Monroe Work's Contributions to Public Sociology

Monroe Work was a Chicago School trained sociologist, criminologist, and researcher who, despite not being well-known in the social sciences, produced a body of research that is exemplified in what is now known as public sociology. Work was associated with prominent sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois while working in Savannah, Georgia, and later with Booker T. Washington, with whom he worked at the Tuskegee Institute, heading the records and research department. Work was a talented researcher who worked behind the scenes with both Du Bois and Washington to provide needed research in a time of intense racial conflict. Work’s contributions to public sociology, notably his work on minority farm ownership, minority public health, and his lynching reports, are examined in this essay.