William Isaac Thomas

William Isaac Thomas (born August 13, 1863 in Russell County , Virginia , USA , † December 5, 1947 in Berkeley , California ) was an American sociologist and philologist . He was the 17th president of the American Sociological Association .

Life

Thomas's parents were Thaddeus Peter Thomas , a farmer and Methodist minister , and Sarah Thomas (née Price ). He had six siblings. During his childhood the family moved to Knoxville , where he studied literature and classical philology at the University of Tennessee from 1880 to 1884 after attending school and graduated with a bachelor 's degree. He stayed at the university and was a lecturer ( adjunct professor ) for English and modern languages there from 1884 to 1888 . From 1888 to 1889 he spent two research semesters at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen and, in addition to studying classical and newer languages, increasingly turned to ethnography .

After returning from Germany, Thomas taught English as a professor at Oberlin College from 1889 to 1895 and gradually turned to comparative literature . In 1895, Thomas moved to Chicago , where he studied at the world's first college of sociology , founded by Albion Woodbury Small . In the same year he worked at the institute as an instructor in sociology . In 1896 he was awarded a Ph.D. PhD. From 1896 to 1900 he was an assistant professor , then from 1900 to 1910 associate professor and from 1910 full professor of sociology. Thomas dates the beginning of “a very long and fruitful collaboration” with Robert Ezra Park to “around 1910”. Park had initiated Thomas' attendance at a conference at Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee to meet him.

In 1918 Thomas, who was known for his unusual and sometimes bohemian style, and his wife Harriet, who, like her husband, had stood out for her pacifist sentiments, fell victim to an intrigue. It was said that he and his companion had booked a hotel room under a false name in another state, which was considered scandalous at the time. The Chicago Tribune reported that Thomas was arrested by the FBI for immoral acts . The allegations were later rejected by the court. Even so, the President of the University of Chicago dismissed Thomas. There was no protest from his fellow professors. Even the University of Chicago Press , which had published the first two volumes of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America , canceled the author's contract.

Then Thomas moved to New York , where he lived for over twenty years. Initially he was involved in a research project for the Carnegie Foundation . The research report Old World Traits Transplanted , which was mainly written by him, had to appear under the names of his collaborators Robert E. Park and Herbert A. Miller. Only an edition in 1951 was given with the name of the main author. From 1923 to 1928 he was a lecturer at the New School for Social Research , where Thorstein B. Veblen , who was also hit by a scandal , taught. During this time, he was only supported by a Chicago philanthropist and grants from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and the Bureau of Social Hygiene . In 1927 he served as the 17th President of the American Sociological Association . 1933 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . At the invitation of Pitirim Sorokin , he was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University in 1936/37 .

From 1937 Thomas lived as a private scholar, first in New York, then in New Haven (Connecticut) and finally in Berkeley . He had good contacts with Alva Myrdal , whom he had met through his second wife Dorothy Swaine Thomas .

Thomas is the founder of social psychological action research. Together with Dorothy Swaine Thomas he formulated a basic assumption of social psychology : “If people define situations as real, then these are real in their consequences.” This Thomas theorem is a general indication of the reflexivity of situation definitions by acting people as actors.

Fonts (selection)

Sex and society: Studies in the social psychology of sex. Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, 1907
The Polish peasant in Europe and America. Monograph of an immigrant group , 1918–1920 (with Florian Znaniecki )
- Volume 1: Primary-group organization . Chicago, Ill .: University of Chicago Press, 1918
- Volume 2: Primary-group organization . Chicago, Ill .: University of Chicago Press, 1918
- Volume 3: Life record of an immigrant . Boston, Mass .: Badger, 1919
- Volume 4: Disorganization and reorganization in Poland . Boston, Mass .: Badger, 1920
- Volume 5: Organization and disorganization in America . Boston, Mass .: Badger, 1920
1923: The unadjusted girl. With cases and standpoint for behavior analysis . Boston, Mass .: Little, Brown 1923
with Dorothy Swaine Thomas: The child in America: Behavior problems and programs . Knopf, New York 1928.

Web links

Literature by and about William Isaac Thomas in the catalog of the German National Library
Biography William I. Thomas . In: 50 Classics of Sociology , University of Graz .
Famous Sociologists: William Isaac Thomas . In: sociosite , Social Science Information System, University of Amsterdam (English).

Individual evidence

↑ Unless otherwise stated, biographical information is based on: Biography William I. Thomas . In: 50 Classics of Sociology , University of Graz .
^ So Thomas in his memoirs, which he wrote as part of a project by Luther Lee Bernhard ; Paul J. Baker, The Life Stories of WI Thomas and Robert E. Park . In: Wolf Lepenies (ed.), History of Sociology , Volume 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 978-3-518-07967-6 , pp. 244–270, here p. 250; deviating from this it says in biography William I. Thomas . In: 50 Classics of Sociology , University of Graz , Thomas taught at Oberlin College as a professor in Sociology from 1894 to 1895 .
^ Paul J. Baker, The Life Stories of WI Thomas and Robert E. Park . In: Wolf Lepenies (ed.), History of Sociology , Volume 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, pp. 244–270, here pp. 252 f.
↑ Gabriela Christmann: Robert Ezra Park , UVK, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-559-8 , p. 18, note 4.
^ William I. Thomas , American Sociological Association .
^ William Isaac Thomas , American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
^ The Child in America 1928, p. 572.

personal data
SURNAME	Thomas, William Isaac
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American sociologist and philologist
DATE OF BIRTH	August 13, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH	Russell County (Virginia) , Virginia , United States
DATE OF DEATH	December 5, 1947
Place of death	Berkeley , California , United States

[1] Unless otherwise stated, biographical information is based on: Biography William I. Thomas . In: 50 Classics of Sociology , University of Graz .

[2] So Thomas in his memoirs, which he wrote as part of a project by Luther Lee Bernhard ; Paul J. Baker, The Life Stories of WI Thomas and Robert E. Park . In: Wolf Lepenies (ed.), History of Sociology , Volume 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 978-3-518-07967-6 , pp. 244–270, here p. 250; deviating from this it says in biography William I. Thomas . In: 50 Classics of Sociology , University of Graz , Thomas taught at Oberlin College as a professor in Sociology from 1894 to 1895 .

[3] Paul J. Baker, The Life Stories of WI Thomas and Robert E. Park . In: Wolf Lepenies (ed.), History of Sociology , Volume 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, pp. 244–270, here pp. 252 f.

[4] Gabriela Christmann: Robert Ezra Park , UVK, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-559-8 , p. 18, note 4.

[5] William I. Thomas , American Sociological Association .

[6] William Isaac Thomas , American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

[7] The Child in America 1928, p. 572.