Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Herbert George Blumer, tutored by his parents to be keenly observant of society, was early on a serious scholar of history and philosophy. He emerged from rural Missouri to study at Chicago under George Herbert Mead already enamored of the prospects for examining and explaining the interactions among human beings and the world. He was fortunate as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri to be able to work with Charles Ellwood, a sociologist, and Max Meyer, a psychologist, both of whom nurtured his progress toward Phi Beta Kappa recognition. Blumer was always grounded in the real world of labor and economics. He had to drop out of high school to help in his father's woodworking shop and worked summers as a roustabout to pay for his college education at the University of Missouri (BA 1921, MA 1922). He later taught part-time and played professional football (1925–33) with the Chicago Cardinals while he worked toward his PhD at Chicago. He then taught at Chicago from 1928 until 1951 when he was appointed the first chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, a post he held until he retired in 1967. With Emeritus Professor status until 1986, he remained actively engaged in writing and research until shortly before his death. Throughout his long career Blumer combined research and theory with practical involvements in the public and private ... log in or subscribe to read full text