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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
Catastrophe and Social Change, Based Upo... (by Prince, Samuel Henry)
Pure Sociology : A Treatise on the Origi... (by Ward, Lester Frank)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
Taboo and genetics, a study of the biolo... (by Knight, Melvin Moses)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
Quaker Hill; A Sociological Study (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Li... (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

The Negro in Chicago : a study of race r... (by Chicago Commission on Race Relations)
Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
Almost a Man (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
Catastrophe and Social Change, Based Upo... (by Prince, Samuel Henry)
Pure Sociology : A Treatise on the Origi... (by Ward, Lester Frank)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
Taboo and genetics, a study of the biolo... (by Knight, Melvin Moses)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Social Statistics; Or, Order, Abridged a... (by Spencer, Herbert)
Quaker Hill; A Sociological Study (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)
Down with the Cities! (by Nakashima, Tadashi)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Li... (by Durkheim, Emile)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Psychopathia Sexualis (by Richard Krafft-Ebing)
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (by Freud, Sigmund)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery (by Lawrence, Robert Means)
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing (by Cutten, George Barton)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic ... (by Pengilly, Mary Huestis)
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social P... (by William Isaac Thomas)
The Interpretation of Dreams (by Freud, Sigmund)
Applied Psychology : A Series of Twelve ... (by Warren Hilton)
Buddhist Psychology; An Inquiry into the... (by Davids, Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys)
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (by Freud, Sigmund)
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (by Freud, Sigmund)
Psychologie de L'Éducation (by Gustave Le Bon)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Rober... (by Ricardo, David)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
Walden Or, Life in the Woods (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
Das Kapital (by Karl Marx)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
Poverty and Its Vicious Circles (by Hurry, Jamieson Boyd)
Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (by Edwards, George W.)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)

Top 100 books on Government

Lao-Tzu : A Study in Chinese Philosophy (by Watters, Thomas)
Assize of Clarendon (by Henry, King, Ii)
Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Grea... (by Allan, Mary Ann)
The Code of Hammurabi (by King, Leonard W.)
An Essay on the Principle of Population (by Malthus, Thomas)
Leviathan (Books I and II) (by Hobbes, Thomas)
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Constitutional Documents of the Puri... (by Gardiner, Samuel Rawson)
The Rights of the British Colonies Asser... (by Otis, James)
Laws (by Plato)
On Liberty (by Mill, J. S.)
The Declaration of Arbroath
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (by Wollstonecraft, Mary)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the... (by Marquis De Lafayette)

Top 100 books on Law

Treatise on Law Summa Theologica Questio... (by Thomas Aquinas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
John King of England (by John T Appledy)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
The French Civil Code (As Amended up to ... (by Eric Blackwood Wright, France)
The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy in Asi... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee On Inter...)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary : Comprisi... (by Shumaker, Walter A)
Crime and Custom in Savage Society (by Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942)
Terrorism, Asylum Issues, And U.S. Immig... (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On the ...)
Nuclear proliferation : future U.S. fore... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Inter...)
Codex Hammurabi (by Hammurabi, King of Balonia)
The United States Patent Law. Instructio... (by Munn and Company (New York, N. Y.))
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)

Top 100 books on Politics

A Tale of Two Cities (by Dickens, Charles)
The Trial and Death of Socrates (by Plato)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
Communist Manifesto (by Marx, Karl)
Free Thought and Official Propaganda (by Russell, Bertrand)
The Republic (by Plato)
Ethica (by Baruch Spinoza, Benedictus De Spinoza, Johannes Va...)
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (by Wollstonecraft, Mary)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
God and the State (by Bakunin, Michael)
Candide (by Voltaire)
A Tale of Two Cities (by Dickens, Charles)
Apology of Socrates, The (by Plato)
Albany Plan of Union (by Franklin, Benjamin)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
The Great Rift Valley : Being the Narrat... (by Gregory, John Walter)
A Bibliography of the Anthropology of Pe... (by George Amos Dorsey)
The Journal of Negro History ; Volume 1 (by Association for the Study of Negro Life and Histor...)
Handbook of the Alabama Anthropological ... (by Alabama Anthropological Society, Montgomery.)
Catalogue of Works on European Philology... (by Quarich, Bernard)
Anthropology as a Practical Science. Add... (by Temple, Richard Carnac, Sir)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
Anthropology : An Introduction to the St... (by Edward Burnett Tylor)
Social structure (by Murdock, George Peter)
Economic Anthropology : A Study in Compa... (by Herskovits, Melville Jean)
Systematic Theology : Index Volume index (by Hodge, Charles)
General Anthropology (by Boas, Franz)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

First-Year Mathematics for Secondary Sch... (by Ernst Rudolph Breslich)
Treatise on Conic Sections (by Apollonius, of Perga)
Mecanique Analytique (by Lagrange, J. L. (Joseph Louis))
The Algebra of Logic (by Couturat, Louis)
Carl Friedrich Gauss' Untersuchungen übe... (by Hermann Maser, Carl Friedrich Gauss)
Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions (by Edwin Abbott)
Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philoma... (by Moritz, Robert Édouard)
The Elements of the Theory of Algebraic ... (by Reid, Legh Wilber)
The Philosophy of Mathematics (by Comte, Auguste)
Problemas de Geometrie et D'Hydraulique (by Da Vinci, Leonardo)
Principia Mathematica (by Whitehead, Alfred North)
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (by Russell, Bertrand)
Calcul des Probabilités. Lecons Professé... (by Poincaré, Henri)
The Foundations of Geometry, (by David Hilbert)
Symbolic logic (by Carroll, Lewis)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Rober... (by Ricardo, David)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
Walden Or, Life in the Woods (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
Das Kapital (by Karl Marx)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
Poverty and Its Vicious Circles (by Hurry, Jamieson Boyd)
Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (by Edwards, George W.)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)