ABSTRACT
Recognized as one of the most active and distinguished leaders in the field, clearly in the prime of his career, Willard Walter Waller held forth the happy promise and lived in the expectation of many years' useful work in the future. He analyzed the processes of personal adjustment contingent upon changes of status, such as after divorce (The Old Love and the New) or after release from the army (The Veteran Comes Back). As a sociologist Waller manifested several strong characteristics, several consistent tendencies that stamped him as a unique contributor. First of all his driving effort was always to clarify and analyze social interaction-especially on the personal, subjective, motivational level. He studied intensively, for example, the interaction in school and classroom (The Sociology of Teaching), the interaction within the family (The Family: A Dynamic Interpretation), the interaction within institutions for segregated care, and the interaction within the army.
