Luther and Jessie Bernard: Values and positivist developments in Origins of American Sociology and Luther’s “Onion Skins”

Abstract

This article discusses the works and continued relevance of Luther (1881–1951) and Jessie Bernard (1903–1996). The two sociologists devoted themselves to providing a unique and comprehensive history of positivist developments in American sociology. Although the Bernards’ historical research has been almost entirely forgotten, their work shed light on important intellectual conflicts, the effects of which can be felt in sociological discourse today. This article emphasizes the importance of historical self-reflexivity by way of consideration of two important works put forth by the Bernards: Origins of American Sociology (OAS), and an unpublished project which became known as Luther’s “Onion Skins.” Throughout the article, I rely on both published works as well as archive material from the Special Collections Library at Pennsylvania State University.

Introduction

For a considerable portion of their careers, Luther and Jessie Bernard devoted themselves to providing American sociology with a thorough understanding of its past. Luther Bernard was the 22nd president of the American Sociological Society in 1932 (renamed the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 1959), founding editor of the original The American Sociologist, and known by his contemporaries as the leading historian of American sociology. Although well-known throughout his career, Luther Bernard is seldom mentioned today. His collaborator and wife, Jessie Bernard, on the other hand, developed a more lasting name as an influential feminist scholar. For over 40 years, in fact, the ASA has granted an annual Jessie Bernard Award in recognition of scholarly work on the role of women in society. The two scholars collaborated on several important works that have since provided a useful foundation for historians of social science. Curiosity in Luther and Jessie Bernard has overall dwindled, though it is worth noting that some interest in the two scholars, especially the latter, has recently resurfaced (Messner, 2021; Sica and Bucior, 2019; Weaver et al., 2020; Williams, 2021). ¹

The Bernards’ dedication to intensive historical research is a form of scholarship that is quite rare in the social sciences today (Albanese, 2023). Preservation of the historical imagination comes with a myriad of advantages and, as Strangleman (2023) notes, more attention needs to be directed toward illustrating how historical research has been done well in the field before. By way of consideration of the Bernards, this article focuses on the advantage of self-reflexivity that the history of sociology provides, namely the benefit of understanding the previous intellectual battles out of which current scientific discourse came (Albanese et al., 2023; Hirschhorn, 1997; Jones, 1983; Skinner, 1969; Small, 1924; Steinmetz, 2022; Swedberg, 2012). As will be demonstrated, the Bernards’ historical research sheds light on conflicts concerning the role that values, humanistic scholarship, and forms of positivism should or should not play in sociology. Similar (though certainly not identical) tensions persist into sociological discourse today, with intellectual disagreements revolving around value-driven sociology, dispassionate science, and the role of humanistic inquiry. One of the most prominent examples of such disagreement can be found in debates on the merit of public sociology as opposed to the value-free objective of pure science (e.g. Black, 2013; Burawoy, 2005a, 2005b, 2021; Deflem, 2004; Gans, 2016; Tittle, 2004; Turner, 2005). Other recent examples of conflicts on the value-laden and/or politicized nature of sociology can be found in clashes over ASA making a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as some of the impassioned reactions to the updated Statement of Goals made by the new editors of Theory & Society. The current state of the discipline is the reflection of past discourse, and thus a self-understanding of our present penchant for certain intellectual orientations demands a degree of historical contextualization. As I will show in this article, attention to the work of Luther and Jessie Bernard provides a promising opportunity in achieving this kind of historical self-reflexivity.

I primarily focus on two historical projects these scholars put forth: Origins of American Sociology (OAS), and an unpublished project which became known as Luther’s “Onion Skins.” Although not read today, OAS provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of pre-sociology in the United States. The section on OAS provides a concrete example of the way in which historical scholarship has successfully been conducted in the past, while also turning to its self-reflexive benefit of contextualizing the intellectual battles of the Bernards’ period. To understand both this latter function of OAS as well as the varieties of vocational philosophies among the Bernards’ contemporaries, I detail the patterns in scholars’ responses to Luther Bernard’s never published Onion Skins project. According to Sica and Bucior (2019, p. 67), the Onion Skins material stored at Penn State “still comprise the single best and broadest source of data about early American sociology,” though they have not been fully used. Throughout the article, I rely on both published works as well as archive material from the Special Collections Library at Pennsylvania State University. In light of the exemplary historical research of the Bernards, implications concerning self-reflexivity in present-day sociology are discussed.

On Origins of American Sociology

In 1943, Luther and Jessie Bernard published Origins of American Sociology (OAS), providing the discipline with what is arguably the most comprehensive history of pre-sociology in American social science. ² The book was highly praised and helped mostly Luther further establish his role as the discipline’s main historian (Sica and Bucior, 2019). Sociologist Read Bain (1951), for example, claimed that the book’s “treatment of the subject is so complete that there will be neither need nor material for more than an occasional article on the subject in the future” (p. 289). He went on to predict that “it will be valuable to all historians of ideas, students of social movements, and all who are curious about the origin of American sociology” (Bain, 1951, p. 289). This prediction proved to be overly optimistic or, at best, short-lived, as sociologists today rarely make use of OAS and the work of the Bernards more generally.

OAS grew out of a seminar that Luther Bernard taught at the University of North Carolina in 1928–29. Jessie Bernard was a doctoral student at the time and undertook to the study of Auguste Comte’s influence on American social science. To collect data bearing upon the history of American social science, Luther and Jessie visited the majority of older colleges and universities throughout the United States with funding from The Social Science Research Council Inc. They also visited France and England to consult special collections of manuscripts, and to interview members of the Positivist Center in Paris. These trips gave them access to approximately 12,000 volumes of material on positivist developments in the social sciences. The Bernards wrote OAS with the hopes that it could be used as a textbook for introductory courses on American Sociology, though they clearly fell short of this objective in any lasting sense, for OAS has since been tossed into the scholarly dustbin.

This is quite the loss for the discipline, as the book provides over 800 pages on the history of American social science. ³ OAS provides detailed accounts on the philosophical underpinnings of social science in the 18th century, particularly focusing on its close relation to ethical theory. By the mid-19th century, they show that social science began to reshape, as an increasing number of scholars became critical of its utopian aspects and general lack of data. According to Bernard and Bernard (1943, p. 5), it was at this time when social science “received a much needed infusion of systematic scientific and philosophic principles from the Comtean and Spencerian positivism,” and its trajectory became one that confronted and overcame the stages of theology and metaphysics. According to the Bernards, this infusion connected to “the growing conviction in the minds of men that the methods of science in general should be applied to social problems and their solution as well as to the physical world, and that mystical solutions should be discarded” (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 2). As the Bernards saw it, the development of positivist thought was a necessary step in bringing social science closer to achieving the objective of applying formalized knowledge to social issues.

Throughout OAS, Bernard and Bernard (1943) characterize both theological and metaphysical thought as standing in opposition to the development of the positive system. However, it would be a misinterpretation to understand OAS as a full condemnation of the theologically-minded, some of whom the Bernards refer to as “intelligent” people who would never rely on “revelation as a method for an adequate understanding of society” (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 842). This qualification notwithstanding, OAS provides detailed accounts on how social science advanced toward positivist thought; an end the Bernards frequently refer to as being of upmost importance. The two scholars impressively capture the many stages of this trajectory, representing them in the following succession:

• (1) Utopian aspiration and humanitarian idealism, (2) metaphysical speculation and the search for unificatory general principles, (3) an effort to establish certain realistic working principles of social welfare and reform, largely philanthropic and economic in character, (4) the organization of a national association and of local groups for the discussion and promotion of these reforms, (5) an academic discipline, (6) an attempt at systemization through the development of a succession of methodologies which gradually eventuated into the firm establishment of (7) dependable statistical procedures and organization, (8) the differentiation and redistribution of effort into the several social sciences, and especially into (9) the new discipline sociology (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 835).

The Bernards repeatedly describe this period of social science as that which had to supersede both the theological and metaphysical stages in order to advance toward the positivist system of knowledge. This framework is easy to observe in their description of 18th century social science, writing that “the theologians did not welcome the efforts of the philosophers to analyze society and offer a theory and a plan for its improvement” (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 20–21). They recognize Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico for having developed a philosophy of history to use as a method for studying the essence of tradition and human affairs through historical fact. This contribution, as significant as it was, falls short of the positivist stage according to the Bernards.

Although he [Vico] ruled out supernatural personal direction from the developing panorama of secular history and retained it only for Sacred or Jewish history, he still accepted the metaphysical dogma of the implicit (Platonic) pattern in the “nature of things.” The moral impersonal Natural Law had merely replaced the personal deity in his scheme for the ordering of things . . . Vico believed the pattern [of society] was preexistent and implicit in the events or data and he sought to uncover or reveal it from the study of literature and history, holding that it was everywhere essentially the same (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 22).

The social science movement did not make significant strides through the metaphysical stage until the 1840s, when Auguste Comte’s final volume of Positive Philosophy began to appear. It was around this same time that empirical approaches and the history of statistics became more central to the social sciences. Social scientists in the mid-19th century were becoming interested in discovering the scientific laws that direct human societies in order to realize social harmony and abolish social ills. Ideas pushing for social amelioration were, of course, not new, though instead of relying on theological wisdom, this period demonstrated a desire to discover laws through positivist means. This goal echoes one intention of Henri de Saint-Simon’s “social physics,” namely, to free the proletariat from their subordinate position through the adoption and application of positivist science.

Harriet Martineau freely translated and condensed Positive Philosophy in 1853 and, with this provision, Comte reached the height of his influence in the United States. With Martineau’s contribution, Comte was better and more widely understood by readers and consequently a period of “admiration, attack, criticism, praise, violent repudiation and equally violent espousal” ensued (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 120). Rather than consider the cogency of the arguments against Comte at this time, it is unfortunate that Bernard and Bernard are more interested in hurling ad hominem attacks against the non-positivists of the mid-19th century. In an attempt to substantiate their understanding of the pro-Comtean position, they refer to a work by an anonymous author who describes the resistance to Comte as mere expressions of cowardice and “theological timidity” (quoted in Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 121). While it is true that resistance to Positive Philosophy was itself punctuated by emotion as well as ugly attacks against Comte’s mental instability, Bernard and Bernard also degenerate into intellectually immature tactics by resorting to mere insults, once referring to the opposition to Comte as “petty and invidious criticism levelled at the system by the smaller minds” (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 223). The majority of their responses to the critics of Comte are made in a similar spirit throughout OAS.

They do come close to dispassionate consideration of non-positivist views, however, in their analysis of the historian George Fredrick Holmes, who Comte claimed to have rendered the best interpretation of Positive Philosophy among non-positivists (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 225). In this same section, however, their understanding of Comte’s system becomes unclear. It seems that an undiscussed disagreement between Luther and Jessie Bernard allowed for a contradiction to slip through their revisions. While addressing the criticism of Holmes, they write “He [Holmes] objects to Comte’s analysis in many respects, saying, for example, that all three of Comte’s stages may exist concurrently, (as Comte himself of course recognized)” (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 227). In the introduction of the book, the authors identify this chapter as one for which Jessie Bernard is primarily responsible. This assertion that Comte recognized the concurrent existence of the three stages seems to contradict their description of his views in the ninth chapter, to which Luther Bernard made chief contributions.

Before Comte, science was looked upon by theologians as simply a handmaiden to natural religion. They had believed in both science and God. Comte forced the issue with them. They must choose one or the other. They could not claim both. He demonstrated with a deadly array of erudition the fundamental inconsistency of theology and science. He said in so many words that theology, metaphysics, and science were mutually antithetical, incongruous, incompatible . . . Science was coming to be the true religion of men (Bernard and Bernard, 1943, p. 117).

Although the realization of positivist social science and, in a more idealist sense, a positivist society, were of crucial importance to both Luther and Jessie Bernard at the time they were writing OAS, their vision of the nature of positivism’s implementation is made unclear with this contradiction.

While Luther thought favorably of Comte’s influence on American social science, it would be a mistake to understand their outlooks as being completely aligned with one another. Comte contended that any mature science must overcome the theological and metaphysical stages of thought to reach a positivist state, which “regards all phenomena as subject to invariable natural Laws” (Comte, 1830–1842, p. 5, italics in original). Luther shared Comte’s objective for sociology to realize its scientific character, though still felt that there were inadequacies in Comte’s analysis of the positivist stage. Although Bernard commends Comte for abandoning metaphysical notions of causation, he was disappointed that Comte never coupled this abandonment with recognizing the relativity of scientific laws. Bernard understood this as a missed opportunity, for had Comte cross-fertilized these positions “he might have produced a great truth. Falling short of this great discovery, however, Comte along with other metaphysicians whom he criticized in other respects, continued to think of Natural Law as something given, original, omnipresent, and eternal, like the old gods whom it had replaced” (Bernard, 1942, p. 10). Bernard also notes that Comte’s thinking was constricted to a framework of Catholicism (even if Comte was not a practicing Catholic), as reflected in his creation of the Religion of Humanity which so closely mirrored Catholic ritual, though replaced revelation with positivism. On the failure of the Religion of Humanity, Bernard writes:

My conclusion is that the Religion of Humanity died because it sacrificed humanity to mere formalism without a powerful hierarchical supporting and perpetuating organization back of it; and that Positivism as a philosophy is now in crisis because it has so largely lost its soul. It, too, has become a ritual of method and has forgotten the human welfare end it sought to serve (Bernard, 1942, p. 14).

The Bernards were able to rely on their historical knowledge as a means to contextualize their contemporaries’ views as being rooted in past intellectual battles, such as those concerning Comtean philosophy (Bernard, 1928, 1931, 1942; Bernard and Bernard, 1933, 1943). As will be demonstrated, however, discourse during the Bernards’ period was not simply a unified commitment to this philosophy, as salient components of the Comtean framework (e.g. the meliorative approach, as well as the move toward notions of positivism) came apart in some circles and contributed toward the structuring of the discipline’s intellectual divides. OAS served as a reminder to Bernards’ contemporaries of the devotion to not only positivistic advancement, but also to ethics and social reform out of which sociology was born. This work of synthetic history was particularly pertinent to the conflicts that were occurring in the discipline throughout much of the first half of the 20th century (e.g. conflicts on the extent to which positivist inquiry should be implemented into social science, whether sociology’s scientific aspects should be coupled with normative concern, etc.)(Bannister, 1987; Bernard et al., 1934; Ellwood, 1933). Among Bernards’ contemporaries, there were various interpretations of what the construction of the positivist stage would entail, though within this disagreement often rested the common reference to the importance of discarding theology and metaphysics in order to advance toward the positivist stage. With extensive historical accounts, OAS showed the intellectual battles in which these values and scientific priorities were rooted. To better understand the complexity and range of views among the Bernards’ contemporaries, I turn to the project known as Luther’s Onion Skins in the following section.

Luther’s Onion Skins

In a separate project focused on a later period (professional sociology as opposed to pre-sociology), Luther Bernard further demonstrated his dedication to intensive self-reflexive research in what became known as Luther’s “Onion Skins,” a project that never came to fruition. ⁴ For this project, Luther sent questionnaires (see Supplemental Appendices A and B) that asked for both the origins and current details on each social science department, as well as for professional autobiographies from the scholars to whom he wrote. Luther, more than Jessie, was absorbed by and committed to providing sociologists with a holistic understanding of the discipline’s history, as well as contextualizing the development of social science. Without this contextualization, Luther would not have developed such an informed comprehension of the discipline. The majority of the Onion Skins are housed in the Special Collections Library at Pennsylvania State University, where one can find that he had sent over 500 inquiries to colleges, universities, theological schools, and state normal schools (Bernard Papers, Boxes 11–13). ⁵ This project helped make Luther one of the most well-connected sociologists of his time. These data provide a promising opportunity to create a detailed account of meta-sociological views during prewar sociology.

The data in these hundreds of responses gave Luther a wide-encompassing comprehension of his contemporaries’ views on social science, as well as detailed departmental information. Although many of the scholars who came before the Bernards were influenced by Christian principles and ethical philosophizing (Bernard and Bernard, 1943), most sociologists were attempting to marginalize religious sociology as well as metaphysically-grounded thought by the early 20th century. The responses that Luther received show that the majority of the Bernards’ contemporaries believed that social progress and the advancement of knowledge depended upon realizing (their various understandings of) the positivist stage (Bernard Papers, boxes 11–13).

As the Onion Skins project was never published, a description of Luther’s sampling and methodology is nowhere clearly stated. The only indication on the particularities of his approach comes from two studies which employed a similar methodology (Bernard, 1909, 1945). When he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Bernard conducted a study in which he sent questionnaires to colleges and universities throughout the country to better understand “the present condition of the teaching of sociology in this country” (Bernard, 1909, p. 164). This project was assigned to him by his advisor Albion Small, who supervised Bernard’s work and helped in creating the questionnaire. How Bernard selected the institutions that he contacted for this project is unclear, as he merely writes that he went through catalogues and “compiled such data as were available” (Bernard, 1909, p. 165). Over three decades later, Bernard (1945) compared the data he compiled in 1909 with updated departmental information to understand the extent to which sociology courses had increased and in what subareas. Unfortunately, Bernard’s description of his sampling rationale is almost as vague as it was 36 years prior: “The reader should be reminded that most of the data for the 1909 period were provided by the institutions included in the table, while all the data for the 1940–44 period and part of those for 1909 were taken by the writer from the catalogues of the institutions included” (Bernard, 1945, p. 535). This lack of methodological clarity notwithstanding, the sheer number of extensive responses that Bernard received grants valuable insight into competing vocational philosophies during this period, and illustrates Luther’s rigorous work ethic.

Luther was known to have unusually high academic standards (Sica and Bucior, 2019), and some of the responses he received did indeed indicate this impression. On November 28th of 1928, for example, Raymond Pearl of John Hopkins University responded to Bernard, writing “you say in your letter that not much time will be required for complete answers. I marvel at this statement . . .” (Bernard Papers, box 11, folder 21). Ray E. Wakeley of Iowa State College wrote the following to Bernard on March 10th of 1936: “I did not suppose it was possible for a man to ask so many questions on one small post card. I only hope my answers to your requests may be satisfactory” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 16). Anthropologist Nels C. Nelson replied to Bernard’s questionnaire on November 24th of 1928, writing “I am slightly stunned by the list of questions you submit and the statement that you have only two months in which to prepare your assignment. It would take me two months to answer your desiderata conscientiously” (Bernard Papers, box 11, folder 21). Anthropologist Roland B. Dixon had a similar impression of Bernard’s request.

Quite frankly I may say that your letter and questionnaire for your article on the history of the Social Sciences, terrifies me. To reply with anything approaching the fullness you suggest, would take about a week’s solid work, since it would involve (1) looking up a mass of details of all sorts, and (2) a great deal of careful thought. For what you ask for is a history of the department and all its members, a history of the whole discipline in the United States and its influence on the department, ditto in the whole of Europe, a critical study of all the great leaders in the subject here and abroad, together with bibliographies of their most important works, and finally an analytical biography of myself! To comply with your request to answer all the queries “fully” would result in a monograph of at least a hundred pages (Bernard Papers, box 11, folder 21).

Luther Bernard did, however, receive hundreds of replies from social scientists throughout the country, many of whom decided to keep their responses briefer than what Dixon describes above. When he received a response that he deemed inadequate or too brief, there were many times when Luther would politely request the person to provide a more extensive response, attaching his own life history and responses to his questionnaire as a model for them to follow.

Those who responded to Bernard’s inquiries frequently referred to the construction of positivist sociology (and consequent jettisoning of the theological and metaphysical modes of thought) as a prerequisite for the eradication of social problems, as well as for the advancement of sociological knowledge. In a short autobiography (dated October 11, 1928) he sent to Bernard, Frank H. Hankins, who would later become the 28th president of the ASA, noted positivist Lester F. Ward’s Dynamic Sociology as an influential work during his time as an undergraduate. By the time of his graduation, Hankins claimed that he “had moved a long ways toward an agnostic view of theological assumptions and was ripe for a full acceptance of a positivist philosophical position” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 20). Hankins goes on to write the following:

I saw that such [metaphysical] speculations serve no practical human purposes . . .seeing that ultimate reality must always be a matter of speculation I became more than ever convinced that the advancement of knowledge is the sole source basis for a genuine social progress, and that, therefore, the scientific, positivistic viewpoint held more promise for the future of mankind than any other (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 20).

With a conceptualization of social betterment that was, in part, governed by eugenicist thinking, Charlotte Perkins Gilman shared this goal of positivist-grounded “progress” in her response (dated September 26, 1927) to one of Luther Bernard’s inquiries.

[I] am now most interested in the specific qualities of different races, and the effect of promiscuous interbreeding among them, as it applies to our immediate national problems; and also, with the present weakening of religious beliefs and the collapse of “morals;” in the need of a scientifically based ethics as a foundation for social efforts (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 20).

Scholars who had previously been interested in theology or metaphysics often described these interests as fading fascinations that were being replaced by more scientific pursuits. Writing of himself in the third person, theologian-turned-sociologist Hornell Hart responded to Bernard’s request for a short autobiography, claiming that social progress depends “upon scientific research and experimentation, not upon prayers to a deity. To the question ‘what are the practical functions of God?’ Hart thus reached the answer: ‘God has practically no functions. What we need is social science, not religious faith’” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 20). ⁶ Writing on his growth as a social scientist, Paul Baker of Texas Christian University informed Luther Bernard that he had “all along had an interest in social betterment,” and that he had previously “been interested in the writers on modernism in religion. But in recent years my interest has been turned more to the scientific side of life, especially in the social sciences.” At the time he wrote this letter to Luther (January 8, 1928), he claimed that he had “been moving in general toward a more scientific point of view. Being at an earlier period inclined toward the metaphysical, this change has been slow, and is probably not completed yet” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 17). Augustus Frederick Kuhlman of the University of Missouri had a similar reply to Luther Bernard on April 16th of 1929: “I started my educational work with definite intentions of entering the ministry. But these intentions were greatly modified before I completed the preparatory school which I entered in 1910 and completed in 1913. It became obvious to me that we were living in a world in which scientific control was emerging in human affairs.” During this stage of his studies, Kuhlman claims to have developed greater “interest in the study and solution of social problems” (Bernard Papers, box 13, folder 2). Similarly, a letter from rural sociologist Benson Y. Landis (dated July 21st of 1927) reads “I feel now that the particularly religious organizations which are concerned with social research must really contribute toward the science of sociology and really utilize scientific methods or else cease to misbrand what they are doing” (Bernard Papers, box 13, folder 2).

Indeed, many of those who responded to Bernard describe their theological interests as something they hope to successfully overcome, if they had not done so already. Philosopher Donald C. Babcock of the University of New Hampshire wrote the following: “I think I represent fairly well a certain type of sociological teacher, having passed out of my theological and ecclesiastical stage without being any less interested in social amelioration” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 17). Professor in the Department of the Bible at Mount Morris College A.R. Coffman wrote to Bernard that “It is likely from the standpoint of social welfare that my interest arises although I desire to have something of the scientific attitude” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 2). H.G. Duncan of the University of Chicago writes “Sometime after entering Crozer Theological Seminary and the University of Pennsylvania, I found myself considerably muddled. Old ideas were being undermined and a scientific attitude was developing.” He goes on to write that later in life he was “Desiring to have my theological thinking clarified, I entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary . . . Soon I was aware that I had developed too critical an attitude to return to the old dogmas . . .” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 19). Sociologist John C. Granberry of Texas Technological College writes “I became interested first in Sociology when I was a student in the Theological Department of Theology of Vanderbilt U., Nashville, Tenn.—not, however, as a result of my studies, except negatively, by way of reaction against too much theology” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 20). Sociologist Edward C. Hayes of the University of Illinois touches on the necessity of this waning theological and metaphysical influence in sociology:

. . .the science of social life inevitably culminates in a new ethics. That new ethics requires for its motivation neither divine authority, supernatural rewards and punishments, nor the imaginary sanctions of metaphysical absolutes, which merely rationalize codes that in fact have been empirically denied and come neither from revelation nor from speculation but from more or less blundering interpretation of experience as to what helps and harms (Bernard Papers, box 13, folder 2).

Those who responded to Bernard’s inquiries would time and again stress the need for sociology to overcome theology and metaphysics in order to realize the construction of the positivist stage and eradicate social problems. It should be noted that the former component of this objective was sometimes mentioned without the latter. Expressing weariness with metaphysical and mystical qualities in social science, W.I. Thomas provided an interesting preface to his short autobiography with a private note to Luther on January 10th of 1928:

You will notice that I have added the names of Mead and Cooley to those who influenced me. I have preferred to say nothing about Dewey . . . It is true that I was interested in his thought and certainly attempted to use some of it in my classes, but Dewey has always seemed to me to be essentially a mystic and a metaphysician and I found – or thought I found – that I was repudiating almost everything he said, or ignoring it (Bernard Papers, box 13, folder 6).

The objectivity of the physical sciences was often described as a laudable goal for the social sciences by some of the scholars who responded to Luther’s request. Bruce L. Melvin of Cornell University, for example, responded to Bernard on June 29th of 1927, writing “I am now interested especially in developing a science of sociology and putting it on a plane that can be used by the practical man as are chemistry and physics” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 7). Melvin went on to write that his previous work in ministry introduced him to “certain concepts that I have had to overcome.” In his letter to Bernard, sociologist Ray Erwin Barber describes a time when he was working as a research assistant for the Carnegie Institution of Washington:

The minute exactness of the processes of the survey, and the constant checking and re-checking for possible error gave me a tremendous respect for the accuracy of the physical sciences, and made me think more on the possibilities of greater accuracy in the social sciences if we are to speak with authority (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 17).

Rural sociologist P.G. Beck stresses the incompatibility between scientific advancement and theology in his letter to Luther:

When once I began to see that much of church dogma would not stand the scientific tests of truth, my world of thought became oriented. This early conformity to tradition has subsequently resulted in a complete reversal of my attitudes. I now have a tendency to believe nothing without a great deal of inquiry . . . It is a hopeful sign in my opinion, that sociology has begun to at least attempt to be objective . . . I realize that we will find it a tedious job to reduce all social data to objective form but we can at least attempt it (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 17).

Qualifications Concerning Theology and Philosophy

The responses Luther received are not included here to suggest that sociologists, who sought the advancement of scientific sociology, necessarily rejected religion and philosophy in its entirety. For example, Luther contacted many individuals who held appointments at theological seminaries for his Onion Skins project (e.g. Charles Brown, Stewart Cole, Charles Gardner, Hornell Hart, A.T. Howard, C.H. Mochlman, Walter Rauschenbusch, Henry B. Robins, Harry Ward, etc. (Bernard Papers, boxes 11–13)), which he would not have done had he considered such scholars to be unimportant or irrelevant to U.S. social science. Although Bernard and Bernard (1943, p. 842) note that the theologians “might do lip service to the idea [of revelation] on Sundays,” they also contend that virtually none of the astute religious scholars in sociology would any longer use theological accounts in an attempt to advance understandings of the social world. Similar examples of this relationship between sociology and theology can be found in a 1934 roundtable spearheaded by Luther Bernard. One participant of this roundtable, for example, was Arthur Evans Wood of University of Michigan, who claimed the following about theologians:

The theologians, have been dethroned as rulers over the minds of men. Both the scientific and social movements of our day have eclipsed them. However, there is life in the old roots of religion, and a new group of theologians are emerging, who are quite aware of the modern scene, intellectually and socially, and who are making place for themselves as molders of public opinion (Bernard et al., 1934, p. 184).

This division regarding social concern was also palpable for more humanistic scholars, such as Charles Ellwood (14th ASA President, liberal Christian, and once mentor of Luther Bernard). Ellwood’s understanding of social science was opposed to extreme objectivism (Ellwood, 1933), an outlook which he feared would eventually supplant ethical philosophizing and minimize the importance of interpretation (Bannister, 1987, p. 194; see also Bernard et al., 1934, p. 187). Although he felt ostracized by a subset of the field, Ellwood also received some support for his criticism of the objectivists, who he claimed were overlooking the importance of social values (Bannister, 1987, p. 195). Pitirim Sorokin, Robert MacIver, Ernest R. Groves, and Arthur J. Todd were among some of the sociologists who agreed with Ellwood’s attacks on scientism, though he found critics as well (perhaps most notably Stuart Rice). Bernard, although certainly distinct from Ellwood in respect to behaviorism and quantitative inquiry (not to mention some of the quarrels the two had with one another), shared the belief that sociology should not separate itself from concerns of social betterment.

In his Onion Skins response that he would eventually want back due to his personal differences with Luther, Ellwood wrote that the Department at the University of Missouri strove to “undertake to apply the principles of Christianity, in a scientific way, to the solution of social problems.” He went on to write that the Department “has had the double foundation of faith in the scientific spirit and the desire to promote public welfare, the double end of scholarship and public service. It has held firmly that these are not incompatible . . .” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 1). When writing about attending college to prepare for ministry, Loran Osborn of the University of Redlands writes “Attention is called to these details because they indicate well the mental attitude which seems always to have characterized my interests and thinking, namely, a combined interest in practical affairs, philosophical thinking, and social reform.” He goes on to write about one of his previous works in which he sought “to combine Christian and sociological thinking with the relations of practical life and reform” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 3). Sociologist Seba Eldridge of the University of Kansas recognized the value of metaphysics and philosophy, as well as their compatibility with sociological science: “Metaphysics, epistemology, and other phases of technical philosophy offer indispensable contributions to the methodology of scientific investigations, those of sociology included” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 19).

It should be noted that these kinds of responses were rare. It is not that the humanistic viewpoint was non-existent during this time, though responses to Bernard show that this position was largely confined to small corners of the discipline and had become somewhat irrelevant to sociological discourse. Notably, Bernard’s data contrast Steinmetz’s (2005) account on U.S. sociology at this time, as Steinmetz makes somewhat of an overstatement when describing the ostensible prominence of the non-positivist voice (Steinmetz, 2005, p. 17, 292, 293). However, these responses to Bernard align with other accounts of non-positivism standing in the shadows of scientism at this time (Bannister, 1987, p. 190–195; Turner and Turner, 1990, p. 69, 110). While quasi-Comtean language was very frequently found in the responses that Luther received, this pattern does not equate to meaning that there existed complete homogeneity concerning theology, philosophy, and scientism.

Qualifications Concerning Value-Free Sociology

Perhaps even more notable than the differences between positivists and humanists are the disagreements among different types of positivists during this time. Some scholars exhibited an understanding of value-free or “pure sociology” as a prerequisite for the discipline’s scientific progress. ⁷ Among the responses Bernard received, this position was not as common as those who emphasized the need to combine science with social reform, though it was certainly not as marginalized of a position as the non-objectivists who drew on theology and/or philosophy. Although Luther Bernard’s conceptualization of social science aligned with scholars who wished to see a more quantitative sociology, he came into “conflict with quantifiers whom Bernard charged with treating methodology and research as ends themselves” (Bannister, 1987, p. 112). Unlike some statistically-oriented sociologists of the time, such as F. Stuart Chapin and William F. Ogburn, Luther was convinced that it was essential for sociologists to impose values upon experience (Bannister, 1987, p. 112, 140, 190). Unlike Chapin and Ogburn who advocated for a value-free scientific sociology, Bernard’s version of positivism contained both scientific and normative elements. On the division between the value-free camp represented by Chapin and Ogburn, and the value-imposing camp represented by Bernard, Bannister (1987, p. 190) writes that “neither side won, in the sense of converting a significant proportion of the discipline to their version of positivism, but the former were relatively more influential in the long run.” Data from the Onion Skins paint a slightly different story, suggesting that reform-driven positivism was more pervasive than the value-neutral position (notably, these data complement descriptions in Turner and Turner, 1990, p. 180–184). Importantly, Bernard’s questionnaire does not contain leading questions (see Supplemental Appendices A and B), thus ruling out the possibility that he merely steered respondents in a direction that would help him create his desired characterization of the discipline.

That being said, dispassionate positivism was represented by many leading sociologists of the time and was not nearly as peripheral to the discipline as was the non-objectivist position. In his response to Bernard, Robert E. Park describes his intellectual development as a student, writing “I conceived a scheme of life that should be devoted to merely seeing and knowing the world without any practical aims whatever” (Bernard Papers, box 13, folder 4). Sociologist Joseph L. Duflot of West Texas State Teachers College describes his value-free viewpoint as having been developed when he was a student in Robert E. Park’s class:

He [Park] had been repeating the expressions, “Taking the objective point of view of society,” “Taking a detached attitude toward human nature,” “Studying social and personality problems like a biologist does a bed-bug,” etc. etc. until one day I grew violent (within) and questioned his motives in this question, “Professor Park, if I were sick by the road-side and you, a physician having a scientific attitude of mind such as you have in sociology, should observe me in pain what would you do with me?” He instantly replied “Probably, I would experiment upon you.” Then the whole class laughed and so did I. But it was not a laugh offered in compensation for a defeat, but a hearty laugh of victory. For the first time in my life I got my first conception of the object of a science. Before this time I had been subjective in my attitudes. I had been entering into every social situation not with the idea of “understanding it”. . . but to condemn or praise it as the case may be. “Taking sides” was an outstanding trait in my teaching of sociology up to this time (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 19).

Sociologist Newbell Niles Puckett of Western Reserve University wrote of himself in the third person in his letter to Bernard, writing that his “background of stern economic interpretations, coupled with his own sound common-sense, lifted him head and shoulders above the vague theorizing, shallow utopianism, and absurd reform claptrap which in some quarters had brought Sociology into more or less disrepute.” Sociologist Jerome Dowd of the University of Oklahoma describes his abandonment of reformist sociology:

My first course in sociology dealt with practical problems and in surveys of existing conditions. I was interested chiefly in applied sociology. My study of the contemporary problems, however, led me more and more to see that no problem could be understood without a knowledge of the fundamental principles underlying it, and I came around gradually to the conviction that the only business of sociology is to discover these fundamental principles (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 19).

It is certainly not the case that the Comtean framework was simply being reproduced in Bernard’s preferred form of the construct without conflict. Pure sociology was certainly alive in some circles, though the majority of the responses to Bernard coupled scientific progress with objectives of social betterment. In accordance with this pattern in the Onion Skins data, some who responded to Bernard would provide their own disciplinary characterizations which described pure sociologists as being a minority in the field. As H.G. Duncan of the University of Chicago wrote, “[Harry Elmer] Barnes is censured for saying ‘To hell with reforming society, I want to study it . . .’” (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 19). J.E. Hagerty of Ohio State University writes:

If the preponderance [of course offerings at Ohio State University] at times seems to be in the direction of Applied Sociology, it is because we have felt that the subject matter in this field has been more thoroughly studied than in Pure Sociology. The studies in Pure Sociology within recent years have not compared in number with the practical studies which have been made of poverty, of the disadvantaged classes, of the administration of institutions, of the abnormal conditions produced by unrestricted immigration, and of racial antagonism (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 2).

Sociologist C.C. North provides a similar characterization:

I have never had much sympathy with the point of view that Sociology as a science must divorce itself from all considerations of social welfare . . . But it has always seemed to me that there has been a small group of American Sociologists, from time to time, who have harbored something of a phobia lest the science should eventually turn out to be worth something for practical application. I do not believe that in any other field where real progress has been made, the pure scientists have withdrawn themselves in any exclusive manner from those who are attempting to apply the science in a practical way (Bernard Papers, box 12, folder 2).

Furthermore, Luther was also able to understand how well sociology was addressing the concerns and interests conveyed in these responses (as well as the extent to which American sociology had grown since its inception) with the departmental details he received. Although the information that Bernard received from the Onion Skins was primarily compiled for an elaborate project that was never published, he used information from some of these responses for other smaller published works. Bernard’s data show us how well the discipline was addressing what he believed the role of sociology should be.

It is often stated that departments of sociology are somewhat slow to respond to immediate public interest in acute social crises and problems. That is to say, sociology is accused of being the most academic of the social sciences. It seemed desirable therefore to test this statement by ascertaining to what extent the departments of sociology had established new courses dealing with problems connected with the war . . . it was found that a total of 30 (15 per cent) of the remaining 200 departments offering sociology listed a total of 34 courses on the war in the present period . . . 441 college catalogues dated after 1940 shows that the family and marriage courses occupy 8.04 per cent of all the time devoted to sociology in these institutions. All criminological, penological, and delinquency courses take care of another 6.83 per cent of the time in all departments. The courses in social disorganization, including those on poverty and dependency, absorb 5.34 per cent. The social betterment courses occupy 6.52 per cent of the attention of the departments . . . Even the old social problems courses have held up fairly well, now claiming 3.67 per cent of the teaching time (Bernard, 1945, p. 545).

These data show the extent to which sociology was directed toward the objective of coupling ethical theory with scientific intellectualism. Such a metric directly pertained to the primary disciplinary objectives of the Bernards and many of their contemporaries.

It may be worth noting that I have here included responses from both well-known and obscure sociologists. A minor limitation that comes with including obscure social scientists rests in that opinion within a field is partly a relational matter, as figures from major universities tend to have more of a sway than social scientists from the more marginal programs included in this article. On the other hand, part of what makes the Onion Skins such a valuable source of data is that it is extensive enough to grant insight into how sociologists throughout much of the discipline thought about what the proper aims of sociology should be. As one can see by sifting through the Onion Skins, many social scientists of this time devoted themselves to the matter of realizing social amelioration through the refinement and application of the scientific technique. It is through the means of his inquiries that Luther Bernard was able to more thoroughly contextualize and understand the general philosophies of social science at this moment in sociology’s development. Such dedication to self-reflexive scholarship assists the researcher in recognizing the areas of a given field’s history that are worthy of reintroduction, and that speak to contested objectives in any mature discipline.

Conclusion

Elements of these clashes concerning values and science have persisted into sociological discourse today, though not without notable philosophical distinctions. There is no space to provide an in-depth account of each disciplinary phase following the periods covered by the Bernards, though the “critical turn” in 1960s and 70s sociology that followed the scientific ascendancy of the postwar period is worth mentioning as an important part of the discipline’s trajectory toward the present manner in which sociologists discuss values and scientific inquiry. This period committed to making sociology more relevant to pertinent social problems (Mills, 1959), as well to examine the foundations of sociology and its domain assumptions (Gouldner, 1970). ⁸ The revival of Marxian theory in the 1960s further contributed toward an activist orientation that emphasized issues pertaining to inequality, power, democracy, bigotry, and social change.

The scientific objectives among Bernard’s contemporaries combined with the critical orientation of sociology’s later periods were instrumental phases in shaping contemporary discourse on reformist motives, humanistic approaches, and pure science. Unlike social reformers of the Bernards’ period, however, most public sociologists in recent years adhere to a more critical orientation that places greater emphasis on conflict theory and the importance of various social identities. Moreover, past sociologists’ philosophical reliance on Christian principles is a non-existent feature of sociological discourse today. There is also a degree of variation within both scientism and humanistic sociology. Sociology could be seen as having an axis running from scientific generalizations to historicist relativity, and another axis running from value neutrality to the meliorative approach. Both value neutrality and value-imposing inquiry can each couple with humanistic analyses and scientism, leading to a number of different orientations in sociology.

Even still, the chasm between public/critical sociology and value-neutral “scientific sociology” bears a resemblance to the complex structure of the discipline reflected in the responses Bernard received. Today’s proponents of the somewhat unfashionable value-neutral stance lament sociology’s lack of scientific character and progress, which they blame on the influence of humanistic moralists who are “pulled by emotion and ideology” (Turner, 2005, p. 34). Advocates for the pure science approach sometimes even go so far as to exhibit a scientific-naturalist posture; asserting that society can be researched in a nearly identical manner to the way in which the natural world is studied, and strive to part ways with “humanistic reactionaries” who they wish will “disappear into the dustbin of history” (Black, 2013, p. 775). Whereas value-free sociologists see public sociology as being largely unscientific, public sociologists see the value-free position as an impossibility, for sociologists who purport to be value-neutral are unwittingly committed to value-driven beliefs. Moreover, advocates of pure science are criticized for ignoring the historical conditions and value foundations out of which the discipline has emerged. The value-laden nature of public and critical sociology is driven by the meliorative orientation that understands sociology “not just as a science but as a moral and political force” (Burawoy, 2005a, p. 6). ⁹

The self-reflexive benefits of historical research are quite obvious when considering the exemplary models of scholarship put forth by Luther and Jessie Bernard. OAS shed light on the reformist roots of American social science by examining the “phases” of pre-sociology, whereas the Onion Skins focused on the later period of professional sociology and tapped into the common vocational philosophies among the Bernards’ contemporaries. Luther and Jessie Bernard relied upon their historical research as a means to contextualize their contemporaries’ views as being rooted in past intellectual battles (Bernard, 1928, 1931, 1942; Bernard and Bernard, 1933, 1943), as well as to consider the probable directions in sociology’s future (Bernard, 1930, 1945). As one can easily determine by turning to the work of the Bernards, researchers who seriously study the way scholarship was conducted in the past are more likely able to understand the underlying dynamics of ongoing intellectual discussions. The historical research put forth by Luther and Jessie Bernard serves as an instructive reminder of this self-reflexive advantage.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jcs-10.1177_1468795X251344507 – Supplemental material for Luther and Jessie Bernard: Values and positivist developments in Origins of American Sociology and Luther’s “Onion Skins”

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jcs-10.1177_1468795X251344507 for Luther and Jessie Bernard: Values and positivist developments in Origins of American Sociology and Luther’s “Onion Skins” by Anthony Albanese in Journal of Classical Sociology