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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Folkways (by Sumner, William Graham)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
Professional ethics and civic morals (by Durkheim, Emile)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Five Lectures on Blindness (by Kate M. Foley)
Introduction to the Science of Sociology (by Park, Robert Ezra)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Girl in Her Teens (by Slattery, Margaret)
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

Folkways (by Sumner, William Graham)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
Professional ethics and civic morals (by Durkheim, Emile)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
Five Lectures on Blindness (by Kate M. Foley)
Introduction to the Science of Sociology (by Park, Robert Ezra)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Girl in Her Teens (by Slattery, Margaret)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)

Top 100 books on Psychology

The Psychology of Management: The Functi... (by Lillian Moller Gilbreth)
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the... (by Freud, Sigmund)
Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism (by Silberer, Herbert)
Mind and Motion and Monism (by Romanes, George John)
Applied Psychology : A Series of Twelve ... (by Warren Hilton)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
Nerves and Common Sense (by Call, Annie Payson)
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (by Freud, Sigmund)
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing (by Cutten, George Barton)
Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of th... (by Bergson, Henri)
The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
The Psychology of Beauty (by Ethel Dench Puffer)
Behavior an Introduction to Comparative ... (by John B. Watson)
The Psychology of Peoples (by Le Bon, Gustave)
Practical Lessons in Psychology (by William Otterbein Krohn)

Top 100 books on Economics

Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Essays on Political Economy (by Frédéric Bastiat)
The Morality of Capitalism
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
Alfred Weber's Theory of the Location of... (by Weber, Alfred)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Decline of American Capitalism (by Corey, Lewis)
Progress and Poverty; an Inquiry Into th... (by George, Henry, 1839-1897)
Conquest of bread, The (by Kropotkin, Peter)
Autobiography of Mother Jones, The (by Jones, Mary Harris)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)

Top 100 books on Government

Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
Assize of Clarendon (by Henry, King, Ii)
Of the Law of Nature and Nations : Eight... (by Pufendorf, Samuel, Freiherr Von)
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (by Wollstonecraft, Mary)
On Liberty (by Mill, J. S.)
The Union of Utrecht (by Lucy Maynard Salmon)
Of the Conduct of the Understanding (by John Locke)
The Rights of the British Colonies Asser... (by Otis, James)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts : Rep... (by Massachusetts)
The Constitution of the United States (by United States. Constitution)
The Letters of Junius
Polybii Historiae (by Polybius)
Lao-Tzu : A Study in Chinese Philosophy (by Watters, Thomas)
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)

Top 100 books on Law

Terrorism, The Future, And U.S. Foreign ... (by Lee, Rensselaer)
The Summa Theologica Volume I (by Thomas Aquinas)
The Case of the Cherokee Nation against ... (by Cherokee Nation)
Economic Sophisms (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Bleak House (by Dickens, Charles)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
Sovereign Immunity : Hearing before the ... Volume Part: 1 (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On Indi...)
Bank Secrecy Act : Implementation of the... (by Bonner, Robert C.)
The Usa Patriot Act: A Legal Analysis (by Doyle, Charles)
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (by John Locke)
Crs Report for Congress Received through... (by Doyle, Charles)
Politics (by Aristotle)
Two Centuries' Growth of American Law, 1... (by Yale Law School)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)

Top 100 books on Politics

Souls of Black Folk, The (by Du Bois, W.E.B.)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Politics of Obedience : The Discours... (by De La Boetie, Étienne)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
Chronological Tables of the Chinese Dyna... (by E. R. Lyman, Tso-Ting Wang, Theodore Wong)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Gulliver's Travels (by Swift, Jonathan)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of C... (by Weber, Max)
A Modest Proposal (by Swift, Jonathan)
Gulliver's Travels (by Swift, Jonathan)
A Tale of Two Cities (by Dickens, Charles)
The Philosophical Works of John Locke : ... (by John Locke)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
The Souls of Black Folk (by Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

The Genetic Relationship of the North Am... (by Radin, Paul)
Kon Tiki Across the Pacific by Raft (by Thor Heyerdahl)
Anthropology and Modern Life (by Boas, Franz)
Anthropology in North America (by John Reed Swanton)
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distributi... Volume 3 (by Borlase, William Copeland)
The Dynamics of Culture Change : An Inqu... (by Malinowski, Bronislaw)
Education as growth; or, The culture of ...
The Human Species (by Armand De Quatrefages De Bréau)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
American Anthropologist (by American Anthropological Association)
The Journal of Negro History ; Volume 1 (by Association for the Study of Negro Life and Histor...)
Games of the North American Indians (by Culin, Stewart)
Man from the Farthest Past : Volume 7 (by Bishop, Carl Whiting)
Anthropology and the Classics : Six Lect... (by Andrew Lang, Gilbert Murray, Sir John Linton Myres...)
The History of Mankind Volume: v.2 (by Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

The Elements of the Theory of Algebraic ... (by Reid, Legh Wilber)
The Earliest Arithmetics in English (by Steele, Robert)
A Treatise of Celestial Mechanics : Pt. ... Volume Pt. 1-2 (by Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis De)
The Number Concept; Its Origin and Devel... (by Conant, Levi Leonard)
Ptolemy's Cataloque of Stars; A Revision... (by Ptolemy)
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals (by Smith, David Eugene)
Essays on the Theory of Numbers : I. Con... (by Dedekind, Richard)
The Doctrine of Chances : Or, A Method o... (by Moivre, Abraham De)
A New Era of Thought (by Hinton, Charles Howard)
Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (by Peter Gustav Lejeune-Dirichlet)
An Introduction to Mathematics (by Whitehead, Alfred North)
Treatise on conic sections (by Apollonius, of Perga)
The Sand-reckoner of Archimedes, Score A... (by Heath, Thomas)
The Elements of Non Euclidean Geometry (by Sommerville, Duncan Mlaren Young)
A treatise on differential equations (by Boole, George)

Top 100 books on Economics

Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Essays on Political Economy (by Frédéric Bastiat)
The Morality of Capitalism
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
Alfred Weber's Theory of the Location of... (by Weber, Alfred)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Decline of American Capitalism (by Corey, Lewis)
Progress and Poverty; an Inquiry Into th... (by George, Henry, 1839-1897)
Conquest of bread, The (by Kropotkin, Peter)
Autobiography of Mother Jones, The (by Jones, Mary Harris)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)