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A Sociology Exhibit

Organizing Relationships

Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
A Story of the Red Cross : Glimpses of F... (by Clara Barton)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)
The Growth of Thought as Affecting the P... (by William Withington)
Almost a Woman (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
How to Be Happy Though Married. Being a ... (by Hardy, Edward John)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
The Fundamental Principles of Old and Ne... (by Zelia Nuttall)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)

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

Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (by Bimala Charan Law)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
A Story of the Red Cross : Glimpses of F... (by Clara Barton)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to... (by Wright, John Dutton)
The Growth of Thought as Affecting the P... (by William Withington)
Almost a Woman (by Wood-Allen, Mary)
How to Be Happy Though Married. Being a ... (by Hardy, Edward John)
Socialism (Le Socialisme) (by Durkheim, Emile)
The Young Man's Guide (by Alcott, William Andrus)
Wage Labour and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
The Fundamental Principles of Old and Ne... (by Zelia Nuttall)
Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects (by Guernsey, Henry N. (Henry Newell))
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Thr... (by John Davenport)
Whirligigs (by Henry, O.)

Top 100 books on Psychology

Habit (by James, William)
The Psychology of Nations, A Contributio... (by Partridge, G. E. (George Everett))
The Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind (by Gustave Le Bon)
Initiative Psychic Energy (by Hilton, Warren)
Memories Dreams Reflections (by C. G. Jung)
Essay on the Creative Imagination (by Ribot, Théodule)
Psychology and Social Sanity (by Münsterberg, Hugo)
Applied Psychology for Nurses (by Mary F. Porter)
The Origin and Nature of Emotions (by Crile, George W.)
The Freedom of Life (by Call, Annie Payson)
Applied Psychology : A Series of Twelve ... (by Warren Hilton)
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (by Freud, Sigmund)
History of Psychology; A Sketch and an I... (by Baldwin, James Mark)
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusio... (by Charles Mackay)
The Elements of Psychology (by Edward Lee Thorndike)

Top 100 books on Economics

A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (by Engels, Friedrich)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
The Abolition of Poverty (by Hollander, Jacob Harry)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
Woman under Capitalism (by Tichenor, Henry Mulford)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Poverty and Its Vicious Circles (by Hurry, Jamieson Boyd)
A Contribution to the Critique of Politi... (by Marx, Karl)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
Oeconomicus (by Xenophon, of Athens)
What Is Property (by Proudhon, Pierre Joseph)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)

Top 100 books on Government

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
Between Past and Future : Six Exercises ... (by Hannah Arendt)
The Declaration of Arbroath
Introduction to the Principles of Morals... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (by Thoreau, Henry David)
Albany Plan of Union (by Franklin, Benjamin)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535)
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Ma... (by Thomas ( Hobbes)
The Principles of Natural and Politic La... (by Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques)
Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches :... (by Lincoln, Abraham)
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (by Malthus, Thomas)
The Union of Utrecht (by Lucy Maynard Salmon)

Top 100 books on Law

Extraterritorial Cases, Including the De... Volume Vol. 1 (by United States. Court for China)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
Oliver Twist (by Dickens, Charles)
The Law (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Bleak House (by Dickens, Charles)
Constitution and Laws of the Choctaw Nat... (by Choctaw Nation. Constitution.)
Lectures on Jurisprudence (by Robert Campbell)
Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort;... Volume Year 1970 (by United States Commission On Civil Rights)
Human Rights (by Carter, Jimmy)
Economic Sophisms (by Bastiat, Frédéric)
Introduction to Roman Law (by Hadley, James)
Fulfilling the Letter and Spirit of the ... (by United States Commission On Civil Rights)
Immigration Laws and Regulations. August... (by United States. Laws, Statutes, Etc)
Politics (by Aristotle)
Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of t... (by Chesnutt, Charles Waddell)

Top 100 books on Politics

Public opinion (by Lippmann, Walter)
The Art of War (by Tzu, Sun)
Excerpts from Frame of Government of Pen... (by Penn, William)
Ethica (by Baruch Spinoza, Benedictus De Spinoza, Johannes Va...)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
Areopagitica (by John Milton)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
Politics Aristotle (by Ross, W. D.)
The Iron Heel (by London, Jack)
The Subjection of Women (by Mill, John Stuart)
Les Misérables (by Hugo, Victor)
On War (by Von Clausewitz, Carl)
The Iron Heel (by London, Jack)
Politics (by Aristotle)
God and the State (by Bakunin, Michael)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

Pathological Lying, Accusation, And Swin... (by Healy, William)
The Anthropological Treatises of Johann ... (by Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich)
Man and Abnormal Man, Including a Study ... (by MacDonald, Arthur, 1856-1936)
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of... (by Morgan, Lewis Henry)
Ancient Art and Ritual (by Jane Ellen Harrison)
American Anthropologist : Vol. 21 Volume Vol. 21 (by American Anthropological Association)
The Golden Bough Volume Xii : A Study in... (by Frazer, Sir James George)
An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (by Lowie, Robert Harry)
Modern Mythology (by Lang, Andrew)
The Fijians : A Study of the Decay of Cu... (by Thomson, Basil)
A Finding-List of History, Politics, Bio... (by Buffalo Library)
Man from the Farthest Past : Volume 7 (by Bishop, Carl Whiting)
The Witch Cult in Western Europe (by Murray, Margaret Alice)
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distributi... Volume 3 (by Borlase, William Copeland)
The History of Mankind Volume: v.2 (by Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904)

Top 100 books on Mathematics

The Elements of Non Euclidean Geometry (by Sommerville, Duncan Mlaren Young)
First-Year Mathematics for Secondary Sch... (by Ernst Rudolph Breslich)
A History of Mathematics (by Florian Cajori)
The First Six Books of the Elements of E... (by Euclides)
The Number Concept; Its Origin and Devel... (by Conant, Levi Leonard)
Mecanique Analytique (by Lagrange, J. L. (Joseph Louis))
Chance and Luck : A Discussion of the La... (by Proctor, Richard Anthony)
Problems in Differential Calculus. Suppl... (by Byerly, William Elwood)
The Elements of the Theory of Algebraic ... (by Reid, Legh Wilber)
Deductive Logic (by Stock, St. George)
Mecanique Analytique (by Lagrange, J. L. (Joseph Louis))
A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure... (by Carr, George Shoobridge)
The Elements of Euclid: The Errors by Wh... (by Euclid)
A Treatise of Celestial Mechanics : Pt. ... Volume Pt. 1-2 (by Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis De)
Deductive Logic (by Stock, St. George)

Top 100 books on Economics

A Treatise on Probability (by Keynes, John Maynard)
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (by Engels, Friedrich)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (by John Maynard Keynes)
The Abolition of Poverty (by Hollander, Jacob Harry)
The Collapse of Capitalism (by Cahn, Herman)
Woman under Capitalism (by Tichenor, Henry Mulford)
Discourse Upon the Origin and the Founda... (by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques)
Poverty and Its Vicious Circles (by Hurry, Jamieson Boyd)
A Contribution to the Critique of Politi... (by Marx, Karl)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
Oeconomicus (by Xenophon, of Athens)
What Is Property (by Proudhon, Pierre Joseph)
Two Treatises of Government (by Locke, John)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
The Jungle (by Sinclair, Upton)