Background
Charles Horton Cooley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on August 17, 1864. He was the son of a well-known jurist, Thomas M. Cooley.
Charles Cooley's early portrait.
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Transportation-Charles-Horton-Cooley/dp/1347619593/?tag=2022091-20
1894
(The book includes personal passages on various topics wit...)
The book includes personal passages on various topics within the realms of reading and writing, thinking, art, science, sociology, academia, religion, and human nature. There is no formal structure to the book, except the literary sense that organizes these thoughts and observations about life. It is impossible to categorize these widely ranging commentaries. They include discussions of the automobile, the impressionable nature of young people, the claim that the question of racial superiority is still unresolved, his belief that eugenists are inconsistent in their views, and more.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Student-Roadside-Society-Letters/dp/1412854784/?tag=2022091-20
1927
Charles Horton Cooley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on August 17, 1864. He was the son of a well-known jurist, Thomas M. Cooley.
Cooley graduated from the University of Michigan in 1887. He also pursued additional studies in mechanical engineering and economics.
In 1889, Charles Cooley took a job with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, then went to work for the Census Bureau. He taught political science and economics at the University of Michigan from 1892 to 1904 and was a professor of sociology from 1904 until his death in 1929.
The Theory of Transportation, Cooley’s first major work, explored ideas in economic theory, the most notable being Cooley’s conclusion that “towns and cities tend to be located at the confluence of transportation routes - the so-called break-in transportation," the World of Sociology biographer noted. Later books undertook a broader analysis of the interplay between social and individual processes. In Human Nature and the Social Order Cooley examines ways in which social responses influence normal social participation. In Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind, he outlines a comprehensive approach to society and its major processes. The beginning of the Social Organization also contains what some have considered “a sociological antidote to Sigmund Freud," according to the World of Sociology writer. “In that much-quoted segment, Cooley formulates the crucial role of primary groups (family, playgroups, and so on) as the source of one's morals, sentiments, and ideals. But the impact of the primary group is so great that individuals cling to primary ideals in more complex associations and even create new primary groupings within formal organizations.”
In his last significant book, Social Process, published in 1918, Cooley addresses the “nonrational, tentative nature of the social organization and the significance of social competition." the World of Sociology biographer remarked. Cooley saw modern difficulties as the conflict of primary group values, such as love, loyalty, and ambition, and institutional values, such as progress, Protestantism, and other impersonal ideologies. “As societies try to cope with their difficulties," the World of Sociology contributor commented, “they adjust these two kinds of values to one another as best they can."
(The book includes personal passages on various topics wit...)
1927(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
1894Cooley believed that social reality was qualitatively different from physical reality and was, therefore, less amenable to measurement. He viewed society as a constant experiment in enlarging social experience and in coordinating variety. He, therefore, analyzed the operation of such complex social forms as formal institutions and social class systems and the subtle controls of public opinion. He also concluded that class differences reflect different contributions to society, as well as the phenomena of aggrandizement and exploitation.
Quotations:
"Society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind and what my mind thinks about what your mind thinks about my mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not perform these feats is not properly in the game."
"Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom."
"Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh. .. to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies."
"To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change."
Charles Cooley was married to Elsie Jones. The couple had three children, a boy, and two girls, and lived quietly and fairly withdrawn in a house close to the campus. The children served Cooley as a kind of domestic laboratory for his study of the genesis and growth of the self. He would observe imitation behavior in his three children and analyzed these behaviors by comparing their ages and reactions. Even when he was not engaged in the observation of his own self but wished to observe others, he did not need to leave the domestic circle.