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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Sex: Avoided Subjects Discussed in Plain... (by Henry Stanton)
Social Control; A Survey of the Foundati... (by Ross, Edward Alsworth)
Essays in Sociological Theory (by Parsons, Talcott)
Capital : A Critique of Political Econom... (by Marx, Karl)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)

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

Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Sex: Avoided Subjects Discussed in Plain... (by Henry Stanton)
Social Control; A Survey of the Foundati... (by Ross, Edward Alsworth)
Essays in Sociological Theory (by Parsons, Talcott)
Capital : A Critique of Political Econom... (by Marx, Karl)
The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Analyzing Character, The New Science of ... (by Blackford, Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (by Freud, Sigmund)
Dora an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (by Sigmund Freud)
Crime and Punishment (by Dostoevsky, Fyodor)
The Intermediate Sex; A Study of Some Tr... (by Carpenter, Edward)
The Foundations of Personality (by Myerson, Abraham)
Behavior an Introduction to Comparative ... (by John B. Watson)
Psychology from the Standpoint of a Beha... (by Watson, John B. (John Broadus))
The Nervous Housewife (by Myerson, Abraham)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
Practical Lessons in Psychology (by William Otterbein Krohn)
Essays in Radical Empiricism (by James, William)
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing (by Cutten, George Barton)
The Misuse of Mind (by Stephen, Karin)
The Expression of Emotion in Man and Ani... (by Darwin, Charles)

Top 100 books on Economics

Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
On Liberty (by John Stuart Mill)
On the Principles of Political Economy, ... (by David Ricardo)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Anarchism and Other Essays (by Emma Goldman)
A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foun... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
The Theory of Business Enterprise (by Veblen, Thorstein)
A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
The People of the Abyss (by Jack London)

Top 100 books on Government

A Discourse of Government with Relation ... (by Fletcher, Andrew)
An Introduction to the Principles of Mor... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Lao-Tzu : A Study in Chinese Philosophy (by Watters, Thomas)
The Republic, Score Plato Rep (by Plato)
Das Kapital (by Karl Marx)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the... (by Marquis De Lafayette)
Communist Manifesto, The (by Marx, Karl)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
Uncle Tom's Cabin (by Stowe, Harriet Beecher)
Ethica (by Baruch Spinoza, Benedictus De Spinoza, Johannes Va...)
Virginia Declaration of Rights and Cardi... (by Mason, George)
1581 : The Dutch Declaration of Independ... (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
The Works of Walter Moyle: None of which... (by Walter Moyle, Thomas Sergeant)

Top 100 books on Law

Marrow of Tradition, The (by Chesnutt, Charles Waddell)
The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy in Asi... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee On Inter...)
The Development of the Associative Princ... (by Christopher Barker)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
Ancient Law (by Maine, Henry Sumner, Sir)
Crime and Punishment (by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor)
The United States' Constitution (by Fathers, Founding)
Bartleby the Scrivener, A Story of Wall ... (by Melville, Herman)
Meditations, The (by Marcus Aurelius)
Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of t... (by Chesnutt, Charles Waddell)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Codification, Annotation, And Revision o... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee On Revis...)
Codex Hammurabi (by Hammurabi, King of Balonia)
Crs Report for Congress Received through... (by Doyle, Charles)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)

Top 100 books on Politics

Free Thought and Official Propaganda (by Russell, Bertrand)
Reflections on the Revolution in France (by Burke, Edmund)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
An Introduction to the Principles of Mor... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (by Henry, Patrick)
Heart of Darkness (by Conrad, Joseph)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint)
The origin of the family, private proper... (by Engels, Friedrich)
Chronological Tables of the Chinese Dyna... (by E. R. Lyman, Tso-Ting Wang, Theodore Wong)
Areopagitica (by John Milton)
Heart of Darkness (by Conrad, Joseph)
A Tale of Two Cities (by Dickens, Charles)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Souls of Black Folk (by Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

The Human Species (by Armand De Quatrefages De Bréau)
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distributi... Volume 3 (by Borlase, William Copeland)
Sex and Repression in Savage Society (by Malinowski, Bronislaw)
The History of Mankind (by Ratzel, Friedrich)
The American Indian: An Introduction to ... (by Clark Wissler)
The races of man, and their geographical... (by Peschel, Oscar)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
Story of Man: from the First Human to Pr... (by Coon, Carleton Stevens)
American Anthropologist (by American Anthropological Association)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
General Anthropology (by Boas, Franz)
An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (by Lowie, Robert Harry)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 3 Volume Vol. 3 (by American Anthropological Association)
Introduction to Anthropology (by Waitz, Theodore)