Frank Ward Popular Books

Frank Ward Biography & Facts

Lester Frank Ward (June 18, 1841 – April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. He served as the first president of the American Sociological Association. His 1883 work Dynamic Sociology was influential in establishing sociology as a distinct field in the United States. In service of democratic development, polymath Lester Ward was the original American leader promoting the introduction of sociology courses into American higher education. His Enlightenment belief that institution-building could be scientifically informed was attractive to democratic intellectuals during the Progressive Era. Ward's version of social science was based in organicist Enlightenment theories of comparative knowledge for democratic development, as distinguished from the mechanist version of science associated with Spencer's version of Sociology, and which later came to dominate the Anglo-American sciences and, along with micro symbolic interactionism and ethnography, sociology in the Cold War. Ward's significance is in deploying his scientific literacy, including his grasp of geological and biological sciences, to found American Sociology in an historical-materialist paradigm that avoided Cartesian dualism and efficiently distinguished democratic-developmentalist social institutions. Ward's influence in certain circles (see: the Social Gospel) was also affected by his Enlightenment views regarding organized priesthoods, which he believed had been responsible for more evil than good throughout human history. In the democratic Enlightenment tradition, Ward emphasized the importance of macro social forces which could be guided by the cultivation and use of democratic knowledge, in order to achieve progress toward democratic human development, justice, and security, rather than allowing "evolution"--understood as institionalized, mystified social power--to "take its own course," as proposed by elitists William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer. Like other sociological Enlightenment thinkers including Thomas Jefferson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey, Ward emphasized universal and comprehensive public schooling to provide the public with the knowledge a democracy needs to successfully govern itself. A collection of Ward's writings and photographs is maintained by the Special Collections Research Center of the George Washington University. The collection includes articles, diaries, correspondence, and a scrapbook. GWU's Special Collections Research Center is located in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library. Biography Most, if not all of what is known about Ward's early life comes from the definitive biography, Lester F. Ward: A Personal Sketch, written by Emily Palmer Cape in 1922, where she writes in the foreword: For several years I was closely associated with Dr. Ward as co-editor of his work entitled, Glimpses of the Cosmos, 6 volumes published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1913: Comprising his minor contributions and biographical and historical sketches of all his writings. Month after month I worked with him. We went through all his personal papers. I found in the wonderful and beautiful friendship thus developed a revelation of qualities of mind and heart which could be perceived only through intimate and harmonious relations. Naturally I learned much of the man and of his life. He often told me : "No one has ever gone over every detail of my life's journey as you have." Cape explained later in the foreword: There is an important fact which must be explained so that those who know and admire his work may appreciate why the following sketch is not so complete as I hoped it might be. Ward had the habit of keeping a diary. This was to him one of the most important matters of his life. Never did a day pass but a few lines were inscribed. No matter how tired he was at night, always before retiring he would note down his doings of the day. In a footnote on pp. 5–6, Cape notes: On February 20, 1911, in replying to my asking him to write his autobiography, he says: "I don't want to write my autobiography and have it appear while I am alive. It doesn't seem the thing to do. You are the one to write my biography from all the data that I shall leave, but it will be done after I have left them." (The "data" signified the diaries. The above italics are in Dr. Ward's letter.) When serious illness took him from his University duties, he wrote me of his having to leave Providence and asked me to meet him at the station on his arrival in New York. Never shall I forget that early morning when he arrived. He was so weak that I asked: "May I not go on to Washington with you? I fear to have you go alone." But he said No, that when rested he would feel better, and could go on very well by himself. He grew better as we chatted, and asked me to open his satchel so that he could hand me a bundle of papers and letters he wanted to give me. Then he said: "I hope to return soon, but you know where all my papers, diaries, and letters are, and what to do with them at any time." I did not like to talk of these things then. When the train time came he seemed much brighter and bade me adieu. After a few weeks of severe illness in Washington, where he had gone to the home of his wife, who had been an invalid for some time, he passed away. Early life Lester Frank Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois, the youngest of 10 children born to Justus Ward and his wife Silence Rolph Ward. Justus Ward (d. 1858) was of old New England colonial stock, but he wasn't rich, and farmed to earn a living. Silence Ward was the daughter of a clergyman; she was a talented perfectionist, educated and fond of literature. When Lester Frank was one year old, the family moved closer to Chicago, to a place called Cass, now known as Downers Grove, Illinois about twenty-three miles from Lake Michigan. The family then moved to a homestead in nearby St. Charles, Illinois where his father built a saw mill business making railroad ties. Early education Ward first attended a formal school at St. Charles, Kane County, Illinois, in 1850 when he was nine years old. He was known as Frank Ward to his classmates and friends and showed a great enthusiasm for books and learning, liberally supplementing his education with outside reading. Four years after Ward started attending school, his parents, along with Lester and an older brother, Erastus, traveled to Iowa in a covered wagon for a new life on the frontier. Four years later, in 1858, Justus Ward unexpectedly died, and the boys returned the family to the old homestead they still owned in St. Charles. Ward's estranged mother, who lived two miles away with Ward's sister, disapproved of the move, and wanted the boys to stay in Iowa to continue their father's work. The two brothers lived together for a short time in the old family homestead they dubbed "Bachelor's Hall," doing farm work to earn a living, and encouraged eac.... Discover the Frank Ward popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Frank Ward books.