ABSTRACT
During 1896–1910, DuBois was an unusually productive sociologist. His major sociological work, The Philadelphia Negro, based on a social survey and participant observation, was written in 1899, two years after publication of Durkheim's Le Suicide. In one of his earliest comments about the fledging discipline of sociology, DuBois noted that sociology was concerned with current conditions and methods of social regeneration. In an unpublished article written shortly after the turn of the century, DuBois set forth perhaps his most formal statement about sociology. He began by claiming that sociology was in difficulty — partly because of a confusion regarding the method of sociology. DuBois was generally critical of many of his sociological peers and their work, claiming that they were unnecessarily impeding the new discipline by providing an armchair, theoretical orientation rather than an inductive, empirical approach. Throughout his life, DuBois remained adamant that the success of sociology would be related to its use of measurement.
