ABSTRACT
The early tales of sociology and social work at Chicago are ones of rich and complex inter-relationships. But the departmental and eventually disciplinary parting of the ways after 1920, with their associated shift of (women) sociology faculty into a new social work school, while welcomed to some extent on both sides, led to an eventual closure of conversation that worked against the interests of both fields of study. In universities across the world, this continues to hobble both sociology and social work. It may not need to be so. I revisit these moments in the history of sociology and social work with the intention, echoing Geertz, to enhance ‘the precision with which we vex ourselves’ (Geertz, 1973: 29).
