ABSTRACT
Robert Staughton Lynd might be described as the Sinclair Lewis of sociology. His books Middletown and Middletown in Transition provide the sociological flesh that makes Lewis' satiric classics, Babbitt and Main Street, comprehensible as studies in the culture and mores of mid-western America. Helen Merrell Lynd, two years his junior and his co-worker, carved out a career in many disciplines. After the completion of Middletown in Transition, Helen Lynd carved a path of her own, starting with her remarkable book England in the Eighteen-eighties, a work in social history done initially as a doctoral thesis under the supervision of the dean of history at Columbia, Carleton J. H. Hayes. Helen Lynd's style is wide-ranging, with a transparent clarity that disguises the seriousness of her efforts. Helen Lynd distinguishes between guilt, which is a response to standards that have been internalized, and shame, which is a response to criticism or ridicule by others.
