George Herbert Mead: The Most Influential Sociologist

George Herbert Mead is known as one of the most influential sociologists to emerge from the late 1800s. His pragmatic philosophies helped lead the way to more micro-oriented thinking (Knapp, 2018). Intellectual achievement was a strong value held by both of his parent’s families (Coser, 2003 p. 341). His father came from a line of farmers and clergymen (Coser, 2003 p. 341). He was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts (Coser, 2003 p. 341), however, at the age of seven, his father began a new position as the chair of homiletics at Oberlin College in Ohio (Coser, 2003 p. 341).
Oberlin was one of the main stations on the Underground Railroad (Coser, 2003 p. 341). Additionally, it was one of the first colleges that admitted African American students

After he graduated college, he taught grade school briefly but was fired for sending disruptive students home (Cronk, n.d.). He considered Christian Social Work as a career; however, he decided it would not be ethical of him since he did not believe in God (Aboulafia, 2008). Mead took a job as a surveyor until 1887, where he “contributed to the eleven hundred mile railroad line that ran from Minnesota to Saskatchewan, as well as connected with the Canadian Pacific railroad line” (Crossman, 2018).
He decided to pursue his Master of Arts degree in philosophy at Harvard, having completed it in 1888 (Cronk, n.d.). He entered a Ph.D. program in philosophy and physiological psychology. The University of Michigan offered him a teaching position, so he accepted and did not finish his Ph.D. (Crossman, 2018). Although his time spent in Michigan was short, it allowed him to be introduced to John Dewey (Aboulafia, 2008). Dewey and Mead are both recognized as significant figures in classical American pragmatism. After four years, he moved and taught at the University of Chicago the remainder of his life (Cronk,

335). Children play house, doctor, hide and seek, etc. He proposed that the self emerges through different various stages. He defines each of the three stages (language, play, and game) based on if the child imagined the role in his mind, the mind of others, or many different people (Coser p. 335). His ideas explain how children develop knowledge of societal roles.
Another of his contributions is that the self is not based on one variable. There is a distinction between the “I” and the “me” self. “I” is the unadulterated self, while “me” is the filter based on social norms (Coser, 2003). This is an important idea when considering different theories of the self and understanding human behavior. As Mead discussed the self, he also involved the idea that although past events determine future events, these are not set in stone (Aboulafia,