Ross, Edward Alsworth, 1866–1951, American sociologist, b. Virden, Ill., Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1891. He taught economics (1893–1900) at Stanford Univ., from which he was ousted in a controversy over academic freedom. He had opposed the use of migrant Chinese labor in the building of the railroads, a political position that disturbed the Stanfords, who were involved in the building of the Union Pacific RR. From 1906 to 1937 he was professor of sociology at the Univ. of Wisconsin. He analyzed collective behavior and social control and wrote voluminously on population and other problems. His chief works are Social Control (1901, new ed. 1969) and Principles of Sociology (1921).
See his autobiography, Seventy Years of It (1937); study by J. Weinberg (1972).
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