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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
Wanted, A Young Woman to Do Housework, B... (by Barker, Clara Helene)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
The Laws of Imitation (by Tarde, Gabriel)
Ancient Society : Or, Researches in the ... (by Morgan, Lewis Henry)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Li... (by Durkheim, Emile)
The American Journal of Sociology (by University of Chicago)
Toward a general theory of action (by Parsons, Talcott)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
An Account of the War Customs of the Osa... (by Dorsey, James Owen)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 2 (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 3 (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

William the Conqueror (by Edward A. Freeman)
Wanted, A Young Woman to Do Housework, B... (by Barker, Clara Helene)
Siouan Sociology: a Posthumous Paper Volume: 15th 1893-1894
The Laws of Imitation (by Tarde, Gabriel)
Ancient Society : Or, Researches in the ... (by Morgan, Lewis Henry)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 1 (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Li... (by Durkheim, Emile)
The American Journal of Sociology (by University of Chicago)
Toward a general theory of action (by Parsons, Talcott)
Catholic and Protestant Countries Compar... (by Young, Alfred)
An Account of the War Customs of the Osa... (by Dorsey, James Owen)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 2 (by Spencer, Herbert)
The Principles of Sociology : Volume 3 (by Spencer, Herbert)

Top 100 books on Psychology

The Sexual Life of the Child (by Moll, Albert)
Adolescence Its Psychology Volume-Ii (by G. Stanley Hall)
Self Mastery through Conscious Autosugge... (by Coue, Emile)
Talks to Teachers on Psychology, And to ... (by James, William)
The Psychology of Management: The Functi... (by Lillian Moller Gilbreth)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
The Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind (by Gustave Le Bon)
The Interpretation of Dreams (by Freud, Sigmund)
Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of th... (by Bergson, Henri)
The Science of Human Nature; A Psycholog... (by Pyle, William Henry)
Mind and Motion and Monism (by Romanes, George John)
Practical Lessons in Psychology (by William Otterbein Krohn)
Essays in Radical Empiricism (by James, William)
On dreams (by Freud, Sigmund)
How to Use Your Mind (by Kitson, Harry D.)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Economics of Welfare (by Pigou, Arthur Cecil)
On Colonialism (by Marx, Karl)
King Coal (by Sinclair, Upton)
On Liberty (by John Stuart Mill)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
An Essay on the Principle of Population (by Malthus, Thomas)
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (by Malthus, Thomas)
Classless Capitalism (by Stern, Frederick Martin.)
Common Sense (by Paine, Thomas)
The Accumulation of Capital (by Luxemburg, Rosa)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Cry for Justice; An Anthology of the... (by Sinclair, Upton, Ed)
Cecil Rhodes; The Man and His Work (by Le Sueur, Gordon)

Top 100 books on Government

On the principles of political economy, ... (by David Ricardo)
The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts : Rep... (by Massachusetts)
The Magna Carta (by Hutchinson, Joshua)
The American Democrat : Or, Hints on the... (by James Fenimore Cooper)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches :... (by Lincoln, Abraham)
Chronological Tables of the Chinese Dyna... (by E. R. Lyman, Tso-Ting Wang, Theodore Wong)
The Declaration of Arbroath
Robert's Rules of Order Revised for Deli... (by Robert, Henry M. (Henry Martyn))
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (by Malthus, Thomas)
Of the Law of Nature and Nations : Eight... (by Pufendorf, Samuel, Freiherr Von)
Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero (by Marcus Tullius Cicero)
The American's Guide: Comprising the Dec...
Declaration of Colonial Rights : Resolut...
Discourse on Inequality (by Rousseau, Jean Jacques)

Top 100 books on Law

The Trial and Death of Socrates (by Plato)
Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort;... Volume Year 1970 (by United States Commission On Civil Rights)
Sacred Text : Common Sense, Volume I (by Paine, Thomas)
League of Nations : Vol. 1 Volume Vol. 1
The English Constitution (by Sir Frederick Pollock)
Fulfilling the Letter and Spirit of the ... (by United States Commission On Civil Rights)
Constitution and Laws of the Cherokee Na... (by Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma)
Institutes of the Laws of England : Or a... Volume Vol. 6 (by Coke, Edward, Sir)
The Fiscal Threat to U.S. Foreign Policy (by Spiers, Ronald I.)
Prince, The (Version 2) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
The Treaty Making Power of the United St... (by Butler, Charles Henry)
Crime and Punishment (by Doestoevski, Feodor)
The French Civil Code (As Amended up to ... (by Eric Blackwood Wright, France)
Amendments to the United States Constitu... (by United States, Founding Fathers of the)
Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)

Top 100 books on Politics

Conquest of bread, The (by Kropotkin, Peter)
The Politics of Obedience : The Discours... (by De La Boetie, Étienne)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (by Oscar Wilde)
Declaration of Independence of the Unite... (by United States, Founding Fathers of the)
The Gettysburg Address (by Lincoln, Abraham)
Of the Conduct of the Understanding (by John Locke)
Public opinion (by Lippmann, Walter)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
Areopagitica (by John Milton)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
History of the Peloponnesian War (by Thucydides)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
Lex, Rex : The Law and the Prince, A Dis...
The Law of Nations; (by Vattel, Emer De)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 21 Volume Vol. 21 (by American Anthropological Association)
The Journal of the Anthropological Insti... (by Royal Anthropological Institute)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Fijians : A Study of the Decay of Cu... (by Thomson, Basil)
On the Functions of the Brain and of Eac... (by Gall, F. J., Franz Joséf)
The Witch Cult in Western Europe (by Murray, Margaret Alice)
Anthropology : An Introduction to the St... (by Edward Burnett Tylor)
The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
The Study of Man: An Introduction (by Linton, Ralph)
Early Civilization : An Introduction to ... (by Alexander A. Goldenweiser)
The History of Mankind Volume: v.2 (by Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904)
The Scope of Social Anthropology; A Lect... (by Frazer, James George, Sir)
The Andaman Islanders; a Study in Social... (by Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (Alfred Reginald), 1881-195...)