Robert E. Park

Robert Ezra Park ( born February 14, 1864 in Harveyville, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, † February 7, 1944 in Nashville, Tennessee) was an American sociologist. He is the founder of the Chicago school of sociology and was 15th President of the American Sociological Society.

Career

Park was born in a house -capable parents. He was the son of a grain wholesaler and a teacher and grew up in Red Wing (Minnesota).

After high school he studied from 1883 to 1887 engineering at the State University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. In 1887, he studied philology, history and philosophy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (degree: Ph.B. ). He studied with John Dewey (1859-1952) and learned from him the financial journalist and newspaper editor Franklin Ford (1848-1918) know. With Ford, he developed the idea of ​​a new newspaper: " Thought News". You should be " sociologically ", playback messages accurately and public opinion attach a greater role, but never appeared.

From 1887 to 1898 worked as a journalist and editor at the park various newspapers in Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver, New York and Chicago. In 1894 he married the lawyer daughter Clara Cahill, with whom he had four children.

1898-1899 Park took the study again, first of psychology and philosophy at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts ), where he 1899 MA (Philosophy ) acquired. He then went to Germany, where he studied from 1899 to 1900 Philosophy and Sociology at the Friedrich -Wilhelms -Universität zu Berlin. One of his professors there was Georg Simmel. Major theoretical influence on him won Ferdinand Tönnies ' concepts of community and society. He joined another semester, this time at the University of Strasbourg. By 1903 he studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Heidelberg, where in 1903 he the Dr. phil. doctorate (mass and audience. A methodological and sociological study ). 1904 Park went back to Harvard, where he was assistant to Hugo Münsterberg to 1905.

In 1905, he turned away from the University and from the policy. He was secretary and press agent of the Congo Reform Association, which dealt with crimes in Belgian Congo. There he met the African American civil rights activist Booker T. Washington know. Park followed Washington's invitation and lived in Tuskegee, where he remained until 1914 press agent and ghostwriter for Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915) since 1905 was. Washington was President of the Tuskagee University. Park accompanied Washington on his research trip to Europe. Washington subsequently published a book about the European " underclass " with the title "The Man Farthest Down." Experts agree that Park wrote most of the book. During this time (1912 ) he also organized the international conference "On the Negro ," on which he met William Isaac Thomas ( 1863-1947 ).

Chicago sociology

Thomas initially gave him a guest lecture at the University of Chicago. So took park in 1914 a new U-turn in his life and turned to an academic career. He became a member of the University of Chicago. By starting with his Chicago school, he took on generations of U.S. sociologists strong influence. Lived in Chicago and he then worked, first as a Lecturer in Sociology, from 1923 as a full professor of Sociology until his retirement in 1933.

(1923 - 1925) In these years also other activities such as the task of the Director of Race Relations Survey of the Pacific Coast fell, the President of the American Sociological Society ( 1925) or 1933 a study trip to racial problems that took him to India, South Africa and Brazil led. From 1935 he lived mostly in summer in Harbor Springs, Michigan and winter in Nashville, where he was a visiting professor in 1935 and from 1936 again Lecturer in Sociology at Fisk University. Robert E. Park, died in Nashville on 7 February 1944.

Parks importance lies mainly in the coining of the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago, not least because it was the center of the Chicago School of Sociology. The school was, inter alia, inspired by Weber and Simmel and performed pioneering work in micro- sociology, sociology in the city and in minority and poverty studies. Parks own contribution consisted mainly in studies of urban subcultures and ethnic minorities. He also dealt with methodological issues that were relevant to these issues. Park formulated the so-called melting pot theory of multi-ethnic integration, which was based on his experiences of the ethnic mosaic in Chicago.

Bibliography

Secondary literature

  • Gabriela B. Christmann, Robert Ezra Park, Konstanz: UGC, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-559-8
  • Robert V. Kemper, " Robert Ezra Park ," in Encyclopedia of Anthropology ed H. James Birx (2006, SAGE Publications, ISBN 0-7619-3029-9 )
  • Barbara Ballis Lal, The Romance of Culture in at Urban Civilization: Robert E. Park on Race and Ethnic Relations in Cities, London & New York: Routledge, 1990
  • Rolf Lindner, The discovery of the city's culture - sociology from the experience of reportage, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1990
  • Rolf Lindner, Walks on the Wild Side: A History of Urban Research, Frankfurt am Main [ua ]: Campus, 2004
  • Winifred noise Bush, Robert E. Park, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979
  • Ralph H. Turner, Robert E. Park: On Social Control and Collective Behavior, Chicago: University of Chicago Press ( a selection of parks fonts).
Cambridge (Massachusetts) Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Tuskegee University Microsociology Ernest Burgess Richard Sennett Integrated Authority File
686847
de