Essay - Sociology: Philosophy and Practice United: the Life, Work, and Writings...

Sociology: Philosophy and Practice United: The Life, Work, and Writings of Three Great Social Activists

Practice what you preach.' This simple phrase, however cliched, could sum up the life and works of Harriett Martineau, Jane Addams and W.E.B Dubois. All three authors dedicated *****ir life and writings, not simply to improving the philosophy ***** social involvement in a particular socially disadvantaged community, but ***** achieving practical social action through *****ir own lives, personal acts of defiance, ***** public acts of engaged social upheaval.

***** ***** was born at the beginning ***** the 19th century into a large, upper middle class English family. However, she ***** quickly orphaned by ***** death of her fat***** and ab*****oned ***** her husband, Unlike most women of her station, Harriet was forced to support herself solely by her own writing early on in her adult life. To earn a liv*****g, she wrote ess*****ys, novels, biographies, news columns, and some ***** the first, seminal texts on the subject of sociology. Her sociological significance also has its roots in the fact that, unlike many women of the day, Harriet Mart*****eau was unafraid ***** travel. She was unafraid to head 'into ***** field.' Martineau began a two-year study of the United States when ***** visited ***** country in 1834. ***** cataloged this visit, and a later 1838 journey in her works entitled Society in America, Retrospect of Western Travel, ***** How to Observe Morals and Manners. She stressed the need to objectively compare different ways of life for aspir*****g sociologists. An observer could not proceed with the as*****pti***** ***** truth and justice lying in one's own culture alone. One had to apprehend the new culture ***** its on terms and ***** its own terms. Thus, she is considered the mother of positivist *****, as crystallized in her monumental work on the Middle East, entitled Eastern Life Past and Present. ***** her works exam*****ed the "correspondence problem between inter-subjectivity, verifiable observable, and un***** theoretical issues" and provided a ***** solution to examining local cultures and analyzing relations between the genders. (Smith, 2001)

***** died in the 1870's, shortly before the birth of Jane *****, the founder of the settlement movement. Addams is ********** for viewing the *****s of the poor ***** an objective sense of compassion ***** an absence ***** moral judgment. Thus, her ***** activism was conduced in the same spirit as Martineau conducted her ***** analysis of American and ***** E*****tern societies. Jane ***** ***** another woman who defied conventional expectation ***** how a ***** should live in her devotion ***** improve the life of the poor with ***** actions in the community, as well as with her writ*****gs. Her work in social settlements dealt with the *****s created by urbanization, industrialization, ***** immigration. Unlike many other settlement houses, Addams' Hull-House residence ***** kindergarten and day care facilities for the children of working m*****s; an employment bureau; ***** art gallery; libraries; English ***** citizenship ********** and theater, music and art classes. "As the complex expanded to include