Herbert Blumer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1900. His father was a cabinet worker and his mother a homemaker. He attended the University of Missouri from 1918-22 and remained to teach from 1922-25. In 1928 he received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, where he came under the academic influence of George Herbert Mead, W. I. Thomas, and Robert Park. Upon graduation he accepted a teaching position at the University of Chicago, where he remained as a professor until 1952. He spent the last twenty years of his teaching career, from 1952-72, as the Chair of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. Blumer was active in professional football for seven years, was regarded highly as an arbitrator in labor negotiations, and reportedly had many connections to members of Chicago's organized crime scene.

Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, Blumer's most influential writing, was published in 1969 and outlined...