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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Society, Its Origin and Development (by Rowe, Henry Kalloch)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
The Fertility of the Unfit (by Chapple, W. A)
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of... (by Smith, Adam)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Toward a general theory of action (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)

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

Society, Its Origin and Development (by Rowe, Henry Kalloch)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
The History and Meaning of the Term Soci... (by Shields, Leo William)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
The Fertility of the Unfit (by Chapple, W. A)
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of... (by Smith, Adam)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Toward a general theory of action (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Dora an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (by Sigmund Freud)
The Achievements of Luther Trant (by Balmer, Edwin)
Why Worry? (by George Lincoln Walton)
The Secret Places of the Heart (by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George))
Cumulative Record (by Skinner, B. F.)
A Young Girl's Diary (by Freud, Sigmund)
Contemporary Schools of Psychology (by Woodworth, Robert S.)
Totem and Taboo (by Freud, Sigmund)
The Freedom of Life (by Call, Annie Payson)
Self Mastery through Conscious Autosugge... (by Coue, Emile)
The Story of the Mind (by James Mark Baldwin)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex. V.3, 1... (by Havelock Ellis)
Malignant Self Love (by Vaknin, Sam)
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social P... (by William Isaac Thomas)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Soul of Man under Socialism (by Oscar Wilde)
The Jews and Modern Capitalism (by Werner Sombert)
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (by Engels, Friedrich)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
The Way to Wealth; Or, Poor Richard Impr... (by Franklin, Benjamin)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Theory of Business Enterprise (by Veblen, Thorstein)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Development of Socialism from Utopia... (by Friedrich Engels)
The History of the Russian Revolution to... (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Trade Unions : An Appeal to the Work... (by Robert Somers)

Top 100 books on Government

The Letters of Junius
Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches :... (by Lincoln, Abraham)
Virginia Declaration of Rights and Cardi... (by Mason, George)
The General History of England, Both Ecc... (by Tyrrell, James)
The Petition of Right (by Relf, Frances Helen)
The Origin and Growth of the Common Law ... (by Hamilton, Peter Joseph)
The Commonwealth of Oceana (by Harrington, James)
Uncle Tom's Cabin (by Stowe, Harriet Beecher)
Assize of Arms
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (by Malthus, Thomas)
On the Law of War and Peace (by Grotius, Hugo)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535)
An Essay on the Principle of Population (by Malthus, Thomas)
On the principles of political economy, ... (by David Ricardo)
Utopia (by More, Thomas)

Top 100 books on Law

Bleak House (by Dickens, Charles)
The Laws of Plato; (by Plato)
The Federalist Papers (by Hamilton, Alexander)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (by John Locke)
Constitution and Act of Incorporation of... (by Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition o...)
Lectures on Jurisprudence (by Robert Campbell)
Translation of the Law of Criminal Proce... (by Cuba)
Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary : Comprisi... (by Shumaker, Walter A)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Bank Secrecy Act : Implementation of the... (by Bonner, Robert C.)
Democracy in America (by Tocqueville, Alexis De)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)

Top 100 books on Politics

The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (by Aristotle, Frank Hesketh Peters)
The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
The Law of Nations; (by Vattel, Emer De)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
The Writings of Thomas Paine Volume Iv (by Paine, Thomas)
A Tale of Two Cities (by Dickens, Charles)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
History of the Peloponnesian War (by Thucydides)
On Liberty (by Mill, J. S.)
Utopia (by More, Thomas)
Revolutionary Socialism, A Study in Soci... (by Corey, Lewis)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

Introduction to Anthropology (by Waitz, Theodore)
Social Anthropology (by Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 06 Part 0... Volume Vol. 06 Part 01-02 (by American Anthropological Association)
American Anthropologist (by The American Anthropological Association)
Influences of Geographic Environment of ... (by Semple, Ellen Churchill)
Boas Anniversary Volume; Anthropological... (by Laufer, Berthold)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
The Scope of Social Anthropology; A Lect... (by Frazer, James George, Sir)
Types of Mankind, Or, Ethnological Resea... (by Nott, Josiah Clark)
The Positive School of Criminology (by Ferri, Enrico)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Study of Man: An Introduction (by Linton, Ralph)
The Fijians : A Study of the Decay of Cu... (by Thomson, Basil)
Curators, Collections, And Contexts : An... Volume Fieldiana, Anthropology, new series, no.36 (by Field Museum of Natural History)
Anthropology; An Introduction to the Stu... (by Tylor, Edward Burnett, Sir)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure... (by Carr, George Shoobridge)
The Philosophy of Mathematics (by Comte, Auguste)
Philosophy & Fun of Algebra (by Boole, Mary Everest, Mrs.)
Projective geometry (by Mathews, George Ballard)
Versuch zur Losung eines Problems der Wa... (by Bayes, Thomas)
A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
Carl Friedrich Gauss' Untersuchungen übe... (by Hermann Maser, Carl Friedrich Gauss)
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)
The Works of Archimedes (by Archimedes)
Chance and Luck : A Discussion of the La... (by Proctor, Richard Anthony)
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals (by Smith, David Eugene)
Dialogues Concerninc Two New Sciences (by Galileo Galilei)
Newton's Principia : The Mathematical Pr... (by Newton, Isaac, Sir)
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)
The Elements of Euclid : The Errors by W... (by Euclid)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Soul of Man under Socialism (by Oscar Wilde)
The Jews and Modern Capitalism (by Werner Sombert)
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (by Engels, Friedrich)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
The Way to Wealth; Or, Poor Richard Impr... (by Franklin, Benjamin)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Theory of Business Enterprise (by Veblen, Thorstein)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Development of Socialism from Utopia... (by Friedrich Engels)
The History of the Russian Revolution to... (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Trade Unions : An Appeal to the Work... (by Robert Somers)