SOC 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1.16: Ellen Gates Starr, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, William Graham Sumner
Document Summary
The first sociology course was taught by william graham sumner, a professor at. The first sociology department in the united states was organized in 1892, at the. In 1905, sociologists organized the american sociological society (soon changed to the american sociological association for reasons that might seem obvious). The goal of the asa was and is to promote the scientific study of society. Early u. s. sociologists differed from their european counterparts in that they did not focus all their efforts on building sweeping theories of society. In addition to theory building, the u. s. sociologists concentrated on solving the specific social problems poverty, crime that had arisen (or so it was thought) as a consequence of the large immigrant population. In other words, while european sociologists were attempting to build sociology into a basic science like physics or chemistry, many of the early u. s. sociologists treated sociology as an applied science, like engineering.
