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Lester Frank Ward
Lester Ward
Born
Lester Frank Ward
(1841-06-18)June 18, 1841
Joliet, Illinois
Died
April 18, 1913(1913-04-18) (aged 71)
Washington, D.C.
Resting place
Watertown, New York
Nationality
American
Alma mater
• Susquehanna Collegiate Institute, Towanda, Pennsylvania
• Columbian College, now the George Washington University
• Brown University
Occupations
• Geologist
• Sociologist
• professor
Employers
• U.S. Geological Survey
• Smithsonian Institution
• Brown University
Known for
Paleobotany, Telesis, sociology, and the introduction of sociology as field of higher education
Spouse(s)
Elizabeth Carolyn Vought (Lizzie); some sources give Elizabeth Carolyn Bought.
Parents
Justus Ward
Silence Rolph Ward
Lester Frank Ward (June 18, 1841 – April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist.[1] The first president of the American Sociological Association, Ward has been characterized as a pioneering figure in American sociology.[2] His 1883 work Dynamic Sociology was influential in establishing sociology as a distinct field in the United States.[3]
In service of democratic development, polymath Lester Ward was the original American leader promoting the introduction of sociology courses into American higher education. His Enlightenment belief that institution-building could be scientifically informed was attractive to democratic intellectuals during the Progressive Era. Ward's version of social science was based in organicist Enlightenment theories of comparative knowledge for democratic development, as distinguished from the mechanist version of science associated with Spencer's version of Sociology, and which later came to dominate the Anglo-American sciences and, along with micro symbolic interactionism and ethnography, sociology in the Cold War. Ward's significance is in deploying his scientific literacy, including his grasp of geological and biological sciences, to found American Sociology in an historical-materialist paradigm that avoided Cartesian dualism and efficiently distinguished democratic-developmentalist social institutions. Ward's influence in certain circles (see: the Social Gospel) was also affected by his Enlightenment views regarding organized priesthoods, which he believed had been responsible for more evil than good throughout human history.
In the democratic Enlightenment tradition, Ward emphasized the importance of macro social forces which could be guided by the cultivation and use of democratic knowledge, in order to achieve progress toward democratic human development, justice, and security, rather than allowing "evolution"--understood as institionalized, mystified social power--to "take its own course," as proposed by elitists William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer. Like other sociological Enlightenment thinkers including Thomas Jefferson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey,[4] Ward emphasized universal and comprehensive public schooling to provide the public with the knowledge a democracy needs to successfully govern itself.
A collection of Ward's writings and photographs is maintained by the Special Collections Research Center of the George Washington University. The collection includes articles, diaries, correspondence, and a scrapbook. GWU's Special Collections Research Center is located in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library.[5]
^"WARD, Lester Frank". The International Who's Who in the World. 1912. p. 1067.
^Dealey, James Quayle (1925). "Masters of Social Science: Lester Frank Ward". Social Forces. 4 (2): 257–272. doi:10.2307/3004574. ISSN 0037-7732.
^Small, Albion W. (1916). "Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865-1915)". American Journal of Sociology. 21 (6): 749–758. ISSN 0002-9602.
^ Kimmel, Michael. 2007. Classical Sociological Theory. Oxford University Press.
^Guide to the Lester Frank Ward Papers, 1883–1919 Archived November 19, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, the George Washington University
LesterFrankWard (June 18, 1841 – April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. The first president of the American Sociological...
however notable differences between the work of LesterFrankWard's and Tylor's approaches. LesterFrankWard developed Spencer's theory but unlike Spencer...
American Pragmatic tradition. One can read about it in the works of LesterFrankWard, William James, and John Dewey. In James' works, however, meliorism...
1887 The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays, 1917 LesterFrankWard (United States, 1841–1913) LesterWard was a botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist...
of fifty people, the first president of the association would be LesterFrankWard. Today, most of its members work in academia, while around 20 percent...
progress" was a concept and neologism coined by the American sociologist LesterFrankWard (often referred to as the "father of American sociology"), in the...
Pennsylvania, he was the son of writer Cyrenus Osborne Ward, and the nephew of LesterFrankWard. He was educated at Columbia University, and later served...
Perkins Marsh, William John McGee, John Muir, John Wesley Powell and LesterFrankWard, the largest government-funded conservation-related projects in United...
org/details/racehistoryofide0000goss_r1r7/page/166/mode/2up?q=lester&view=theater Cape, E.P. (1922). Lester F. Ward; a Personal Sketch. G. P. Putnam's sons. Sztompka...
later abandoned their flirtations with socialist thinking. In 1883, LesterFrankWard published the two-volume Dynamic Sociology. He formalized the basic...
sociologist LesterFrankWard (1841–1913), whom the historian Henry Steele Commager called "the father of the modern welfare state". Ward saw social phenomena...
published. Werner Sombart's Der moderne Kapitalismus is published LesterFrankWard's Dynamic Sociology is published. Beatrice Webb's and Sidney Webb's...
critics of the philosophy of eugenics included the American sociologist LesterFrankWard, the English writer G. K. Chesterton, the German-American anthropologist...
published. Leslie Stephen's The Science of Ethics is published. LesterFrankWard's Dynamic Sociology is published. Francis Galton's Inquiries into Human...
of all the people, not just the ruling class. American sociologist LesterFrankWard in an 1881 paper for the Penn Monthly was an active advocate of a...
unconscious force, cannot distinguish between good and evil. In 1909, LesterFrankWard defined synergy as the universal constructive principle of nature:...
sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). In the United States, the sociologist LesterFrankWard, who would be elected as the first president of the American Sociological...
Mayor and Secretary Pete Buttigieg (born 1982), Democrat from Indiana LesterFrankWard (1841–1913), sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), economist John...
Eudemics", (American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 18, No. 6, May 1913), Lester F. Ward of Brown University opens the second section regarding euthenics lamenting:...
1890s and included intellectual reformers typified by sociologist LesterFrankWard and economist Richard T. Ely. They transformed Victorian liberalism...
Sociology to Political Theory: The Doctrines of William Graham Sumner and LesterFrankWard", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jul., 1919), pp. 1–23...
is most identified with John Dewey, and also John Mayer Rice and LesterFrankWard. Dewey's 1899 book The School and Society is often credited with starting...
Thorstein Veblen, economist Robert F. Wagner Senator from New York LesterFrankWard, sociologist Ida B. Wells, African American leader, educator Burton...
by progressive intellectuals such as Herbert Croly, John Dewey and LesterFrankWard as well as liberal politicians such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry...
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