Louis Wirth

• Born: August 28, 1897
• Birthplace: Gemünden, Germany
• Died: May 3, 1952
• Place of death: Buffalo, New York

German-born sociologist

An eminent professor of sociology, Wirth made important academic contributions to the fields of immigration, urbanization, and applied sociology.

Areas of achievement: Sociology; activism

Early Life

Louis Wirth (VURT-ah) was born at the end of the nineteenth century in Gemünden, Germany, a pastoral community of nine hundred residents, including about twenty Jewish families. He was one of seven children in the family of Joseph Wirth and Rosalie Lori, both of whom were active members of the local synagogue. Joseph earned a modest living as a cattle dealer and farmer. The children attended the local Protestant school, and they studied religion and Hebrew with the rabbi in the local synagogue. Rosalie had four brothers who had immigrated to the United States, and, in 1911, dissatisfied with the limited educational opportunities in the village, she sent Louis Wirth and his older sister to live with one of their uncles in Omaha, Nebraska.

Following graduation from high school, Wirth won a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago. He initially enrolled as a premedical student, but he soon decided that he was interested in the relatively young field of sociology. At the time the famous Chicago school of sociology was in its early phase, and Wirth’s teachers—Robert Park, W. I. Thomas, and George Mead—were the founders of the school, which focused on urban sociology, immigration, and assimilation. While a student, Wirth developed an anticapitalistic ideology and declared himself to be an atheist. He also met a non-Jewish student from Kentucky, Mary Bolton, whom he married a few years later. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1919, Wirth worked for a few years as a social worker at the Jewish Charities of Chicago, while also pursuing graduate studies. Completing a master’s degree in 1925, he began to teach sociology on a part-time basis, and he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1926.

Life’s Work

In 1928, Wirth obtained a full-time appointment as assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University in Louisiana, but the university declined to renew his contract after two years, in part because of his progressive views on Jim Crow segregation in the South. Following a year in Europe as a research fellow for the Social Science Research Council, he was appointed assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago in 1931, advanced to associate professor the following year, and was promoted to full professor in 1940. Continuing to teach at the University of Chicago for the remainder of his life, Wirth was recognized as an outstanding teacher and served as the mentor of numerous graduate students, many of whom became outstanding sociologists. A popular and effective speaker, he served as a panel member on sixty-two of Chicago’s Round Table radio programs.

A committed opponent of discrimination based on race or ethnicity, Wirth devoted much of his career to studying and writing about race relations and prejudice against minorities. After Adolf Hitler took over the German government in 1933, Wirth was distressed to learn about the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi government. During the late 1930’s, he and his wife sponsored the immigration of his parents and eleven other relatives from Germany. These relatives lived in Wirth’s small apartment until they were able to find gainful employment.

Wirth’s best-known book was The Ghetto (1928), a revision of his dissertation, which described and analyzed the social history of the Jewish experience in ethnic enclaves. Since its appearance, numerous college students have discovered that The Ghetto is one of the most readable and interesting sociological books ever written. Wirth published about a hundred sociological articles and essays, of which the most influential was “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938), which summarized major characteristics of modern urban culture. Although the so-called “Wirthian” perspective emphasizes the alienating effects of impersonal and superficial relationships in large cities, it also presents a contrast with the narrowness and monotony of isolated villages such as Gemünden. Since its appearance, almost all studies of urban sociology have begun with an examination of the article. Sociologist Lester Kurz observed that no other single work has “precipitated so much discussion, debate, and research in urban sociology.”

For several years Wirth was the associate editor of the American Journal of Sociology, and he is also remembered as the cotranslator of Karl Mannheim’s famous book Ideology and Utopia (1936). Wirth’s academic works were regarded highly among fellow sociologists. In 1947, he was elected president of the American Sociological Association, and three years later he served as the first president of the International Sociological Association.

Critical of the notion of scholarship only for scholarship’s sake, Wirth was a strong proponent of policy-relevant research and social activism. He participated in numerous extra-academic endeavors, particularly in the field of urban planning. From 1935 to 1942, he was a consultant to the National Resources Planning Board, and in 1944 he was the director of development of the Illinois Post-War Planning Commission. He was also a founder and president of the American Council on Race Relations. In 1952, he traveled to Buffalo, New York, to deliver a lecture at a conference on race relations and social change. A few minutes after leaving the stage, he experienced a heart attack and died at the age of fifty-four.

Significance

For two decades Wirth was a leading member of the Chicago school of sociology. His research into the Jewish ghetto and Jewish immigration made a valuable contribution to historical sociology and Jewish studies, and his pioneering work in urban sociology provided a perspective and frame of reference for future work in the field. Although remembered primarily for his theoretical and historical works, he was a strong advocate of applied sociology and the use of knowledge in the attempt to solve real problems.

Bibliography

Bendix, Reinhard. “Social Theory and Social Action in the Sociology of Louis Wirth.” American Journal of Sociology 59 (1954): 523-529. An examination of Wirth’s ideas about theory and his contribution to the field of sociology.

Fine, Gary Alan, ed. A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Discusses the differences between Chicago sociologists before and after World War II, with Wirth viewed as a bridge between the two.

Kurtz, Lester R. Evaluating Chicago Sociology: A Guide to the Literature with an Annotated Bibliography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. A useful summary of the work and ideas of the Chicago school, including Wirth’s place in it.

Odum, Howard Washington. American Sociology: The Story of Sociology in the United States. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. Includes biographical information and excerpts from an interview with Wirth.

Salerno, Roger A. Louis Wirth: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. A review of Wirth’s life and career, with a comprehensive listing of scholarly writings by and about him.

Wirth, Louis. On Cities and Social Life: Selected Papers. Edited by Albert Reiss. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. A collection of Wirth’s essays on urban sociology, with a useful introduction to his ideas.