Small Albion

Small Albion

(1854-1926) US sociologist who at the University of Chicago in 1892 became the chairman of the first-ever graduate school in sociology, and in 1894 (with George Vincent) the author of the first textbook in sociology. In 1895 he also founded the American Journal of Sociology. In Small's view, sociology implemented a programme of analysis which began with Adam SMITH, and in his own work he sought to detach sociology from too close an identification with the approach of COMTE. Small wrote several books, including General Sociology (1905) and The Origins of Sociology (1924) but they are rarely read today.