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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Girl in Her Teens (by Slattery, Margaret)
Village Life in China; A Study in Sociol... (by Smith, Arthur Henderson)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
Study of Child Life (by Washburne, Marion Foster, Mrs.)
The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of... (by Winfield Scott Hall)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)

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

Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
The Girl in Her Teens (by Slattery, Margaret)
Village Life in China; A Study in Sociol... (by Smith, Arthur Henderson)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
Study of Child Life (by Washburne, Marion Foster, Mrs.)
The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of... (by Winfield Scott Hall)
Love-Marriage-Birth Control; Being a Spe... (by Dawson, Bertrand Dawson, Baron)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)

Top 100 books on Psychology

The Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind (by Gustave Le Bon)
Habit (by James, William)
Quit Your Worrying! (by George Wharton James)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
Psychologie de L'Éducation (by Gustave Le Bon)
The Freedom of Life (by Call, Annie Payson)
Mind and Motion and Monism (by Romanes, George John)
Illusions : A Psychological Study (by Sully, James)
A Mind That Found Itself (by Beers, Clifford Whittingham)
The Origin and Nature of the Emotions (by Crile, George W.)
Psychology and Social Sanity (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of th... (by Bergson, Henri)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex. V.3, 1... (by Havelock Ellis)
Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic ... (by Pengilly, Mary Huestis)
Totem and Taboo (by Freud, Sigmund)

Top 100 books on Economics

The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Conquest of Bread (by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, Kniaz)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)

Top 100 books on Government

Plato redivivus : or, A dialogue concern... (by Neville, Henry)
The Declaration of Arbroath
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Observations on the Importance of the Am... (by Richard Price)
The Petition of Right (by Relf, Frances Helen)
A Plea for Religious Liberty and the Rig... (by George Ticknor Curtis)
The Law of Nations; (by Vattel, Emer De)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The American Democrat : Or, Hints on the... (by James Fenimore Cooper)
Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero (by Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Virginia Declaration of Rights and Cardi... (by Mason, George)
The Historical, Political, And Diplomati... (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)

Top 100 books on Law

Bartleby the Scrivener, A Story of Wall ... (by Melville, Herman)
Conflict of Laws; Or, Private Internatio... (by Minor, Raleigh C)
Human Rights (by Carter, Jimmy)
Terrorism, The Future, And U.S. Foreign ... (by Lee, Rensselaer)
Bank Secrecy Act : Implementation of the... (by Bonner, Robert C.)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (by John Locke)
Report to Congress in Accordance with 35... (by United States Department of the Treasury)
Politics (by Aristotle)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Bleak House (by Dickens, Charles)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
The spirit of the laws; Volume: 11 (by Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de)
No Treason : The Constitution of No Auth... (by Spooner, Lysander)
Your Right to Federal Records Questions ...
The American's Guide: Comprising the Dec...

Top 100 books on Politics

Wealth of Nations, Book 1, The (by Smith, Adam)
The Republic (by Plato)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawy... (by Twain, Mark)
Areopagitica (by John Milton)
Communist Manifesto (by Marx, Karl)
Utopia (by More, Thomas)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)
A Modest Proposal (by Swift, Jonathan)
The Law of Nations; (by Vattel, Emer De)
The Wealth Of Nations (by Adam_Smith)
The Twelve Caesars (by Tranquillus, Gaius, Suetonius)
The Politics of Obedience : The Discours... (by De La Boetie, Étienne)
The Origins of Totalitarianism (by Arendt, Hannah)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
Public opinion (by Lippmann, Walter)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

Curators, Collections, And Contexts : An... Volume Fieldiana, Anthropology, new series, no.36 (by Field Museum of Natural History)
International Catalogue of Scientific Li... (by Royal Society, Great Britain)
The Scope of Social Anthropology; A Lect... (by Frazer, James George, Sir)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
American Anthropologist (by The American Anthropological Association)
Modern Theories of Criminality (by Bernaldo De Quiros, Constancio)
The Dynamics of Culture Change : An Inqu... (by Malinowski, Bronislaw)
The Human Species (by Armand De Quatrefages De Bréau)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 21 Volume Vol. 21 (by American Anthropological Association)
Anthropology and the Classics : Six Lect... (by Andrew Lang, Gilbert Murray, Sir John Linton Myres...)
Traditions of the Tinguian; A Study in P... (by Cole, Fay Cooper)
Systematic Theology : Volume 2 (by Hodge, Charles)
Ethnography of Ancient India (by Shafer, Robert)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
A Treatise on Differential Equations (by George Boole)
Problems in Differential Calculus. Suppl... (by Byerly, William Elwood)
Lectures on Ten British Mathematicians o... (by Macfarlane, Alexander)
The Algebra of Logic (by Couturat, Louis)
The Foundations of Geometry, (by David Hilbert)
The Doctrine of Chances : Or, A Method o... (by Abraham De Moivre)
Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (by Lejeune-Dirichlet, Peter Gustav)
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals (by Smith, David Eugene)
The Aryabhatiya; With the Commentary Bha... (by Aryabhata)
Treatise on conic sections (by Apollonius, of Perga)
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)
The Elements of Euclid: The Errors by Wh... (by Euclid)
L'Arithmetiqve De Simon Stevin De Brvges (by Stevin, Simon, 1548-1620)
A synopsis of elementary results in pure... (by Carr, G. S. (George Shoobridge))

Top 100 books on Economics

The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Conquest of Bread (by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, Kniaz)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)