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A Brief History of Social Sciences

By: Janette Ash

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In the early 19th century social science was called positivist philosophy of science. It
wasnt until the 20th century that this term evolved into social sciences and is used to
encompass all types of social sciences that study society and culture. The idea that society can be
studied objectively is a fairly recent idea in history.
One of the early founders of sociology is Karl Marx. He is best known for studying the
social science of economics. He very famously invented the theory of historical materialism.
Historical materialism is the study of social order in the economic structure of society. He shed
light on hierarchy and class structure in economics. In Marxs famous book, The German
Ideology Marx broke society into two parts, the base and the superstructure. The base is the
means of production in society. Superstructure is societys culture and ideology. Marx is known
for studying class conflict and the conflict theory. He laid out his theory of class conflict in The
Communist Manifesto which states that the bourgeoisie of society, or upper class, exploit the
working class and create class conflict.
Emile Durkheim was Frances first professor of sociology. His major contribution was
establishing sociology as a major science. Durkheim is responsible for establishing social science
and social psychology as an academic discipline in the college setting. Durkheim studied how
society can maintain order and stability. He is considered the founder of structural functionalism
because he was interested in the shared beliefs, values, and experiences of people that cause
them to want to function as a community or group of people in society. He believed in studying
society as a whole rather than focus on the actions of individuals. He wrote the famous book The
Division of Labor in Society. Durkheims work was laser focused on culture and is an influence
on social scientists study of culture today.

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Max Weber is among one of the three founders of sociology along with Karl Marx and
Emile Durkheim. He was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist. He is best
known for his thesis combing economics and religion where he stated that the rise in capitalism
is due to the values of the Protestant people. Weber went against historical materialism believing
that religion had influence of capitalism. He studied the religions of many different countries and
the way they had an effect on capitalism. Weber was also interested in social policy. He viewed
economics from the sociological standpoint that solutions could be found to social problems. He
along with other German economists helped pioneer large scale statistical studies of economic
issues.
August Comte is the founding father of positivism. Positivism is the study of society that
uses scientific evidence from qualitative research to reveal the truth about the way society
functions. He believed that you could observe society and gain scientific results about the way it
works. He may well be the first social scientist. Sociology was around before him, but he may
have coined the term. Comte studied systematic observation and social order. He is credited with
advancing social science and for breaking it up into two fields of study, social statics which
means the forces that hold society together, and social dynamics which is the study of social
change.
Harriet Martineau was one of the first western sociologists and was well known for
introducing the frame of thought that when studying society, we must focus on all aspects of it.
She believed that when examining and studying society we could figure out why inequality
existed especially pertaining to women, slaves, and the working poor. Martineau was able to
make social sciences easy to understand for the public by working real issues, like economics

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and politics, into novels. Martineau brought an early feminist sociological perspective to social
problems such as gender and race inequality. Martineau wrote the book Illustrations of Political
Economy which merged economy and fiction. Its said that this book encouraged women to learn
the principals of political economy.
In the 18th century social science pioneer Frederick Jackson Turner, wrote what would
become the most influential piece of writing in the history of social science. From 1790 on, the
American population moved westward. It took eighty years to settle the western territories. The
frontier line was ending therefore the first chapter of American history was coming to a close.
Turner believed that building a nation out of the wilderness created a strength, acuteness, and a
dominate individualism that came with the freedom of settling a frontier. The frontier meant
social and economic freedom and Turner worried that with its closing America would become
more like Europe. Immigrants were pouring in and the frontier life was ending.
Turner believed in American Exceptionalism. Turner thought it was unique to the United
States. He believed America had more social mobility and was an egalitarian society. Turner is
considered the first social scientist because of the way he told this story. He conceived of his
intellectual activity as a social science. He looked at history as a problem solving activity and
drew from natural and social science. Geography and maps helped him analyze information. The
1890 census asked more questions than any other before its time. Turners measurements had an
impact on the brand new social sciences that had an impact on American life. Turner was at the
core of a group of scientist that were at the heart of this new history. These scientists wanted to
show that history can make a difference to policy.

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Jane Addams was one of the most influential social reformers and sociologists of her
time. She helped America focus on the issues of mothers, childrens health, local public health,
and world peace. In 1889 she co-founded Hull House which housed recently arrived European
Immigrants. In 1920 she co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Civil
Liberties Union is a non-partisan and nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and
defend individuals rights and liberties guaranteed to everyone in this country by the constitution.
Addams was a role model for middle class women to volunteer for their communities. She
became the first American women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was said to be the
founder of social work.
W.E.B Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist. After
earning his masters degree at Fisk University Du Bois studied abroad in Germany with some of
the most prominent social scientists of the day. Du Bois was the first African American to earn a
doctorate from Harvard University. Soon after, Du Bois published a landmark study The
Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899) which was the first case study of the black
community in the United States. His case study was one of the first examples of sociology as a
statistically based social science. Du Bois went house to house and conducted personal
interviews with each head of household. Du Bois analyzed his data along with census data to
study the social and economic conditions of African Americans in Philadelphia. One of Du Bois
most famous work is The Souls of Black Folk which contains poems and essays on race. His
landmark book is an important piece of work in not only the African American community, but
in social science as one of the early works of sociology.

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Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd were husband and wife sociologists in
the early 1920s who did sociological case studies about small town life in America. The Lynds
wrote the book Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture about their case study and in
depth field research about the findings of key cultural norms and social change. They used the
normal middle class American small town of Muncie, Indiana. They were significant
sociologists because they reported on class differences and the progress of modernization in
America. Class differences were changing quickly at this time and the lines were becoming more
muddled with the rise of consumerization. The one thing the Lynds didnt realize was that
consumerization was actually the reason for the blurring of the middle and upper class. Movies,
cars, washing machines, and TVs were helping the middle class to grey the lines between the
middle and upper class. This period in time gave the middle class a little taste of the life that the
wealthy elite had.
Disciplines in sociology are fields of study that a person can choose to make their lifes
work or to study a more specific type of sociological perspective. A few disciplines are
economics, anthropology, politics, communications, and history. The list of social science
disciplines is vast and is ever growing with the changing and evolving of society. Professions are
the careers or the field of study that social scientists go into after they have earned their degree or
PhD. A college graduate with a social science degree may go into the profession of Government
Relations and may research the disciplines of economics and politics, for example.
Natural science is a branch of science dedicated to studying the way the natural world
and universe works. The branches of natural science are astronomy, chemistry, earth science,
physics, and biology. Natural science uses mathematics and logic to explain and scientifically

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examine the laws of nature. Social science uses qualitative and quantitative research to come up
with scientific conclusions about the world around us. Data science extracts information from
data to form conclusions. A few branches of data science are statistics, machine learning, data
mining, and predictive analytics. All three of these forms of science are studying the world
around us. Each type of science has different ways to come up with scientific conclusions but the
reason for doing so is the same. We as a society want to learn everything we can about our world
and ourselves.

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References:
PBS. 2000. The First Measured Century 1900-1930. http://fod.infobase.com.ursus-proxy7.ursus.maine.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=44377
Heise, Kia. Dec. 2, 2011. 5 Famous Social Scientists and Why They Matter.
https://thesocietypages.org/teaching/2011/12/02/5-famous-social-scientists-and-why-they-matter/
10 Influential Sociologists of the 21st Century. http://degreeinsociology.net/influentialsociologists/
W.E.B. Du Bois Biography http://www.biography.com/people/web-du-bois-9279924