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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)
The Growth of Thought as Affecting the P... (by William Withington)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
Domesday Studies, Being the Papers Read ... Volume 2 (by Domesday Commemoration)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
A History of Social Thought (by Emory Stephen Bogardus)
Almost a Woman (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
Omaha Sociology (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Introduction to the Science of Sociology (by Park, Robert Ezra)
William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)

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

Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)
The Growth of Thought as Affecting the P... (by William Withington)
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to th... (by George Henry Napheys)
The Christian Faith and Human Relations ... (by Bitting, William Coleman)
Domesday Studies, Being the Papers Read ... Volume 2 (by Domesday Commemoration)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
A History of Social Thought (by Emory Stephen Bogardus)
Almost a Woman (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
Omaha Sociology (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Introduction to the Science of Sociology (by Park, Robert Ezra)
William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic ... (by Pengilly, Mary Huestis)
Ten Days in a Madhouse (by Bly, Nellie)
History of Psychology; A Sketch and an I... (by Baldwin, James Mark)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
Criminal Psychology (by Gross, Hans)
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusio... (by Charles Mackay)
The Psychology of Peoples (by Le Bon, Gustave)
Mind and Motion and Monism (by Romanes, George John)
Applied Psychology : A Series of Twelve ... (by Warren Hilton)
Adolescence Its Psychology Volume-Ii (by G. Stanley Hall)
Psychotherapy (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
The Photoplay; A Psychological Study (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
The Principles of Psychology (by William James)
The Story of the Mind (by James Mark Baldwin)
Psychologie de L'Éducation (by Gustave Le Bon)

Top 100 books on Economics

Children of the Slaves (by Graham, Stephen)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
The History of the Russian Revolution to... (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
Minorities Versus Majorities (by Goldman, Emma)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Jews and Modern Capitalism (by Werner Sombert)
A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)

Top 100 books on Government

Uncle Tom's Cabin (by Stowe, Harriet Beecher)
The General History of England, Both Ecc... (by Tyrrell, James)
The Origin of the Family, Private Proper... (by Engels, Friedrich)
The English Constitution (by Sir Frederick Pollock)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
Ethica (by Baruch Spinoza, Benedictus De Spinoza, Johannes Va...)
Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Grea... (by Allan, Mary Ann)
Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero (by Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Declaration of Rights of the Stamp A... (by Stamp Act Congress)
On Liberty (by Mill, J. S.)
A Discourse of Government with Relation ... (by Fletcher, Andrew)
The Charlotte Town Resolves (by Charlotte Town Committee)
Polybii Historiae (by Polybius)
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)

Top 100 books on Law

Sovereign Immunity : Hearing before the ... Volume Part: 1 (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On Indi...)
The Treaty Making Power of the United St... (by Butler, Charles Henry)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Crime and Punishment (by Doestoevski, Feodor)
The Wealth Of Nations (by Adam_Smith)
Crime and Punishment (by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor)
Codex Hammurabi (by Hammurabi, King of Balonia)
Treatise on Law Summa Theologica Questio... (by Thomas Aquinas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
The Trial and Death of Socrates (by Plato)
Magna Carta (by Unknown)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Nature of the Judicial Process (by Benjamin N. Cardozo)
Bracton's Note Book. A Collection of Cas... Volume Vol. 1 (by Great Britain. Courts)
Laws, Decisions, And Regulations Affecti... (by United States)

Top 100 books on Politics

Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
The Iron Heel (by London, Jack)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
Rights of Man, Score Aor Rom Volume Vol. II (by Paine, Thomas)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith)
A Modest Proposal (by Swift, Jonathan)
The Origins of Totalitarianism (by Arendt, Hannah)
History of the Peloponnesian War (by Thucydides)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapar... (by Marx, Karl)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

Influences of Geographic Environment of ... (by Semple, Ellen Churchill)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 4 Volume Vol. 4 (by American Anthropological Association)
Current Anthropological Literature Volume 1 (by American Anthropological Association)
Economic Anthropology : A Study in Compa... (by Herskovits, Melville Jean)
Adolescence : Its Psychology and Its Rel... Volume Vol. 1 (by Hall, Granville Stanley)
Animal Figures in the Maya Codices (by Tozzer, Alfred M. (Alfred Marston))
Pedagogical Anthropology (by Montessori, Maria)
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth... (by Powell, J. W.)
Kon Tiki Across the Pacific by Raft (by Thor Heyerdahl)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Journal of the Anthropological Insti... (by Royal Anthropological Institute)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 21 Volume Vol. 21 (by American Anthropological Association)
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distributi... Volume 3 (by Borlase, William Copeland)
The Journal of Negro History ; Volume 1 (by Association for the Study of Negro Life and Histor...)
The Golden Bough Volume Xii : A Study in... (by Frazer, Sir James George)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

Harmonies of the World, Score Astro How (by Kepler, Johannes)
A Course of Pure Mathematics (by Hardy, Godfrey Harold)
The Collected Mathematical Papers of Art... (by Cayley, Arthur)
The Evanston Colloquium: Delivered from ... (by Félix Klein)
Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions (by Edwin Abbott)
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (by Russell, Bertrand)
A synopsis of elementary results in pure... (by Carr, G. S. (George Shoobridge))
A Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Dif... (by Boole, George)
Algebra
The Earliest Arithmetics in English (by Alexander, De Villa Dei)
The Aryabhatiya; With the Commentary Bha... (by Aryabhata)
An Introduction to Mathematics (by Alfred North Whitehead)
The Algebra of Logic (by Couturat, Louis)
A Course of Pure Mathematics (by Godfrey Harold Hardy)
The Aryabhatiya; With the Commentary Bha... (by Aryabhata)

Top 100 books on Economics

Children of the Slaves (by Graham, Stephen)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
The History of the Russian Revolution to... (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
Profits, Wages, and Prices (by David Friday)
Minorities Versus Majorities (by Goldman, Emma)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
Women and Economics: A Study of the Econ... (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Jews and Modern Capitalism (by Werner Sombert)
A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)