.
Henry P. Fairchild, Ph.D. |
| [Extensive excerpts
from Vol. 7 of a series, Modern American Education, published by the
American Educatoinal Institute, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
1921] |
<
Henry Pratt Fairchild was born on 18 August, 1880, in Dundee,
Illinois. He received the A.B. degree from Doane College,
Nebraska, and the Ph.D. from Yale University. He began his long
teaching career at The International College, Smyrna in 1900.
After serving on the faculty at Bowdoin College, he went to Yale
University (1910-18) where he taught courses in economics and the
science of society. During World War I he held an administrative
position in War Camp Community Service.
"No amount of artificial
reinforcement can offset the natural inequalities of human
individuals."
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Fairchild’s major teaching appointment was at New York
University where it extended over a period of 26 years, from 1919
until his retirement in 1945, and where he became chairman of the
Department of Sociology in the Graduate School. During the years
1929-31 he was president of the American Eugenics Society, and
from 1934-38, president of the Population Association of America.
He was one of the leaders in the planned parenthood movement in
the United States. In his presidential address as the 26th
president of the American Sociological Society (1936), he pointed
out how governing the people of the United States involves the
organization and co-ordination of many diverse social elements,
and yet in the national government “an almost negligible part
of the responsibility is entrusted to sociologists.” In this
same address, which was entitled “Business as an Institution,”
he discussed a favorite theme of his, namely, the relations of
sociology and economics. After defining business as an
organization of social elements for the production of goods and
services, he contended that the sociologist’s role is to
analyze the integration of social elements in the business
process, while economics analyzes the productive aspects. Thus, it
is essential that sociologists and economists work side by side at
closely related aspects of the same process instead of simply
speaking “to each other politely when they casually meet.”
Fairchild was the author of a number of books, for example, his
Greek Immigration to the United States (1911) and
Immigration (1913) were supplemented by Race and Nationality
(1947). His General Sociology appeared in 1934, but he is
most widely known for the Dictionary of Sociology (1944),
of which he was the editor. Of his sixty major articles about
one-third were on immigration, one-fourth on population, and
others related to the family, social work, and world organization.
He lectured widely and served on “innumerable boards,”
because he considered that one of the functions of a sociologist
is to make the findings of sociology intelligible to the general
public. Always an independent thinker, he did not hesitate to
speak forthrightly on leading social and economic problems.
[Fairchild died 2 October, 1956 in North Hollywood , California.
The above biographical information is reprinted from an obituary
by Emory S. Bogardus, The American Sociological Review,
Vol.21, No. 6, p. 783
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CHAPTER III: THE NECESSITY AND MEANS OF SOCIAL CONTROL
CHAPTER IV: THE DESIRE FOR THINGS
CHAPTER V: THE DESIRE FOR LAND
CHAPTER VI: THE DESIRE FOR CAPITAL
CHAPTER IX: PRODUCTION
CHAPTER X: ORGANIZATION AND THE FACTORY SYSTEM
CHAPTER XI: DISTRIBUTION - RENT
CHAPTER XII: DISTRIBUTION - WAGES, INTEREST AND PROFITS
CHAPTER X--: SUPPLY, DEMAND AND CONSUMPTION
CHAPTER XXVII: POVERTY AND PAUPERISM
CHAPTER XXVIII: CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DESTITUTION
CHAPTER XXXIII: GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL IDEALS
CHAPTER XXXIV: CONCLUSION
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