Albert Galloway Keller was a sociologist, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and student and colleague of William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner was an American academic and "held the first professorship in sociology" at Yale College. For many years he had a reputation as one of the most influential teachers there. He was a polymath with numerous books and essays on American history, economic history, political...

.

Keller is best known as the editor of William Graham Sumner’s papers in many volumes published in the early 20th century by Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 Press. He was scholar in his own right and wrote on German colonial policy, economic geography, and sociology.

Keller came from Springfield

Springfield, Ohio

Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...

, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. He graduated from Yale College in 1896 and received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1899. He immediately joined the social science faculty at Yale and was appointed professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 in 1907, succeeding his mentor, and taught at Yale until 1942.

He was the first holder of the William Graham Sumner Chair of Political Science at Yale.

Yale's eclectic approach to social science during Keller's time is illustrated by the Festschrift

Festschrift

In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...

for Keller which was edited by George Peter Murdock. The volume of essays was created in honor of Keller in celebration of his completion of 30 years as a professor. The work consisted of essays by 26 scholars who studied with Keller at Yale.

Professor Keller was the father of Deane Keller

Deane Keller

Deane Keller was an American artist, academic, soldier, art restorer and preservationist. He taught for 40 years at Yale University's School of Fine Arts.-Early life:Keller was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1901...

 and the grandfather of Deane G. Keller

Deane G. Keller

Deane Galloway Keller was an American artist, academic and author. Keller was a draftsman, painter, sculptor, and teacher who instructed students in the visual arts for forty years, most notably in figure drawing and the artistic application of human anatomy...

.

Selected works

• The Beginnings of German Colonization, Yale Review, May 1901.
• The Colonial Policy of the Germans, Yale Review, February 1902.
• Homeric Society: A Sociological Study of the Iliad and the Odyssey, New York: Longmans,Green, and Company, 1902.
• Queries in Ethnography, New York: Longmans, Green, 1903.
• Notes on the Danish West Indies, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 22, no. 1, 1903.
• Portuguese Colonization in Brazil, New Haven, 1906.
• Colonization: A Study of the Founding of New Societies, Boston: Ginn & Company, 1908.
• Race Distinction, New Haven: Department of Anthropology, Yale University, 1909.
• Physical andCommercial Geography: A Study of Certain Controlling Conditions of Commerce, with Herbert Ernest Gregory and Avard Longley Bishop, Boston: Ginn & Company, 1910.
• Commercial and Industrial Geography, with Avard Longley Bishop, Boston: Ginn & Company, 1912.
• Societal Evolution: A Study of the Evolutionary Basis of the Science of Society, New York: Macmillan Company, 1915; later editions in 1931 and 1947.
• Industry and Trade: Historical and Descriptive Account of Their Development in the United States, with Avery Longley Bishop, Boston: Ginn & Company, 1918.
• Through War to Peace: A Study of the Great War as an Incident in the Evolution of Society, New York: Macmillan Company, 1921.
• Starting Points in Social Science, Boston: Ginn & Company, 1925.
• Man's Rough Road: Backgrounds and Bearings From Mankind's Experience, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1932; acondensed edition of Sumner's, Keller's, and Davie's, The Science of Society; and Reminiscences (mainly personal) of William Graham Sumner; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933.
• Brass Tacks, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938.
• Net Impressions, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942.

• «A Byzantine admirer of ‘western’ progress: Cardinal Bessarion», in Cambridge Historical Journal (Cambridge). Vol. 11 (1953–55), pp. 343–348.