50] Although he worked for eighteenyears at the University of Chicago, the lack of information onhis career made references to him superfluous. Perhaps more datawould reveal additional ties or confirm his isolated position,but this is a moot point here.
The third man, Edward Bemis, had a very short tenure at the Universityof Chicago. Teaching at the University Extension Division asa political economist and sociologist, he was summarily dismissedbecause of his support of the railroad workers in the 1894 PullmanStrike. His major influence on the Chicago School was his battlefor free speech, discussed in more depth in chapter 7. Each ofthe eight men who formed the early Chicago School are brieflyintroduced below.
44. Faris, Chicago Sociology; Burgess and Bogue, Contributionsto Urban Sociology; Short, The Social Fabric ofthe Metropolis; Shils, "Tradition, Ecology and Institutionin the History of Sociology"; Lengermann, "The Foundingof the American Sociological Review; Schwendinger and Schwendinger,The Sociologists of the Chair.
45. This is clear in Faris, Chicago Sociology, pp. 3-36;Short, The Social Fabric of the Metropolis, pp. xiii-xx;Burgess and Bogue, Contributions to Urban Sociology,. pp.I - 14.
46. Faris, Chicago Sociology, pp. 113-16, 159.
47. There is now some debate over the significance of Mead's role.See J. David Lewis and Richard L. Smith, American Sociologyand Pragmatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980):Bernice Fisher and Anselm Strauss, "George Herbert Mead andthe Chicago Tradition of Sociology (Part One)," SymbolicInteraction 2 (Spring 1979):9-26 and "(Part Two)"2 (Fall 1979):9-20. These authors aver that Mead's role was marginalin sociological thought. This 'debate" however is of recentorigin and evidence supporting Mead's significance is very strong.See Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism (EnglewoodCliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969); Faris, Chicago Sociology,pp. 88-99; Symbolic Interaction , 3rd Ed., ed. Jerome Manisand Bernard Meltzer (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1979).
48. See Faris, Chicago Sociology; Manis and Meltzer, SymbolicInteraction..
49. Jane Addams, "Pioneers in Sociology: Graham Taylor,"Neighborhood 1 (July 1928):6- 11.
50. References to Howerth in Faris, Chicago Sociology were limited to only the titles of his master's and doctoral theses.Diner mentions him in two of his publications, largely in referenceto his work for the Illinois Education Commission, "Departmentand Discipline." Minerva 8 (Winter 1975):514-43,p. 529; and A City and Its Universities (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press. 1980). p. 86. No archivaldeposit of his work and writings is known to the author nor washis name mentioned in the hundreds of letters and reports readin the course of this investigation.
From Mary Jo Deegan, Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918.New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1986, pp. 15-17.
Forward to "Albion W. Small"
Back to "Significance of Addams as a Sociologist"Back to the Index