Quest for an American Sociology : Robert E. Park and the Chicago School

Park's significance as a transi- tional figure between the `old' and `new' America lies in the fact that he was a native-born son of the commercial classes, raised with a concept of Ameri- can identity summed up in the contrasting figures of Lincoln and Jesse James, who came, through sociology, to understand the importance of cultural differences and the plurality of values in the urban nation of [...] Park took from Dewey a life-long interest in the role of communication as a force for integrating society and in devices for communication, especially the news- paper and the telephone.26 To speak of students being influenced by their courses, to assume that there was intellectual excitement in the classroom, violates the self-conception and much of the historical reconstruction of the American un [...] Park became a reporter when the city beat was full of exotic glamor and the young Mencken decided that the best way to learn the ways of the world was to join the Baltimore Herald as a cub reporter.53 The reporter was an institutionalized voyeur, rewarded with modest pay but considerable, if ambiguous, prestige for taking up as a professional duty in the specialized city the role of gossip filled [...] The democratic notion of art assumes that the greatest product of the human genius is that which has moved the largest number of people and moved them most strongly, the product of human genius that has brought the greatest revelation to man, added the largest area of knowledge and understanding to the conscious life of the race. [...] I am now convinced that the intoxicating pleasure of sharing consciously in the movement of the whole world, of making the whole world me, of feeling in my bosom all the joys and sorrows of it is the greatest pleasure, the supreme happiness of life.