Chicago School

D. Sibley, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Chicago School discussed in this article is that in Chicago and, after 6 years in a part time position, he
University’s Department of Sociology, although Chicago became a professor in 1914. Park’s previous experience
has, or had, other celebrated schools, such as The School was diverse. His undergraduate degree at the University
of Economics and The School of Pragmatism. The term of Michigan was in philosophy, he worked as a journalist
‘school’ may suggest a group of scholars working closely in New York City, did a master’s degree in psychology
together and sharing philosophies and methods, as in and philosophy at Harvard, studied philosophy in Berlin
Plato’s academy. It may also suggest something rather under Simmel and in Strassburg under Windelband, and
special – a constellation of academics that is leading the completed a PhD in philosophy at Heidelberg. He then
way in an academic field, a group whose work inspires lectured at Harvard, worked as press agent for the Congo
others in the discipline and shapes a paradigm for re Reform Society, and was personal assistant to Booker
search. In this sense, there have been a few schools in T. Washington at Tuskegee College, Alabama, until he
geography, notably the Berkeley School, centered on the moved to Chicago. These three – Small, Thomas, and
key contributions of Carl Sauer to theorizing landscape, Park – had some common ground, particularly their fa
and many years later, the Los Angeles School of post miliarity with Simmel’s philosophy gained during their
modern urbanism associated with geography and plan studies in Germany. Ellsworth Faris, appointed in 1919,
ning at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the had a doctorate in psychology and had worked as a
University of Southern California. The second case is missionary in Africa. Ernest Burgess, appointed in the
more difficult to argue because individuals contributing same year as Faris, was the only member of the depart
to post modern theory are more widely dispersed – we ment in the early period who was trained as a sociologist.
would have to acknowledge contributions from Frederic Disciplinary boundaries in the humanities and social
Jameson at Santa Cruz and non Californian Homi sciences in the early twentieth century were more fluid
Bhabha at the University of Sussex, for example. Gen than later in the century but philosophical and meth
erally, it could be suggested that we need to be skeptical odological diversity was a continuing theme of Chicago
about this Platonic and place specific vision of a school. sociology. There were two other key figures in the early
Certainly, in the case of the Chicago School of Sociology, development of Chicago sociology. These were Louis
it would be necessary to talk about mythologies, fictions Wirth, who became a professor in 1926 and was a major
that reflect an external perception of the sociology de contributor to early studies of urban ethnicity, and
partment and have contributed to an uncritical view of Herbert Blumer, professor from 1931, who was concerned
the institution’s contribution to knowledge. Any detailed with relationships between urban ecology and social
examination of the work done in the department, par psychology.
ticularly during the first 50 years of its existence, dem A strong interest in philosophy and a concern with
onstrates that it has accommodated radically different universal theory were fundamental to the development of
approaches to social research, often at the same time, and scientific sociology at Chicago. The department is
that the sociologists have had an uneasy relationship with probably best known for its promotion of urban ecology.
academics in cognate fields, particularly academics else Park and Wirth, for example, saw the communities
where in the University of Chicago. juxtaposed in the industrial city as an expression of an
The Chicago School began as a graduate department ecological order, a system of competition and temporary
of sociology in 1892, in a period when the city was equilibrium based on spatial interdependencies. This
growing very rapidly. The department’s first chair, Albion competitive system, however, develops into a cultural
Small, had studied both in Germany and the United order, whereby mutual understandings emerge from in
States and in Chicago he was concerned to promote a creased interaction among members of different groups,
systematic, scientific sociology. He was a key figure in and then a moral and political order, in which societal
establishing sociology as an academic discipline in the norms and goals are articulated, is realized. It is easy to
United States as first editor of the American Journal of see how this evolutionary system fitted American beliefs
Sociology. Small appointed William Thomas, who had also in assimilation and the adoption of ‘American values’ and
studied philosophy and sociology in Germany and who, how it fails to explain conflict, exploitation, and the
with Znaniecki, produced a major study of Polish peas persistence of groups who do not subscribe to main
ants in Europe and America between 1918 and 1920. stream values. Robert Park’s introductory essay in The
Robert Park accepted an invitation from Thomas to teach City, published in 1925, demonstrates that he was well

40
 Chicago School 41

aware that socio spatial relations were more complex difference was seen as a failure to adapt to progressive,
than this model of urban ecology suggests. In a long list modern American values. Despite such ethnocentricity,
of problems that he would include in an urban research we could argue that Chicago sociologists in the early
agenda, Park identified social unrest, strikes, and vio period laid the foundations for modern urban social
lence, for example, but he did not provide any clues geography. The way in which the work of the Chicago
about how he would deal with them theoretically. School entered geographical consciousness, however, was
Although there were some differences in the theore curious.
tical approaches of members of the faculty – between
Park and Burgess, for example – it has been suggested Human Geography and the Chicago
that there was a common philosophical underpinning to School
research in the School. This was pragmatism, a form of
empiricism in which a fundamental proposition is that The first commentaries on Chicago sociology in geog
knowledge acquires meaning and validity on the basis of raphy are found in spatial science texts in the 1960s, with
its usefulness. Theory, then, is inseparable from practice. reference only to Burgess. Barry Garner, writing in 1967,
Of the key figures in the pragmatist group in the late referred to the ‘classic’ concentric zone model of Burgess
nineteenth and early twentieth century, John Dewey and that described the typical succession of land uses with
George Herbert Mead were members of the University distance from the city center. Walter Isard, in 1956, and
of Chicago and a third, William James, had taught Robert Brian Berry, in 1959, had ‘explained’ this sequence in
Park when he was an undergraduate at the University of terms of the substitution of rents for transport costs.
Michigan. Mead was a social psychologist and professor Spatial science in this period was primarily concerned
in the sociology department from 1894 to 1931. Prag with geometry, although neoclassical economic theory
matism provided the philosophical basis for symbolic was often harnessed to provide explanations for spatial
interactionism, a term coined by Herbert Blumer, who patterns. David Harvey, writing in 1969, only objected
had been a student of Mead. We could think of it as an that Chicago was a sample of one so the land use suc
approach to understanding that involves engagement cession described by Burgess could not stand as a gen
with others, accepting the pragmatist premise that the eralization about urban spatial structure. Burgess did
acquisition of knowledge requires involvement in the have a greater interest in cartography and demography
world and the observer’s involvement affects outcomes than other Chicago sociologists so the connections be
and, therefore, what is known. Peter Jackson and Susan tween his writing and the interests of spatial scientists
Smith argued that symbolic interactionism chimed with were closer than with other writers in the Chicago
Chicago sociologists’ strong interest in social reform but School but it is notable that the principal concerns of the
there are other views on their social commitment and sociologists, in the dynamics of social areas and the re
involvement that will be turned to later. lationship between the social and the spatial, were totally
The particular urban projects undertaken by the ignored by geographers at this time. It could be that the
Chicago School during this period have been referred to iconic concentric rings of Burgess’s land use model,
as urban ethnographies although the level of involvement which became a standard feature of urban geography
that is required in modern anthropological research was texts and university and high school curricula, hampered
not evident in most of these studies and there was a critical thinking about the capitalist city.
common tendency to observe other cultures through an A reworking of the social aspects of urban research
assimilationist lens. Projects included studies of vice probably started in the 1970s with Ceri Peach in British
(Reckless), the ghetto (Wirth), black families (Frazier), geography. He was very enthusiastic about the Chicago
and mental illness (Faris). These were all focused on the School, describing it as ‘the fountainhead from which all
city but one of the most innovative and outstanding else flows’ and he saw the basic propositions about social
studies was Thomas and Znaniecki’s five volume The and spatial distance as key to an understanding of urban
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, tracing the migration social and spatial segregation. However, there were some
of Polish peasants from the villages of Poland to Chicago more critical reflections on Chicago sociology coming
parishes, using a range of methods and materials, out of the urban ethnographies of Peter Jackson and
including oral histories, letters, and newspaper reports. others in the 1980s, including Jackson and Smith’s text,
A fundamental weakness of the urban community studies Exploring Social Geography. Certainly, acknowledging the
is demonstrated in Zorbaugh’s writing on wealth research of the early Chicago sociologists contributed to
and poverty – The Gold Coast and the Slum. Zorbaugh a change in emphasis in urban geography and helped to
provided a detailed description of life in a relatively poor weaken boundaries between urban geography and similar
Persian district, close to the affluent Gold Coast, but work being done in sociology and anthropology but there
interpreted institutions of everyday life, such as coffee are still questions about the centrality of the Chicago
shops, as evidence of ‘social disorganisation’. Cultural School in urban studies.
42 Chicago School

Other Chicago’s In addition to what would now be considered incisive

analyses of housing problems in Chicago, some of the
In the process of locating knowledge, in a particular dis women also made perceptive observations on the lives of
cipline and a particular place, exclusions occur. This may recently arrived immigrants. These included an account
not be a serious problem if histories and geographies of of evictions of Italian families by a railroad company,
ideas identify only loosely bound places that are argued to noting the pain of separation from the rest of the com
be key nodes in the production of knowledge. However, in munity, and the adjustment problems of Croatians who
the case of the Chicago School, narratives that claim so still felt a strong attachment to their rural homeland.
much for the academics in the sociology department are There is an awareness of injustice and exploitation that is
largely silent about important urban research done else missing from the urban ethnographies of the sociologists.
where in the same university and the city. In 1936, the The political implications of their research are spelled
University of Chicago Press published The Tenements of out in one of Edith Abbott’s contributions to the book.
Chicago, 1908–1935, edited by Edith Abbott. This collection Noting the problem of low pay and the lack of affordable
of essays on housing questions had been preceded by housing provided by the private market, she makes a case
papers on housing questions by Abbott and Sophonisba for large scale public housing. It is clear from the essays
Breckinridge that appeared in the American Journal of in The Tenements of Chicago that this group of women were
Sociology in 1910 and 1911 and these two produced a book somewhere to the left of Robert Park.
on housing problems in the city in 1912. The later work Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge were both
presents a strong contrast to the sociologists’ monographs, on the faculty of the University of Chicago where Abbott
with their emphasis on social disorganization and assimi was dean in the School of Social Service Administration
lation. In a chapter on landlordism, for example, Edith so it is not as if the women’s research was hidden from the
Abbott and Helen Rankin Jeter used Marxist concepts of sociologists. In fact, Burgess acknowledged Breckinridge’s
use and exchange value (without referencing Marx) to outstanding contribution to social work, while main
explain how landlords contributed to inequalities in the taining a distinction between ‘scientific’ sociology and
housing market. Similarly, in a chapter on rents, Jeter ‘practical’ social work. The failure of the sociologists and
noted how anticipated land value, taxation, and income Park in particular, to recognize their contribution to
from the site, pushed up subsequent valuations without urban theory, appears to be a consequence of sexist at
regard for the needs of tenants or their ability to pay, or for titudes and a distaste for the women’s politics. One
the continuing decay of the building. This argument was sociology student recalls being immersed in sociology as
well supported with evidence from Olcott’s Land Values a science and hearing only occasional rumblings about
Blue Book of Chicago, which charted annual changes in the old maids downtown who were wet nursing social
the geography of land values in the city. The women’s view reformers. The gendering of academic knowledge was
of race and housing was also significantly different to that exacerbated by the editorial policies of the American
of the men in the sociology department. Following a paper Journal of Sociology. While Albion Small was editor, the
by Breckinridge in 1913 and earlier research on race by proportion of papers by women fell from 15% to 5%
W.E.B. DuBois in 1899, Edith Abbott and Mary Zahrobsky suggesting that American sociology became a more
noted how housing submarkets were created by dis masculine enterprise as the subject established a place in
criminatory practices. In particular, they argued that black the academy. Park conflated gender and politics, once
families were paying significantly higher rents than white remarking that the Chicago women were more dangerous
immigrants for comparable accommodation because dis than the city’s corrupt politicians or gangsters. This ob
crimination against black people limited the supply of servation reflected conservative male anxieties about
housing available to them. Scarcity meant that landlords Hull House settlement and its most prominent member,
could postpone repairs and raise rents knowing that an Jane Addams. Hull House was one of a number of
apartment could be let at any time. Another study by a settlements established in large American cities (and in
woman, Mary Faith Adams, noted how Mexicans were London, Manchester, and Liverpool) in the late nine
similarly affected by racism in the housing market. We teenth century to provide support for newly arrived
could compare these analyses of housing submarkets with immigrants and the poor more generally. Members of
Park’s facile observation (in 1935) that because of the Hull House provided literacy classes and a crèche for
abandonment of middle class housing near the city center working women, as well as undertaking research on
as a result of ‘white flight’, ‘‘by a singular turn of fortune, housing conditions. Apart from her work in the settle
the southern Negro, lately from the ‘sticks’ – the man ment and elsewhere in the city, Addams was an important
politically farthest down – now finds himself living in the figure in the peace movement during World War I and
centre of a great metropolitan city,’’ making no reference she was prominent in the international women’s move
to the subdivision of properties by landlords or their ment. Edith Abbott and other contributors to The Tene
failure to invest. ments of Chicago had also been involved in Hull House and
 Chicago School 43

Abbott acknowledged the help of Addams’ co founder, should approach the problem with detachment, ‘like a
Julia Lathrop, in the preface. The radical background of scientist dissecting a potato bug’. This clearly contradicts
Abbott and other members of the Social Service Ad the view that Chicago sociologists promoted hands on
ministration faculty is clearly something that Robert Park research. Maybe they did but apparently not on questions
found troubling. Until Martin Bulmer’s 1984 history of that were politically charged. A survey of sociologists
The Chicago School of Sociology, there was neither ac connected with Park at this time concluded that there
knowledgment of the academic contribution of the was an overriding concern to distinguish sociology from
women nor any sustained critical commentary on Park socialism.
and his colleagues. Earlier accounts by geographers, in The assumption that the Chicago School in the early
cluding Peach, Jackson and Smith, and Cater and Jones, twentieth century initiated research on urban ethnicity
all neglected to specify or mention the work of the and socio spatial relations has probably contributed to
School of Social Service Administration and its contri the neglect of earlier work on race and space by W.E.B.
bution to urban theory. DuBois. In his research on the black population of
Philadelphia at the end of the nineteenth century,
DuBois, as a black (albeit middle class) academic, rec
Park, Science and Race
ognized not only the significance of racism in relation to
Most accounts of the Chicago School understandably employment and housing but also the collective strength
present Robert Park as the central figure because he set black migrants gained through affiliation to black chur
research agendas and promoted urban ethnography. Al ches and (enforced) residential clustering. He also put the
though others did most of the urban research, Park is black experience into a comparative framework by
associated with innovative methodologies and the iden looking briefly at the migration streams of Italian, Jewish,
tification of significant topics for research. There is a and Irish minorities. This was a landmark work. However,
common assumption that the approach to research pro while Park acknowledged DuBois’ contribution to an
moted by Park involved ‘getting your hands dirty’ but understanding of race in America in a general way, he
there is evidence that Park himself insisted on keeping a took nothing in terms of theoretical insights from The
distance from the research subject. This comes from his Philadelphia Negro, published in 1899. Similarly, histories
view of science. Showing the influence of Windelband’s of urban social geography have neglected DuBois’ con
scientific philosophy during his education in Germany, tribution. Thus, we could conclude that ‘the Chicago
and Auguste Comte, who distinguished between abstract School’, as a collective endeavor in the production of
and concrete science, Park maintained that sociology, knowledge, has, in part, been defined by omissions.
including human ecology, was an abstract science,
whereas geography and social work were concrete sci
ences that provided the facts that sociologists used in Conclusion
their theorizations. According to his notional hierarchy of
knowledge, abstract and theoretical sociology was This article has focused on the early twentieth century
‘higher’ than concrete, fact gathering activities, like social because it was the academics in the Department of Soci
work research. This had two implications. First, it ology during this period that have had most influence on
allowed Park to devalue social work research and, second, human geography, initially in the realm of spatial science
it made it possible for him to argue that the sociologist and later in broader urban social geography. Howard
should try to maintain objectivity by not getting involved Becker, a member of the ‘second Chicago School’, has
with the subject. Interestingly, Burgess did not share this argued that the department was never a ‘school’ because
view and he called for the integration of social work and there was no unifying theoretical or methodological per
social theory. Park’s position on the theoretical status of spective. Although most histories emphasize ethnography,
sociology was crucial in relation to work on race. In 1919, there was also an early quantitative tradition established by
there was a ‘race riot’ in Chicago (there were similar but William Ogburn in the 1920s and followed by Hauser,
not so serious conflicts in Liverpool and Cardiff in the Stouffer, and Duncan. Similarly, Burgess favored ques
same year) and Park was appointed to the Chicago tionnaire surveys and quantitative techniques rather than
Commission on Race Relations to investigate the riot. A ethnography. Social geography’s Chicago School has been
report on the riot was actually produced by the black built around Robert Park, who was a complex character.
sociologist, Charles Johnson, with some help and guid His positive role in developing urban ethnography must be
ance from Park. Martin Bulmer noted that it showed a acknowledged but his resistance to ideas coming from
high degree of scientific detachment from what he elsewhere, notably from the Chicago School of Social
(Bulmer) called the ‘emotional’ subject matter. The poor Service Administration, has contributed to partial and
state of race relations at this time encouraged sociology distorted histories of urban research in the early twen
students to get involved but Park advised them that they tieth century city.
44 Chicago School

See also: Berkeley School; Los Angeles School of Deegan, M. (1981). Early women sociologists and the American
Post-Modern Urbanism; Social Geography; Sociological Society: The patterns of exclusion and participation.
American Sociologist 16, 14 24.
Society-Space. Jackson, P. and Smith, S. (1984). Exploring Social Geography. London:
George Allen and Unwin.
Sibley, D. (1995). Geographies of Exclusion.
London: Routledge.

Further Reading
Relevant Websites
Abbott, A. (1999). Department and Discipline:
Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. Chicago, IL: University of [Link] SWLNote96 1 Lutters,
Chicago Press. [Link]
Becker, H. (1999). The Chicago School, so called. Qualitative Sociology This is an introduction to the Chicago School of Sociology by Wayne
22(1), 3 12. Lutters and Mark Ackerman.