Helen Merrell Lynd (1896–1982)
Author of Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture
Series
Works by Helen Merrell Lynd
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1896-03-17
- Date of death
- 1982-01-30
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- La Grange, Illinois, USA
- Place of death
- Warren, Ohio, USA
- Places of residence
- Muncie, Indiana, USA
Framingham, Massachusetts, USA - Education
- Columbia University
Wellesley College - Occupations
- Sociologist
social philosopher
professor
political activist
historian - Relationships
- Lynd, Robert Staughton (husband)
Lynd, Staughton (son) - Organizations
- Sarah Lawrence College
- Short biography
- Helen Merrell Lynd (March 17, 1896–January 30, 1982) was an American sociologist and social philosopher. She was born in Illinois and attended high school there. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College in 1919 and received a master's degree in history from Columbia University. In 1921, she married Robert S. Lynd, with whom she traveled to oil fields in the western USA for his work as a missionary. The couple became interested in sociology and obtained funding for a thorough examination of the life of an average small industrial town, selecting Muncie, Indiana, as the subject. Together they wrote the now-classic book Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1932) and its followup volume, Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (1935). Helen Lynd also had a long career as an academic, working as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York from 1929 to her retirement in 1964. In the 1940s, she went back to Columbia and earned a Ph.D. in history and philosophy. Independently, she wrote a number of books on education, history, philosophy, and sociology, including Field Work in College Education (1945), England in the Eighteen Eighties: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom (1944), and On Shame and the Search for Identity (1958). She was harrassed during the McCarthy era for her political activities.
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Statistics
- Works
- 5
- Members
- 353
- Popularity
- #67,814
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 16
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