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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)
The Fertility of the Unfit (by Chapple, W. A)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
How to Be Happy Though Married. Being a ... (by Hardy, Edward John)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
The Challenge of the Country: A Study of... (by George Walter Fiske, Young Mens Christian Associat...)
Omaha Sociology (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Five Lectures on Blindness (by Kate M. Foley)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
A Story of the Red Cross : Glimpses of F... (by Clara Barton)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 2 (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

What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)
The Fertility of the Unfit (by Chapple, W. A)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
How to Be Happy Though Married. Being a ... (by Hardy, Edward John)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
White Collar; The American Middle Classe... (by Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright))
The Challenge of the Country: A Study of... (by George Walter Fiske, Young Mens Christian Associat...)
Omaha Sociology (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Five Lectures on Blindness (by Kate M. Foley)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
A Story of the Red Cross : Glimpses of F... (by Clara Barton)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 2 (by Spencer, Herbert)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Freud and the Scientific Method (by Rosenfels, Paul)
The Origin and Nature of Emotions (by Crile, George W.)
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (by Sigmund Freud)
Habit (by James, William)
Psychologie de L'Éducation (by Gustave Le Bon)
Cumulative Record (by Skinner, B. F.)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (by Berkeley, George)
Criminal Psychology (by Gross, Hans)
Analyzing Character, The New Science of ... (by Blackford, Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
The Story of the Mind (by James Mark Baldwin)
Initiative Psychic Energy (by Hilton, Warren)
Dora an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (by Sigmund Freud)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Ten Days in a Madhouse (by Bly, Nellie)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Traffic in Women (by Goldman, Emma)
Capital; A Critique of Political Economy... Volume Vol. 3 (by Marx, Karl)
The Development of Socialism from Utopia... (by Friedrich Engels)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
The Causes of Poverty (by Mccarthy, Callaghan)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Communist Manifesto (by Marx, Karl)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)

Top 100 books on Government

Institutes of Natural Law : Being the Su... Volume Vol. 1 (by Rutherforth, T., Thomas)
Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero (by Marcus Tullius Cicero)
The Philosophical Works of John Locke : ... (by John Locke)
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
Virginia Declaration of Rights and Cardi... (by Mason, George)
Communist Manifesto (by Marx, Karl)
Assize of Clarendon (by Henry, King, Ii)
The Origin of the Family, Private Proper... (by Engels, Friedrich)
The Charlotte Town Resolves (by Charlotte Town Committee)
Plato redivivus : or, A dialogue concern... (by Neville, Henry)
Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches :... (by Lincoln, Abraham)
Machiavelli (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Code of Hammurabi (by King, Leonard W.)
Discourse on Inequality (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)

Top 100 books on Law

The French Civil Code (As Amended up to ... (by Eric Blackwood Wright, France)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
The Nature of the Judicial Process (by Benjamin N. Cardozo)
Nuclear proliferation : future U.S. fore... (by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Inter...)
Sovereign Immunity : Hearing before the ... Volume Part: 1 (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On Indi...)
Constitution and Laws of the Cherokee Na... (by Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma)
The Path of the Law (by Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.)
The Development of the Associative Princ... (by Christopher Barker)
Introduction to Roman Law (by Hadley, James)
Your Right to Federal Records Questions ...
Crime and Punishment (by Doestoevski, Feodor)
Oliver Twist (by Dickens, Charles)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (by John Locke)
Laws, Decisions, And Regulations Affecti... (by United States)

Top 100 books on Politics

The Republic (by Plato)
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (by Henry, Patrick)
On War (by Von Clausewitz, Carl)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
The Souls of Black Folk (by Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt)
The Art of War (by Henri Jomini)
The Trial and Death of Socrates (by Plato)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Tressell, Robert)
Lex, Rex : The Law and the Prince, A Dis...
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
Excerpts from Frame of Government of Pen... (by Penn, William)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawy... (by Twain, Mark)
The Origin of the Family, Private Proper... (by Engels, Friedrich)
Democracy in America (by Alexis De Tocqueville)
The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
An Anthropologist at Work; Writings of R... (by Benedict, Ruth)
Ancient Art and Ritual (by Jane Ellen Harrison)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 4 Volume Vol. 4 (by American Anthropological Association)
Catalogue of Works on European Philology... (by Quarich, Bernard)
Handbook of the Alabama Anthropological ... (by Alabama Anthropological Society, Montgomery.)
The History of Mankind Volume: v.3 (by Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904)
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)
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological... (by Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ire...)
Pathological Lying, Accusation, And Swin... (by Healy, William)
The Living World : Containing Descriptio... Volume v 1 (by Arnold, Augustus C. L.)
The Female Offender (by Cesare Lombroso, Guglielmo Ferrero)
The American Beaver and His Works (by Lewis Henry Morgan)
American Anthropologist (by The American Anthropological Association)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

The Alphabet of Economic Science (by Philip Henry Wicksteed)
Bija Ganita; Or, The Algebra of the Hind... (by Bhaskaracarya)
The American Mathematical Monthly (by Mathematical Association of America)
Investigation of the Laws of Thought (by Boole, George)
An Introduction to Mathematics (by Alfred North Whitehead)
The Philosophy of Mathematics (by Comte, Auguste)
Symbolic Logic (by John Venn)
The Collected Mathematical Papers of Art... (by Cayley, Arthur)
Harmonies of the World, Score Astro How (by Kepler, Johannes)
A synopsis of elementary results in pure... (by Carr, G. S. (George Shoobridge))
The Earliest Arithmetics in English (by Steele, Robert)
Histoire des Nombres et de la Numération... (by Jacomy-Régnier)
A treatise on differential equations (by Boole, George)
Newton's Principia : The Mathematical Pr... (by Newton, Isaac, Sir)
Mecanique Analytique (by Lagrange, J. L. (Joseph Louis))

Top 100 books on Economics

The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Life of Adam Smith (by Rae, John)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Traffic in Women (by Goldman, Emma)
Capital; A Critique of Political Economy... Volume Vol. 3 (by Marx, Karl)
The Development of Socialism from Utopia... (by Friedrich Engels)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
The Causes of Poverty (by Mccarthy, Callaghan)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Communist Manifesto (by Marx, Karl)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)