Emory S. Bogardus

Emory Stephen Bogardus (1882 to 1973) was an American sociologist, born near Belvidere, Illinois, who founded one of the first sociology departments at an American university, at the University of Southern California in 1915. He took his bachelor's and master's degrees at Northwestern University in 1908 and 1909 and a doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1911, and joined the Southern California faculty immediately afterwards. He developed the Bogardus Social Distance Scale and conducted pioneer studies of Mexican immigration, labor, education and settlement patterns in the Southwest. He founded the international sociology honor society Alpha Kappa Delta in 1920, co-founded the Pacific Sociological Association in 1929, served as president of the American Sociological Society in 1931 and founded The Journal of Sociology and Social Research, which he edited for 45 years. He wrote 24 books and over 250 articles, among them A History of Social Thought, Immigration and Race Attitudes and The Mexican in the United States.