Chicago in the late nineteenth century became the site of the first sociology department in a university. The people that made up this first ‘School of Sociology’ took tools and approaches from all over the place that were useful in creating sociology almost from the ground up. They treated the social environment they found themselves in, as both an urgent impetus for work, and as a laboratory for their work. Social action was at the heart of this early Ameican sociology. That was to change, but from the beginning insititionalised sociology was also active sociology, as we shall see.
Bulmer, M. (1984). The Chicago school of sociology: institutionalization, diversity and the rise of sociological research. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press. Chapters 1, 2, & 3.
Niebrugge, G., & Lengermann, P. M. (2007). Thrice Told: Narratives of Sociology’s Relation to Social Work. In C. J. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history. (pp. 63–114). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Haar, S. (2011). City as laboratory : Hull-House and the rise of the Chicago School. in The city as campus urbanism and higher education in Chicago. Minneapolis (Minn.): University of Minnesota Press.
Deegan, M. J. (2007). The Chicago School of Ethnography. In P. Atkinson (Ed.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 11–25). London: SAGE.
Deegan, M. J. (2014). Annie Marion MacLean and the Chicago Schools of Sociology, 1894-1934. Transaction Publishers. Chapters 1 & 3.
jeffgoatcher 