The Founding Fathers of Sociology: Francis Galton,Adolphe Quetelet,and Charles Booth: Or What Do People You Probably Never Heard of Have to Do with the Foundations of Sociology?

Abstract

The theme of the 2008 meeting of the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology was “Engaging Sociology: Applied Sociology's Past, Present, and Promise.” The theme suggests that applied sociology has a past that is different from the parent discipline of sociology, and given how the history of sociology has come to be taught and remembered, that is an understandable suggestion. The argument of this paper, however, is that the discipline of sociology itself—as it is actually practiced today—originated mainly in applied work, in the work of nineteenth century social reformers whose contributions to the field have been largely forgotten, people such as Francis Galton, Adolphe Quetelet, and Charles Booth. These, I argue, are the Founding Fathers of the discipline as I have practiced it for the past thirty-five years.