Review essay: Everett Cherrington Hughes (1897–1983): a note on his approach and influence1

Abstract

On 5 January 1983 Everett Hughes died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 86. His death followed a long and distinguished career both as a writer and teacher, in which he had a profound infiuence on the development of sociology. His thought and work gave rise to particular forms of sociological inquiry and pervade a number of substantive domains within the discipline. Although not a medical sociologist, Hughes perhaps more than anyone else is responsible for placing medicine and health care on the sociological agenda and his approach continues to inform the study of health and illness. Despite his infiuence, Hughes's own work remains relatively unknown amongst social scientists and our familiarity with his thought and ideas derives largely through the many empirical studies of his students, colleagues and associates. Perhaps the most infiuential parts of Hughes's work, certainly within the sociology of health and illness, are his numerous essays conceming work and occupations. These include such classics as 'The making of the physician', 'Licence and mandate', 'Professions in transition', 'Work and the self and 'Mistakes at work'; papers collected in his book Men and Their Work (1958) and more recently in the larger collection The Sociological Eye (1971). It is these essays and the accompanying lectures by Hughes at the University of Chicago which gave rise to the empirical beginnings of the sociology of work and occupations; the numerous studies commonly brought under the rubric of the post-war 'Chicago School'. Many of these studies address issues and topics related to health and illness and involve empirical investigations of medical work, organisations and the professions in medicine. Through his teaching and writing Hughes initiated some of the finest empirical work within medical sociology and thereby influenced successive generations of sociologists.