SOC 100 - Forgotten Sociologists

Our first assignment was to write a one page paper on the forgotten sociologists we read about in the first few pages of our textbook. I might mention that I got the e-book for this class through CourseSmart and it seemed like a great idea at first, but later I realized it's not that great. For one thing, when you leave the book and then go back to it later, it doesn't pick up where you left off. It's not near as nice as Kindle. Another thing, there isn't a way to bookmark where you do leave off. Now that's just crazy. That'd be like the first thing I'd have my developers do. Have it leave off where you left off and have a simple bookmark tool. You can make notes but it's not quick and easy like a bookmark. I've found other things about CourseSmart that I don't like and maybe I'll mention those later. So for now, here's my first assignment. I titled it "Forgotten Sociologist".

Forgotten Sociologists

Alice Paul (1885-1977) founded the Congressional Union (CU) in 1913 which sole purpose was to lobby for the rights of women. In 1916 the CU changed its name to the National Women’s Party (NWP) with a new emphasis on protesting and marches. The NWP demonstrated at the White House. Standing in silence holding their banners, the women became known as the “Silent Sentinels”.  Protestors were eventually arrested and Alice Paul was sentenced to 7 months in jail where she was given bread and water and eventually put into solitary confinement.  When she was moved to the prison hospital she was force fed with a tube shoved down her throat.  Many women protestors were beaten by men. This was a cruel time. Eventually President Woodrow Wilson and congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, but it didn’t end there for Alice Paul. She continued her fight for women’s equality.

Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943) was a self-educated woman born in Gloucester England. She came from a wealthy family and was taught by a governess in her home but never completed a full term. She studied in her father’s library and talked with friends. She worked with her father for years and learned about business.  She was married to Sidney James Webb who was a member of the Fabien Society.  In 1887 she wrote her first book on working conditions and later wrote on the working conditions of the poor. She eventually became well known in Chicago with Edith Abbott and Jane Adams.  The Chicago Women’s School of Sociology described Webb as an "English socialist leader".

                I believe both Alice Paul and Beatrice Potter Webb were forgotten partly because they were women. Sexism made them unnoticed at the time. They were considered non-academic activists or merely social workers, not sociologists. What they stood for and worked towards also contributed to their unpopularity. Unlike the prominent sociologists we read about on pages 6-8, their sex, the era they lived in and the causes they stood for made them less important. They weren’t taken seriously like the academic sociologists. They were pushing for reform. Even though the sociologists we read about had different concepts about sociology, they didn’t fight the system or public. They were academic sociologists emphasizing research and theory. Paul and Webb wanted to change society.

  

Source (s):

Nickless, K. (n.d.). Alice Paul and the fight for women's equality. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from

http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/diversity/womens-history-in-preservation/profiles-from-the-past/alice.html

Bettice, N. (n.d.). Beatrice Potter Webb. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/webb.html