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| See Also: | |||||
| - An Overview of the Methods of the Social Sciences |
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| - An Overview of Examples of Research in the Social Sciences |
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| The award-winning study, Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia, by E. Digby Baltzell (1979) examined which regions in the US had produced more notable individuals, & why certain regions produced more notable individuals |
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| Baltzell created his research topic through induction & serendipity | |||||
| Baltzell happened to visit Bowdoin College in Maine & was surprised to see that in one year, 1825, Bowdoin had graduated three notables: Hawthorne, Longfellow, & Pierce |
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| Baltzell wondered how such a small college in a relatively small state could produce so many famous people |
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| Baltzell decided to do an analysis of the Dictionary of American Biography, which was comprised of records of more than 13,000 men & women in 20 volumes |
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| The Dictionary gave Baltzell a broad measure of who was great | |||||
| Baltzell also needed a measure that would help him judge levels of greatness |
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| To do this, he counted the number of lines in each record, assuming, as did the editors of the Dictionary, that the greater the person, the longer their record |
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| Thus, Baltzell chose to examine the 75 men & women w/ the longest record in the Dictionary |
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| Baltzell found: |
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| Massachusetts had the most famous people: 21 |
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| Pennsylvania had 2 |
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| New England States had 31 |
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| Mid Atlantic States had 12 |
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| The Boston area had the most famous people |
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| Baltzell found that Weber's theory as delineated in the Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism explained the variations in the locations of famous people | |||||
| Weber believed that a person's life-chances were largely the result of their religious beliefs |
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| Boston was a Puritan settlement, founded by people dedicated to the pursuit of public achievement |
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| Puritans celebrated hard work as a means to glorify god, & looked upon public prominence as a sign that one was in god's grace | |||||
| Philadelphia was settled by Quakers, who shunned elitism & displays of achievement |
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| Quakers believe that all people are inherently good & so saw little need for strong social institutions to "save" individuals from sinfulness | |||||
| While many Quakers became wealthy, their egalitarian way of life made everyone look upon everyone else as a social equal | |||||
| Quakers discourage one another from standing out by seeking fame or pursuing public office | |||||
| Baltzell describes Boston & Philadelphia as "social test tubes" into which two different cultures were poured: Puritanism & Quakerism | |||||
| For centuries later, we can see that different "chemical reactions" occurred in the "social test tubes" of Boston & Philadelphia | |||||
| The two belief systems set in motion different toward personal achievement, which shaped the history of each region | |||||
| Even today, cultures seem influential in determining life-chances / success | |||||
| The Kennedy's, who are Catholic, demonstrate the Puritan pursuit of fame & leadership | |||||
| Suggestions for further research suggested by Baltzell's work on fame & culture include | |||||
| a. a comparison of regions by religion & achievement | |||||
| b. a utilization of the entire 13,000 famous people in the Dictionary to determine whether the religion :: achievement correlation holds | |||||