ABSTRACT
The idea of the madding crowd was born of social, economic, and political challenges to the status quo in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The principal though not necessarily the first architect of those ideas was Gustave LeBon. His views of the crowd were transported to the United States by students pursuing advanced degrees in Europe and then returning to the professoriate at American universities. Foremost among these was Robert E. Park, who perpetuated the idea of the madding crowd at the University of Chicago for more than two decades. One of his students, Herbert Blumer, systematically elaborated those ideas and extended their longevity well beyond midcentury. This chapter discusses the development of a transformation explanation of collective behaviour from LeBon's theory of crowd mind, through Park's dissertation on rational critical discussion in publics vs. psychic reciprocity in crowds, to Blumer's distinction between symbolic interaction in routine social life and circular reaction in collective behaviour.
