The rise, hegemony, and decline of the Chicago School of Sociology, 1892–1945

Abstract

This article suggests how knowledge, scientific activities, and academic disciplines are socially situated and driven through an empirical investigation of the social origin and development of the Chicago School of Sociology. The world's first department of sociology was founded at the University of Chicago in 1892. Millions of dollars from the Rockefeller foundation were used to lure some of the most distinguished scholars to Chicago. The Chicago School of sociology, under the charismatic leadership of Robert E. Park, acquired paradigmatic status. The School contibuted significantly to the scientific community's collectively negotiated social order. Using the Tiryakian “Schools” approach to the development of the social sciences, the Chicago School of Sociology is examined. The origin, rise, and components of the School are outlined. For twenty years the Chicago School reigned as the first hegemonic paradigm in the history of American sociology. The etiology of the School's decline is addressed. The departure of Park, increasing doubts over the scientific status of the discipline, the changing concepts of the role of the sociologist, and the rise of other sociology departments, most notably at Harvard and Columbia, contributed to the decline of the School. The Chicago School of Sociology as an open, cooperative, interdisciplinary supportive environment of intellectual and methodological eclecticism, is a paradigm to be emulated.