Thursday, January 22, 2009
Why L.F. Ward
This
is a works-in-progress post that will discuss why I chose to focus on
L.F. Ward as the classical theorist to explore for this semester. This
will be my blog-focused way of providing much of the biographical
information about Ward, although likely some elements of his biography
will be split off into a separate post or organized into other parts.
03 February 2009
In Googling "L.F. Ward" today, I discovered that this page is actually number 2 on Google's results already so that puts a little bit more pressure on me to get this fleshed out some and to ensure a degree of integrity. For those unfamiliar with the 'L.F.' that stands for Lester Frank Ward, who was an American sociologist in the late 1800's and early 1900's. For those uninterested in my take on his bibliography, I refer you to the source of all human knowledge Wikipedia on L.F. Ward and the considerably more trustworthy American Sociological Association's biography on L.F. Ward, an organization he was president of in both 1906 and 1907. He was, in fact, the organization's first president. For additional information about Ward's younger years, it is recommended that the eager scholar pick up a copy of his Civil War journal Young Ward's Diary: A Human and Eager Record of the Years Between 1860 and 1870 as They Were Lived (1935). The book is, unfortunately, out of print and no copy of it has yet been scanned by Google Books; however, if your local library is lucky enough to own a copy then you will be able to gain more insight into events that likely helped shape Ward's later views.
As both of those sources provide decent general biographies of Ward, I am choosing to forgo the reiteration of facts already linked, I am going to focus my discussion of Ward's biography on the elements that made me interested in focusing on his work as a social theorist for my Classic Sociological Theory course. Thus, I plan to take a somewhat personal interest in my discussion of Ward as a social theorist.
American
Sociological Association's biography on L.F. Ward
No biography of any person, whether taken from the personal perspective of the writer or otherwise, would be complete without basic information about the birth and death of the individual the biography is written about. Lester Frank Ward was born 18 June 1841 and ceased to live on the date of 18 April 1913 at the age of 71 and 10 months (to the day). One of the traits about Ward's biography that particularly appealed to me was his diverse intellectual and vocational background. Before attending Susquehana College in the 1860's, Ward was primarily self-educated and continued his motivation for self-learning throughout his life and saving money until he was able to complete advanced degrees at Columbian College (earning an A.B. in 1869 followed 2 years later by an LL. B. and finally an A.M. in 1872). His vocations included working in a wagon shop as a youth, a soldier in the Civil War, employee of the US Treasury Department (1865-1881; this was the work he did to save money to attend Columbian College and he continued this work while completing his degree and for some time after his formal education ended), an employee of the United States Geologic Survey (1882-1905 rising from an assistant geologist to a geologist in 1882 and then a paleontologist in 1892), and finally reaching the pinnacle of his intellectual endeavors with a faculty appointment at Brown University in 1906. Despite his vocational life being tied up in the Treasury and USGS, Ward nevertheless is best known for his pioneering work in Sociology including Dynamic Sociology (1883), Outlines of Sociology (1898), Pure Sociology (1903), and Applied Sociology (1906). Several of these volumes, Dynamic Sociology, for instance, are out of print and buying copies on Amazon.com would cost nearly $100-200. Thankfully they are outside the range of copyright protection and Google Books has the full versions of the texts available (see the previous links). In 1905 and 1906 Ward worked with colleagues to establish the American Sociological Association and became the first president of the ASA in 1906 (1906 presidential address) followed one year later by his re-election in 1907 (1907 presidential address).
Now that the basic facts necessary of any biography have been established, let me dive head first into why I chose Ward:
03 February 2009
In Googling "L.F. Ward" today, I discovered that this page is actually number 2 on Google's results already so that puts a little bit more pressure on me to get this fleshed out some and to ensure a degree of integrity. For those unfamiliar with the 'L.F.' that stands for Lester Frank Ward, who was an American sociologist in the late 1800's and early 1900's. For those uninterested in my take on his bibliography, I refer you to the source of all human knowledge Wikipedia on L.F. Ward and the considerably more trustworthy American Sociological Association's biography on L.F. Ward, an organization he was president of in both 1906 and 1907. He was, in fact, the organization's first president. For additional information about Ward's younger years, it is recommended that the eager scholar pick up a copy of his Civil War journal Young Ward's Diary: A Human and Eager Record of the Years Between 1860 and 1870 as They Were Lived (1935). The book is, unfortunately, out of print and no copy of it has yet been scanned by Google Books; however, if your local library is lucky enough to own a copy then you will be able to gain more insight into events that likely helped shape Ward's later views.
As both of those sources provide decent general biographies of Ward, I am choosing to forgo the reiteration of facts already linked, I am going to focus my discussion of Ward's biography on the elements that made me interested in focusing on his work as a social theorist for my Classic Sociological Theory course. Thus, I plan to take a somewhat personal interest in my discussion of Ward as a social theorist.
American
Sociological Association's biography on L.F. WardNo biography of any person, whether taken from the personal perspective of the writer or otherwise, would be complete without basic information about the birth and death of the individual the biography is written about. Lester Frank Ward was born 18 June 1841 and ceased to live on the date of 18 April 1913 at the age of 71 and 10 months (to the day). One of the traits about Ward's biography that particularly appealed to me was his diverse intellectual and vocational background. Before attending Susquehana College in the 1860's, Ward was primarily self-educated and continued his motivation for self-learning throughout his life and saving money until he was able to complete advanced degrees at Columbian College (earning an A.B. in 1869 followed 2 years later by an LL. B. and finally an A.M. in 1872). His vocations included working in a wagon shop as a youth, a soldier in the Civil War, employee of the US Treasury Department (1865-1881; this was the work he did to save money to attend Columbian College and he continued this work while completing his degree and for some time after his formal education ended), an employee of the United States Geologic Survey (1882-1905 rising from an assistant geologist to a geologist in 1882 and then a paleontologist in 1892), and finally reaching the pinnacle of his intellectual endeavors with a faculty appointment at Brown University in 1906. Despite his vocational life being tied up in the Treasury and USGS, Ward nevertheless is best known for his pioneering work in Sociology including Dynamic Sociology (1883), Outlines of Sociology (1898), Pure Sociology (1903), and Applied Sociology (1906). Several of these volumes, Dynamic Sociology, for instance, are out of print and buying copies on Amazon.com would cost nearly $100-200. Thankfully they are outside the range of copyright protection and Google Books has the full versions of the texts available (see the previous links). In 1905 and 1906 Ward worked with colleagues to establish the American Sociological Association and became the first president of the ASA in 1906 (1906 presidential address) followed one year later by his re-election in 1907 (1907 presidential address).
Now that the basic facts necessary of any biography have been established, let me dive head first into why I chose Ward:
- He's not a Marxist and thus not on the extreme of wanting to topple the current social system and create a 'new world order'
- He's not a follower of Spencer and thus not on the extreme right trying to defend an indefensible and impractical system of laissez faire.
- Thus, Ward stood squarely in the middle ground of the pragmatist, which is my preferred area of reference. To quote the ever fallible Wikipedia: "Ward['s] views would be more accurately described as pragmatic: he was in favor of what works, what is effective, and he dismissed socialism's claim that the government should own all means of production as untested and unproven."
- I had never heard of Ward before seeing his name on the list, it was completely unfamiliar to me, and that was one of my criteria for selecting a theorist to explore: I needed to know nothing about them and have everything to learn.
- Ward was empirically grounded in the ways of Enlightenment reasoning, which with all of its faults, still stands as a trusted metric of scientific knowledge and one that I believe should still be followed (with appropriate modifications, of course--nothing should remain unrevised unless proven perfect).
- Ward's theory of Telesis showed that he was a firm believer in analyzing society to understanding the elements that make it work and making the changes necessary to help those in need of help while also making things run in a 'better' way. As my post this week about social power probably revealed, I most definitely proscribe to the idea of analyzing social structures and manipulating the ascertained variables for the purpose of change.
