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See Also: An Overview of the Methods of the Social Sciences |
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See Also: 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 |
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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 |
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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 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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While many Quakers became wealthy, their egalitarian way of life
made everyone look upon everyone else as a social equal |
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Quakers discourage one another from standing out by seeking fame or pursuing public office |
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Baltzell describes Boston & Philadelphia as "social test tubes"
into which two different cultures were poured: Puritanism & Quakerism |
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From centuries later, we can see that different "chemical reactions"
occurred in the "social test tubes" of Boston & Philadelphia |
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The two belief systems set in motion different toward personal achievement,
which shaped the history of each region |
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Even today, the cultures seem influential |
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The Kennedy's, who are Catholic, demonstrate the Puritan pursuit of fame & leadership |
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Suggestions for further research: |
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Compare regions by religion & achievement |
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Utilize the entire 13,000 famous people
in the Dictionary
to determine whether the religion :: achievement correlation holds |
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