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Auguste Comte
A frenchman who is recognized as the "Father of Sociology", he coined the term Sociology & wanted to use scientific observation to describe this science, calling it "Positivism". -
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Harriet Martineau
An Englishwoman who is a popular writer, and is best known for her translation of Comte's "Positive Philosophy" saw herself as a "pioneering feminist theorist" -
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Karl Marx
A german scholar, Marx identified several social classes in the nineteenth-century industrial society. His political objective was to explain the workings of capitalism in order to "hasten" its fall through revolution. -
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Herbert Spencer
Explaining social stability, Spencer compared society to the human body, he said "like a body, a society is composed of parts working together to promote its well-being and survival. He also introduced a theory of social changed called "Social Darwinism" -
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Booker T. Washington
An African-American educator, founding the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. He held different assumptions than Du Bois. He worked under the assumption that African-Americans should accept segregation in return for promises of economic gains. -
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Emilie Durkheim
The son of a French rabbi. He first introduced the use of statistical techniques in his groundbreaking research on suicide. Also showed that human social behavior must be explained by social factors rather than just psychological ones. -
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Jane Addams
Was the best known of the early female social reformers in the United States. Addams was the first sociologist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. She had an active role in women's suffrage and peace movements. -
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George Herbert Mead
Mead explored how our sense of self develops. Language, symbols and communication are the heart of the process. -
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Max Weber
The eldest son of a father who was a well-to-do German lawyer and politician. As a university professor, Weber wrote on a wide range of topics. His most famous book is "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." -
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Robert Ezra Park
Worked as an aide to Booker T. Washington. Park was interested in how populations grow and change. He used the city of Chicago as his laboratory to study collective behavior and social interaction. -
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W.E.B. Du Bois
An African-American educator and social activist who became the first African-American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University. Du Bois analyzed the social structure of African-American communities, and he published his findings in "The Philadelphia Negro". -
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Julian Samora
Became the first known Mexican-American to earn a doctorate in sociology when he graduated from Washington University in St.Louis in 1953. He founded the Mexican-American Graduate Studies Program and headed the Mexican Border Studies Project.