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Auguste Comte
Frenchman, Father of sociology, he worked on positivism.
Believed social behavior had to be studied scientifically.
Comte published his theories in a book titles "Positive Philosophy." -
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Harriet Martineau
Englishwoman. Her writing began in 1825 when her family's textile mill went down due to a business depression. Martineau is best known for her English translation of Comte's Positive Philosophy. Established herself as a pioneering feminist theorist. Strong outspoken supporter of emancipation of both women and enslaved people. -
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Karl Marx
German scholar
His life was guided by the principle that social scientist should try to change the world instead of studying it. -
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Herbert Spencer
His career contained a mixture of engineering, drafting, inventing, journalism, and writing. Spencer introduced a theory of social change called Social Darwinism based on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. -
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Booker T. Washington
Began life as a slave. After emancipation, , he became an educator. Founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. He worked under assumptions that African Americans should accept segregation in return for promised economic gains. -
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Emile Durkheim
Son of a French Rabbi, he believed society exists because of broad consensus, among members of a society. He published a topic on suicide called, "In Suicide: A Study in Sociology." -
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Jane Addams
Best known early female social reformer. She attended Women's Medical College of Philadelphia. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931- First sociologist to receive this honor. Ellen Gates Starr, and Addams founded the Hull House in Chicago's Slums. -
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George Herbert Mead
Taught at University of Chicago.
He explored how our self develops. Mead's work laid the foundation for theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism. -
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Max Weber
Son of a father who was a German lawyer, and politician. His most famous book was "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." first published 1904-1905. -
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Robert Ezra Park
Worked as Booker T's aide at Tuskegee Institute, 1905-1914.
He began teaching at the University of Chicago where he specialized in race relations, and human ecology. -
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W.E.B. Du Bois
African American educator and social activist. Attended an integrated highschool, and was the first African American to receive a diploma there. He attacked the "Negro Problem' and later published his findings in "The Philadelphia Negro, 1899" -
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Julian Samora
First Mexican American to earn a doctorate in sociology. Graduated from Washington University in St. Louis 1953. Focus was on civil rights and discrimination, poverty, public health and people moving along the Mexican-American border.
At Notre Dame Univ. he founded the Mexican American graduate studies program and headed the Mexican Border Studies Project.