Ernest Manheim
Encyclopedia
Ernest Manheim (27 January 1900 – 28 July 2002) was an US sociologist, anthropologist and composer born in Hungary, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
for the Royal Hungarian Home Defense in Budapest and at the same time started chemistry
studies at the der Royal Technical Joseph-Academy in Budapest. In 1918 he became a soldier in the Austrian-Hungarian army ranking as a corporal
.
After World War I he resumed his studies in chemistry and mathematics
at the Budapest University, and additionally attended lectures in philosophy
, music and literature.
From March to July 1919 Manheim was a volunteer in the Hungarian Soviet Republic or Republic of Councils founded by Béla Kun
and was taken prisoner. He fled from the Romanian prison camp but could not stay in Budapest for long, since he had to face arrest as a supporter of the Soviet Republic. So he escaped to Austria in 1920, where he resumed his studies at the University of Vienna
, first chemistry and physics
and as of 1921 philosophy and history.
In 1923 he moved to Kiel
to continue his studies of philosophy at the University of Kiel
and also attended lectures by Ferdinand Tönnies
in sociology.
In Kiel Manheim became friends with Hans Freyer
, a professor of philosophy and followed him to Leipzig
, when Freyer received a call to a chair in sociology there. At the University of Leipzig
Manheim completed his studies in philosophy and also attended lectures and seminars in economics and sociology. In 1928 he wrote his doctoral thesis Zur Logik des konkreten Begriffs (On the Logic of the Concrete Concept ) under Hans Freyer and Theodor Litt.
From 1926 to 1933 Manheim worked as Freyer's assistant without a regular budget at the Leipzig university where he also offered tutorials of his own. Her also taught at the Leipzig Folk high school
from 1926 to 1933. In 1932 Manheim submitted his habilitation
thesis on Die Träger der öffentlichen Meinung, Studien zur Soziologie der Öffentlichkeit (The Makers of Public Opinion, Studies in the Sociology of the Public). Although the thesis had been accepted by the faculty
, Manheim withdrew it on his own behalf in 1933. As a Jew he could not expect any chance of habilitation under the new Nazi government. With his family he moved to Budapest where he spent the second half of 1933, before, in December of that year, he went to London with his wife.
In the British capital be began studies of sociology and social anthropology
at the University of London
and at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1934, passing his PhD exam in anthropology in 1937. Here he also wrote a voluminous manuscript for the Frankfurt
Institute for Social Research
, which got lost. In 1936, however, an abstract entitled Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der autoritären Familie (Contributions to the History of the Authoritarian Family) was published.
In 1937 Manheim emigrated to the US, and was naturalized as Ernest Manheim in 1943.
In the beginning he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago
(Illinois
) which at the time was the stronghold of American empirical social research.
Since then a combination of theoretical competence based on philosophy and methods of empirical social research was the peculiarity in Manheim's scientific work. Since 1940 he was professor of sociology at the University of Kansas City, Missouri, which was then a private institution and was to become part of the University of Missouri System in 1963.
In 1955/56 he spent a year as guest professor in Graz
and Vienna
and in 1960/61 at the University of Teheran.In 1970 he should have retired from the chair in Kansas City due to his age, but he went on lecturing on a privately financed chair (Henry Haskell Chair of Sociology) for another 21 years until 1991.
In 1928 Manheim married Anna Sophie Witters (1900–1988) from Osnabrück
. They had one son Frank Tibor Manheim (*1930). In 1991 Manheim married the US-American psychologist Sheelagh Graham Bull (*1943 in Canada).
Ernest Manheim died in Kansas City in 2002 at the age of 102.
, he changed, influenced by Hans Freyer, from philosophy to sociology. His doctoral thesis was written under the influence of strong philosophical tradition, it can, however, be already understood as a contribution to the sociology of knowledge
. With his habilitation thesis The Makers of Public Opinion , although withdrawn by the author, (see above) he was to become a pioneer of the theory of communication.
It was typical of Manheim and the Leipzig School of Sociology
to use historical argumentation.
The London years make up the phase of Manheim the anthropologist. He enhanced his work adding studies in cultural anthropology
and approaches to social psychology
The years in Chicago and Kansas City show Ernest Manheim the empirical researcher
. He studied and wrote about the interrelation between urban life style and psychological disease, about juvenile problems
, crime prevention
, minorities and prejudice
s.
In practice Manheim was instrumental in improving the conditions for Afro-American students at the University of Kansas City.
, in London for texts of Irish and English poets. His work as a composer reached its peak in Kansas City, the most important works being the Introductory Music to the Chinese drama Der Kreidekreis. He composed a symphony, chorus music, madrigals, chamber music, and pieces for his grandchildren. The Volker String Quartet and the Kansas City Symphony, among others, have performed his compositions.
Life
Manheim attended a secondary school in Budapest from 1909 and graduated in 1917. Then he enrolled in the Military AcademyMilitary academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the army, the navy, air force or coast guard, which normally provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three...
for the Royal Hungarian Home Defense in Budapest and at the same time started chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
studies at the der Royal Technical Joseph-Academy in Budapest. In 1918 he became a soldier in the Austrian-Hungarian army ranking as a corporal
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
.
After World War I he resumed his studies in chemistry and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
at the Budapest University, and additionally attended lectures in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, music and literature.
From March to July 1919 Manheim was a volunteer in the Hungarian Soviet Republic or Republic of Councils founded by Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
and was taken prisoner. He fled from the Romanian prison camp but could not stay in Budapest for long, since he had to face arrest as a supporter of the Soviet Republic. So he escaped to Austria in 1920, where he resumed his studies at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, first chemistry and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and as of 1921 philosophy and history.
In 1923 he moved to Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
to continue his studies of philosophy at the University of Kiel
University of Kiel
The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...
and also attended lectures by Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for his distinction between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft...
in sociology.
In Kiel Manheim became friends with Hans Freyer
Hans Freyer
Hans Freyer, born July 31, 1887 in Leipzig, died January 18, 1969 in Ebersteinburg near Baden-Baden, was a conservative German sociologist and philosopher.-Life:...
, a professor of philosophy and followed him to Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, when Freyer received a call to a chair in sociology there. At the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
Manheim completed his studies in philosophy and also attended lectures and seminars in economics and sociology. In 1928 he wrote his doctoral thesis Zur Logik des konkreten Begriffs (On the Logic of the Concrete Concept ) under Hans Freyer and Theodor Litt.
From 1926 to 1933 Manheim worked as Freyer's assistant without a regular budget at the Leipzig university where he also offered tutorials of his own. Her also taught at the Leipzig Folk high school
Folk high school
Folk high schools are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal...
from 1926 to 1933. In 1932 Manheim submitted his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
thesis on Die Träger der öffentlichen Meinung, Studien zur Soziologie der Öffentlichkeit (The Makers of Public Opinion, Studies in the Sociology of the Public). Although the thesis had been accepted by the faculty
Faculty (university)
A faculty is a division within a university comprising one subject area, or a number of related subject areas...
, Manheim withdrew it on his own behalf in 1933. As a Jew he could not expect any chance of habilitation under the new Nazi government. With his family he moved to Budapest where he spent the second half of 1933, before, in December of that year, he went to London with his wife.
In the British capital be began studies of sociology and social anthropology
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
and at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1934, passing his PhD exam in anthropology in 1937. Here he also wrote a voluminous manuscript for the Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
Institute for Social Research
Institute for Social Research
The Institute for Social Research is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory....
, which got lost. In 1936, however, an abstract entitled Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der autoritären Familie (Contributions to the History of the Authoritarian Family) was published.
In 1937 Manheim emigrated to the US, and was naturalized as Ernest Manheim in 1943.
In the beginning he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
(Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
) which at the time was the stronghold of American empirical social research.
Since then a combination of theoretical competence based on philosophy and methods of empirical social research was the peculiarity in Manheim's scientific work. Since 1940 he was professor of sociology at the University of Kansas City, Missouri, which was then a private institution and was to become part of the University of Missouri System in 1963.
In 1955/56 he spent a year as guest professor in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and in 1960/61 at the University of Teheran.In 1970 he should have retired from the chair in Kansas City due to his age, but he went on lecturing on a privately financed chair (Henry Haskell Chair of Sociology) for another 21 years until 1991.
In 1928 Manheim married Anna Sophie Witters (1900–1988) from Osnabrück
Osnabrück
Osnabrück is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, some 80 km NNE of Dortmund, 45 km NE of Münster, and some 100 km due west of Hanover. It lies in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest...
. They had one son Frank Tibor Manheim (*1930). In 1991 Manheim married the US-American psychologist Sheelagh Graham Bull (*1943 in Canada).
Ernest Manheim died in Kansas City in 2002 at the age of 102.
The Scholar
The years in Germany can be seen as the period of Manheim as a theorist. Eduacated in the sciences, in philosophy and in social sciencesSocial sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
, he changed, influenced by Hans Freyer, from philosophy to sociology. His doctoral thesis was written under the influence of strong philosophical tradition, it can, however, be already understood as a contribution to the sociology of knowledge
Sociology of knowledge
The Sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies...
. With his habilitation thesis The Makers of Public Opinion , although withdrawn by the author, (see above) he was to become a pioneer of the theory of communication.
It was typical of Manheim and the Leipzig School of Sociology
Leipzig school (sociology)
The Leipzig school was a branch of sociology developed by a group of academics led by philosopher and sociologist Hans Freyer at the University of Leipzig, Germany in the 1930s....
to use historical argumentation.
The London years make up the phase of Manheim the anthropologist. He enhanced his work adding studies in cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
and approaches to social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
The years in Chicago and Kansas City show Ernest Manheim the empirical researcher
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
. He studied and wrote about the interrelation between urban life style and psychological disease, about juvenile problems
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
, crime prevention
Crime prevention
Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce victimization and to deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.-Studies:...
, minorities and prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
s.
In practice Manheim was instrumental in improving the conditions for Afro-American students at the University of Kansas City.
The Composer
Manheim was also a composer. In Budapest and Vienna he attended conservatories besides his scientific studies. About 1922 he composed his Quintet for flute, viola, cello and lute. In Leipzig he created choir and song compositions, also for texts by Martin LutherMartin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
, in London for texts of Irish and English poets. His work as a composer reached its peak in Kansas City, the most important works being the Introductory Music to the Chinese drama Der Kreidekreis. He composed a symphony, chorus music, madrigals, chamber music, and pieces for his grandchildren. The Volker String Quartet and the Kansas City Symphony, among others, have performed his compositions.
Honours
- 1973: Thomas Jefferson Award of the University of Missouri
- 1997: Award of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art
- 1998: Dedication of the "Ernest Mannheim Hall" at the University of Kansas City, Missouri
- 2002: Award of honorary dctorate of the University of Leipzig on his 100th birthday
Works (selection)
- Zur Logik des konkreten Begriffs. München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagshandlung 1930, XI, 156 S.
- Die Träger der Öffentliche Meinung. Studien zur Soziologie der Öffentlichkeit, Verlag Rudolf M. Rohrer, Brünn/Prag/Leipzig/Wien 1933.
- Aufklärung und öffentliche Meinung. Studien zur Soziologie der Öffentlichkeit im 18. Jahrhundert. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Norbert Schindler, frommann/holzboog, Stuttgart/Bad Cannstatt 1979 (= Kultur und Gesellschaft, neue historische Forschungen. 4.), new edition
- Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der autoritären Familie, in: „Studien über Autorität und Familie. Forschungsberichte aus dem Institut für Sozialforschung“, zu Klampen, Lüneburg 1987 (= Institut für Sozialforschung. Schriften. 5.), pp. 523–574
- Youth in trouble. City of Kansas City, Missouri. Released by The Community Service Division, Department of Welfare. Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
,1945
Further reading
- J. Maier: Manheim, Ernst, in: Wilhelm Bernsdorf/Horst Knospe (Hgg.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon, Bd. 2, Enke, Stuttgart ² 1984, p. 536. ISBN 3-432-90702-8
- Charles Reitz, Frank Baron, David N Smith (edd.): Authority, Culture and Communication: the Sociology of Ernest Manheim, Heidelberg 2005 ISBN 3935025572 (compilation of essays, partly German, partly English)
External links
- An exhibition on Manheim's 100th birthday at the University of Graz (including a short video interview)
- portrait and short biography at the website of UMKC