ABSTRACT
The names of Park and Burgess have become synonymous with Chicago Sociology. They are the perceived leaders of a powerful school that signaled the beginning of “modern” sociology. This “new” approach was notable in one respect: It loudly and defiantly separated itself from social reform. In stark contrast to their predecessors, Park and Burgess developed a rhetoric of sociology based on a natural science model and in direct opposition to Addams’ epistemology. Equating social reform with unsystematic analyses, religion, and “do-goodism,” Park and Burgess were key figures in disassociating sociology from the appearance of doing social reform.
