ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the importance of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago between 1915 and 1935 in blending the empirical impulse with the search for theoretical understanding. The discipline of sociology aims to advance the understanding of society, both past and present - a task which it is extraordinarily difficult to do well. The common element in the Chicago school of sociology, commitment to empirical research, owed an enormous amount to the example set by W. I. Thomas. Chicago sociology was important, however, for the influence that it had upon American sociology, which during the first half of the twentieth century rapidly became the largest national sociology institutionalized in universities. Robert Park began writing about social processes, particularly in the city, and directing the work of graduate students, in a way that was to give the Chicago School its particular distinctive character.
