Robert E. Park
Encyclopedia
Robert Ezra Park was an American
urban sociologist
, one of the main founders of the original Chicago School of sociology
.
, and grew up in Red Wing
, Minnesota
. He was educated at the University of Michigan
, where he was taught by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey
. His concern for social issues, and especially issues related to race in the cities, led him to become a journalist
in Chicago
.
After being a journalist in various U.S.
towns 1887-1898, he then studied Psychology
and Philosophy
for an MA at Harvard 1898-9, being taught by another prominent pragmatist philosopher, William James
. After graduation, he went to Germany
, studying in Berlin
, Straßburg
(today Strasbourg, France) and Heidelberg
between 1899 and 1903, before returning to the United States. He studied philosophy and sociology
in 1899-1900 with Georg Simmel
at Berlin
, spent a semester in Straßburg 1900, and took his PhD in Philosophy in 1903 at Heidelberg under Wilhelm Windelband
(1848-1915) and Alfred Hettner
(1859-1941); Dissertation: Masse und Publikum. Eine methodologische und soziologische Untersuchung. He returned to the United States in 1903, briefly becoming an assistant in philosophy at Harvard 1904-5.
Park taught at Harvard, until Booker T. Washington
invited him to the Tuskegee Institute to work on racial issues in the southern U.S. He joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago
in 1914, staying there until his retirement in 1936. He continued teaching until his death, however, at Fisk University
. Park died in Nashville, Tennessee
at the age of seventy-nine.
During his lifetime Park became a well-known figure both within and outside the academic world. At various times from 1925 he was president of the American Sociological Association
and of the Chicago Urban League
, and was a member of the Social Science Research Council
.
as it pertained to immigrants in the United States. He argued that there were four steps to the Race Relations Cycle in the story of the immigrant. The first step was contact then followed by competition. In the third step each group would accommodate each other. Finally, when this failed, the immigrant group would learn to assimilate. "Park probably contributed more ideas for analysis of racial relations and cultural contacts than any other modern social scientist."
What is more important, this theory of four steps (or four levels), according to its author, may be applied not only to immigration, but also to all other dynamic social processes.
During Park's time at the University of Chicago, its sociology department began to use the city that surrounded it as a sort of research laboratory. His work – together with that of his Chicago colleagues, such as Ernest Burgess
, Homer Hoyt, and Louis Wirth
– developed into an approach to urban sociology
that became known as the Chicago School: "I have been mainly an explorer in three fields: Collective Behavior; Human Ecology; and Race Relations."
"At the University of Chicago, where American sociology became involved more with people than with methodology, Robert Ezra Park developed the idea of a marginal personality (Park & Burgess, 1921). He postulated that the loyalties that bind persons together in primitive societies are in direct proportion to the intensity of the fears and hatreds with which they view other societies. This concept is developed as theories of ethnocentrism and in-group/out-group propensities. Group solidarity correlates to a great extent with animosity toward an out-group." Billie Davis, Marginality in a Pluralistic Society
Park's introduction of the term ecology
into sociology
came via inspiration from one of the founders of ecology
, the botanist Eugen Warming, but also from geographers such as J. Paul Goode or the chemist Ellen Swallow Richards
who developed first versions of human ecology
before World War I.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
urban sociologist
Urban sociology
Urban sociology is the sociological study of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so providing inputs for planning and policy making. Like...
, one of the main founders of the original Chicago School of sociology
Chicago school (sociology)
In sociology and later criminology, the Chicago School was the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere...
.
Life
Park was born in Harveyville, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and grew up in Red Wing
Red Wing, Minnesota
Red Wing is a city in Goodhue County, Minnesota, United States, on the Mississippi River. The population was 16,459 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Goodhue County....
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. He was educated at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, where he was taught by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
. His concern for social issues, and especially issues related to race in the cities, led him to become a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
After being a journalist in various U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
towns 1887-1898, he then studied Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
for an MA at Harvard 1898-9, being taught by another prominent pragmatist philosopher, William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
. After graduation, he went to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, studying in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Straßburg
Strasburg
-Places:*Strasbourg, a city in Alsace *Straßburg, Austria, in Carinthia*Strasburg, Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania*the former name of Brodnica, became Polish after World War I*Strassburg, the German name for Aiud, Alba...
(today Strasbourg, France) and Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
between 1899 and 1903, before returning to the United States. He studied philosophy and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
in 1899-1900 with Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel was a major German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?',...
at Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, spent a semester in Straßburg 1900, and took his PhD in Philosophy in 1903 at Heidelberg under Wilhelm Windelband
Wilhelm Windelband
Wilhelm Windelband was a German philosopher of the Baden School.Windelband is now mainly remembered for the terms nomothetic and idiographic, which he introduced. These have currency in psychology and other areas, though not necessarily in line with his original meanings...
(1848-1915) and Alfred Hettner
Alfred Hettner
Alfred Hettner was a German geographer.He is known for his concept of chorology, the study of places and regions....
(1859-1941); Dissertation: Masse und Publikum. Eine methodologische und soziologische Untersuchung. He returned to the United States in 1903, briefly becoming an assistant in philosophy at Harvard 1904-5.
Park taught at Harvard, until Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
invited him to the Tuskegee Institute to work on racial issues in the southern U.S. He joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1914, staying there until his retirement in 1936. He continued teaching until his death, however, at Fisk University
Fisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
. Park died in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
at the age of seventy-nine.
During his lifetime Park became a well-known figure both within and outside the academic world. At various times from 1925 he was president of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
and of the Chicago Urban League
Chicago Urban League
Chicago Urban League, Established in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, is an affiliate of the National Urban League that develops programs and partnerships and engages in advocacy to address the need for employment, entrepreneurship, affordable commercial real estate and a quality education...
, and was a member of the Social Science Research Council
Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...
.
Work
Park was influential in developing the theory of assimilationCultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
as it pertained to immigrants in the United States. He argued that there were four steps to the Race Relations Cycle in the story of the immigrant. The first step was contact then followed by competition. In the third step each group would accommodate each other. Finally, when this failed, the immigrant group would learn to assimilate. "Park probably contributed more ideas for analysis of racial relations and cultural contacts than any other modern social scientist."
What is more important, this theory of four steps (or four levels), according to its author, may be applied not only to immigration, but also to all other dynamic social processes.
During Park's time at the University of Chicago, its sociology department began to use the city that surrounded it as a sort of research laboratory. His work – together with that of his Chicago colleagues, such as Ernest Burgess
Ernest Burgess
Ernest Watson Burgess was an urban sociologist born in Tilbury, Ontario. He was educated at Kingfisher College in Oklahoma and continued graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago. In 1916, he returned to the University of Chicago, as a faculty member. Burgess was hired as an...
, Homer Hoyt, and Louis Wirth
Louis Wirth
Louis Wirth was an American sociologist and member of the Chicago school of sociology.-Life:Louis Wirth was born in the small village of Gemünden in the Hunsrück, Germany. He was one of seven children born to Rosalie Lorig and Joseph Wirth. Gemünden was a pastoral community, and Joseph Wirth...
– developed into an approach to urban sociology
Urban sociology
Urban sociology is the sociological study of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so providing inputs for planning and policy making. Like...
that became known as the Chicago School: "I have been mainly an explorer in three fields: Collective Behavior; Human Ecology; and Race Relations."
"At the University of Chicago, where American sociology became involved more with people than with methodology, Robert Ezra Park developed the idea of a marginal personality (Park & Burgess, 1921). He postulated that the loyalties that bind persons together in primitive societies are in direct proportion to the intensity of the fears and hatreds with which they view other societies. This concept is developed as theories of ethnocentrism and in-group/out-group propensities. Group solidarity correlates to a great extent with animosity toward an out-group." Billie Davis, Marginality in a Pluralistic Society
Park's introduction of the term ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
into sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
came via inspiration from one of the founders of ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
, the botanist Eugen Warming, but also from geographers such as J. Paul Goode or the chemist Ellen Swallow Richards
Ellen Swallow Richards
Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards was the foremost female industrial and environmental chemist in the United States in the 19th century, pioneering the field of home economics. Richards graduated from Westford Academy...
who developed first versions of human ecology
Human ecology
Human ecology is the subdiscipline of ecology that focuses on humans. More broadly, it is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The term 'human ecology' first appeared in a sociological study in 1921...
before World War I.
Sources
- Kemper, Robert V., "Robert Ezra Park", in Encyclopedia of AnthropologyEncyclopedia of AnthropologyThe Encyclopedia of Anthropology is an encyclopedia of anthropology edited by H. James Birx of Canisius College and SUNY Geneseo.The encyclopedia, published in 2006 by SAGE Publications, is in five volumes, and contains over 1,200 articles by more than 300 contributors...
ed. H. James BirxH. James BirxH. James Birx is an American anthropologist.Birx received his M.A. in anthropology and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, and is now professor of anthropology at Canisius College, as well as Distinguished research Scholar in the SUNY Geneseo's...
(2006, SAGE Publications; ISBN 0-7619-3029-9) - Rauschenbush, Winifred. 1979. Robert E. Park: Biography of a Sociologist, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
- Turner, Ralph H. 1967. Robert E. Park: On Social Control and Collective Behavior, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (an anthology of Park's writings)
- Ballis Lal, Barbara. 1990. The Romance of Culture in an Urban Civilization: Robert E. Park on Race and Ethnic Relations in Cities, London & New York: Routledge.
- Gross, Matthias. 2004. "Human Geography and Ecological Sociology: The Unfolding of a Human Ecology, 1890 to 1930 – and Beyond," Social Science History 28(4): 575-605.
- Matthews, Fred H. 1977. Quest for an American Sociology: Robert E. Park and the Chicago School, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
- Matthews, Fred H. 1989. "Social Scientists and the Culture Concept, 1930–1950: The Conflict Between the Processual and Structural Approaches," Sociological Theory 7: 87-101.
See also
- Chicago school (sociology)Chicago school (sociology)In sociology and later criminology, the Chicago School was the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere...
- Louis WirthLouis WirthLouis Wirth was an American sociologist and member of the Chicago school of sociology.-Life:Louis Wirth was born in the small village of Gemünden in the Hunsrück, Germany. He was one of seven children born to Rosalie Lorig and Joseph Wirth. Gemünden was a pastoral community, and Joseph Wirth...
- Everett StonequistEverett StonequistEverett Verner Stonequist was an American Sociologist perhaps best known for his 1937 book, The Marginal Man-Life & Work:...
- Frederic ThrasherFrederic ThrasherFrederic Milton Thrasher was a sociologist at the University of Chicago. He was a colleague of Robert E. Park and was one of the most prominent members of the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s....
External links
- An appreciation of Park at the University of Chicago
- An appreciation of Park at Brock University
- An appreciation of his work in Urban social ecology by Nina Brown
- Review materials for studying Robert Ezra Park
- An appreciation of Park at the American Sociological Association
- Park's Cultural Conflict and the Marginal Man (1937) at University of Chicago School of Sociology