Course:SOCI1110/Harold Garfinkle

Harold Garfinkel
American Sociologist, Ethomethodologist, as well as a Professor at the University of California. (October 29,1917 - April 21, 2011)

Biography
Harold Garfkinel was born in Newmark, New Jersey on October 29, 1917. Growing up he lived in Newmark, where his father, Abraham, had a local business selling housewares. Instead of following in his father's footsteps and taking over the family business, he decided to go to the University of Newmark to study business, and accounting. He later developed a deep interest in sociology, and moved on to study that instead. He then went to the University of North Carolina, and earned his master's degree in 1932. In the summer of 1942 Garfinkel started a field study of Bastrop, Texas, and started sociological research for the Army and Airforce in Gulfport Field, Mississippi from 1942-1946. From 1951 - 1953 he held a high ranking position at Princeton University. By the time Garfinkel was 35 years old he had written more than twelve impressive manuscripts, all before he earned his PhD at Harvard in the summer of 1952. Garfinkel finally retired from in 1987, and became a professor emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Garfinkel died at the age of 93, in his home in Pacific Palisades, California, due to congestive heart failure. He was survived by his wife, Arlene, his daughter, Leah, and his son, Mark.

Influences
Garfinkel was influenced by Talcott Parsons, and Alfred Schütz. Parsons was a sociologist of the classical tradition, Garfinkel was very fascinated by his research on social order. Schutz was a European scholar which started to introduce Garfinkel into newly important ideas in social theory, psychology and phenomenology. 

Major Accomplishments
The term Ethnomethodology was invented and created by Harold Garfinkel in 1954. Ethenomethodology examines how human beings communicate while interacting with one another. Garfinkel is well known for his published book called "Studies in Ethnomethodology" in 1967. Which was followed by unpublished articles in two volumes called "Seeing Sociologically" and "Ethnomethodology's Program."

The World Around Him
Harold Garfinkel lived through not only both world wars, but other wars as well. This situates him in many interesting points in history. Even though Garfinkel could not participate in World War One because he was just a baby, by the time World War Two occurred he had become an adult. He enlisted in the military, and conducted sociological research for the Army and Air Force in Gulfport Field, Mississippi, from 1942-1946. As a Jewish man dedicated to racial justice, Garfinkel took his work for the military very seriously. The Second World War actually ended up uniting social scientists. Since the study of social sciences was completely put on hold in occupied Europe, some of Europe's scientists had come to join the research in America. In 1939, the American Sociological Association and its higher ups started to aid the war and peace efforts in both institutional and substantive ways. This helped sociology become a "well-respected and unified science."(Rawls, 2013) The world Garfinkel grew up and lived in was full of uncertainty, and fear. The fact that he had such a strong interest in sociology compared to bussiness makes a lot of sense once a person considers the social chaos that was happening all around him. To try to make sense and help change the social world Garfinkel probably realized that he had to study, and immerse himself in it.

Relevant World Events Durring Garfinkel's Life

 * 1917 - America enters WWI
 * 1918 - WWI ends
 * 1931 - Great Depression at its worst, more that 25% of Americans unemployed
 * 1939 - WWII begins in Europe
 * 1941 - Pearl Habour is attacked
 * America joins the WWII
 * 1945 - America drops first atomic bomb on Japan
 * WWII ends
 * 1949 - NATO is created
 * 1950 - Start of the Korean war
 * 1961 - Vietnam war begins
 * Berlin Wall is built
 * 1953 - Vietnam war ends
 * 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
 * 1963 - Present Kennedy is assassinated
 * 1965 - People begin protesting war
 * Malcom X is assassinated
 * 1966 - People rioting over race
 * 1967 - People are still rioting over race
 * Vietnam war becomes even more intense
 * 1973 - Vietnam war ends

Major Contributions
Harold Garfinkel has made many contributions to the social sciences. A Major contribution he has made is creating the term ethnomethodology. Ethnomethology is a way to try to study the methods that people create and put together the parts of everyday life in any real, and not hypothetical setting. He invented this term while he had been coraborating with the American Jury Project run by Fred Stodtbeck at the University of Chicago. While working with the Americian Jury Project were Garfinkel interveiwed juours and revewed tape recordings, he found that the jourors were "often preoccupied with 'magnificent methodological things.'"(Maynard, 2012) He made ethnomethodology up while comming across terms such as "ethnobotany, ethnophysiology, and ethnophyscis."(Maynard, 2012)