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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas. (by Tilak, Bal Gangadhar)
Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Applied Eugenics (by Roswell Hill Johnson)
Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)
William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
The Evolution of the Country Community :... (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)

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

Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
A Study of Siouan Cults (by Dorsey, James Owen)
Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas. (by Tilak, Bal Gangadhar)
Theories of Social Progress, A Critical ... (by Todd, Arthur James)
Young Folks, History of England (by Yonge, Charlotte Mary)
The Theory of the Leisure Class (by Veblen, Thorstein)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
A Far Country (by Churchill, Winston)
Applied Eugenics (by Roswell Hill Johnson)
Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)
William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
The Evolution of the Country Community :... (by Wilson, Warren Hugh)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Ten Days in a Madhouse (by Bly, Nellie)
Buddhist Psychology; An Inquiry into the... (by Davids, Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys)
Dreams (by Henri Bergson)
Contemporary Schools of Psychology (by Woodworth, Robert S.)
Dream Psychology : Psychoanalysis for Be... (by Sigmund Freud)
Psychology and Religion West and East (by C. G. Jung)
A Young Girl's Diary (by Freud, Sigmund)
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (by Freud, Sigmund)
Nerves and Common Sense (by Call, Annie Payson)
Des Homicides Commis Par Les Aliénés (by Blanche, E. (Émile), B. 1820)
The Freedom of Life (by Call, Annie Payson)
Pathological Lying, Accusation, And Swin... (by Healy, William)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex. V.3, 1... (by Havelock Ellis)
The Secret Places of the Heart (by Wells, Herbert George (H. G.))
The Psychology of Nations, A Contributio... (by Partridge, G. E. (George Everett))

Top 100 books on Economics

The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Conquest of Bread (by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, Kniaz)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)

Top 100 books on Government

On the Law of War and Peace (by Grotius, Hugo)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Grea... (by Allan, Mary Ann)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (by Wollstonecraft, Mary)
1581 : The Dutch Declaration of Independ... (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
Declaration of Taking up Arms (by Second Continental Congress)
The Origin and Growth of the Common Law ... (by Hamilton, Peter Joseph)
Assize of Arms
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
The Works of Aristotle : Volume 12 (by Aristotle)
Plato redivivus : or, A dialogue concern... (by Neville, Henry)
The Petition of Right (by Relf, Frances Helen)
Why wars come; or, Forms of government a... (by Niblack, Albert Parker)

Top 100 books on Law

Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)
A Law Dictionary : Adapted to the Consti... (by Bouvier, John)
The Athenian Constitution ; The Eudemian... (by Aristotle)
The Development of the Associative Princ... (by Christopher Barker)
Lectures on Jurisprudence (by Robert Campbell)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
Report on the Right of the Government of... (by United States. Division of Insular Affairs)
The British Constitution; Or, An Epitome... (by Sir William Blackstone)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (by John Locke)
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
Utilitarianism (by Mill, John Stuart)
The Age of Reason (by Thomas Paine)
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of... (by Department of National Security)
Oliver Twist (by Dickens, Charles)
Treatise on Law Summa Theologica Questio... (by Thomas Aquinas)

Top 100 books on Politics

The Origin and Growth of the Common Law ... (by Hamilton, Peter Joseph)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Philosophy of Right (by Hegel, G. W. F.)
Les Misérables Volume: 1-2 (by Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
Areopagitica (by John Milton)
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (by Henry, Patrick)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
The Republic (by Plato)
Ten Days that Shook the World (by Reed, John)
The Declaration of Independence and Lett... (by Jefferson, Thomas)
Politics (by Aristotle)
The Laws of Plato; (by Plato)
The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

A Bibliography of the Anthropology of Pe... (by George Amos Dorsey)
Man and Abnormal Man, Including a Study ... (by MacDonald, Arthur, 1856-1936)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Golden Bough Volume Xii : A Study in... (by Frazer, Sir James George)
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distributi... Volume 1 (by Borlase, William Copeland)
Curators, Collections, And Contexts : An... Volume Fieldiana, Anthropology, new series, no.36 (by Field Museum of Natural History)
Boas Anniversary Volume; Anthropological... (by Laufer, Berthold)
The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
The Journal of the Anthropological Insti... (by Royal Anthropological Institute)
The American Indian: An Introduction to ... (by Clark Wissler)
Types of Mankind, Or, Ethnological Resea... (by Nott, Josiah Clark)
An Anthropologist at Work; Writings of R... (by Benedict, Ruth)
Systematic Theology : Volume 2 (by Hodge, Charles)
Cesare Lombroso, A Modern Man of Science (by Kurella, Hans)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 06 Part 0... Volume Vol. 06 Part 04 (by American Anthropological Association)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

Principia Mathematica (by Whitehead, Alfred North)
Harmonies of the World, Score Astro How (by Kepler, Johannes)
L'Arithmetiqve De Simon Stevin De Brvges (by Stevin, Simon, 1548-1620)
A Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Dif... (by Boole, George)
The Earliest Arithmetics in English (by Alexander, De Villa Dei)
Essays in the Theory of Numbers, 1. Cont... (by Dedekind, Richard)
Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philoma... (by Moritz, Robert Édouard)
Plane Geometry (by George Albert Wentworth)
The Foundations of Geometry, (by David Hilbert)
Treatise on Conic Sections (by Apollonius, of Perga)
The Number Concept; Its Origin and Devel... (by Conant, Levi Leonard)
A synopsis of elementary results in pure... (by Carr, G. S. (George Shoobridge))
Chance and Luck : A Discussion of the La... (by Proctor, Richard Anthony)
A Course of Pure Mathematics (by Hardy, Godfrey Harold)
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought ... (by Boole, George)

Top 100 books on Economics

The State and Revolution (by Lenin, V. I.)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Po... (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)
The Conquest of Bread (by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, Kniaz)
Nature and Progress of Rent (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Effects of the Corn Laws (by Malthus, Thomas)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)
Anthem (by Rand, Ayn)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 (by Bellamy, Edward)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)