The American sociologist and educator William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was one of the earliest proponents of sociology in the United States and was especially notable for his advocacy of the evolutionary viewpoints of Herbert Spencer in academic and public circles.

William Graham Sumner was born on Oct. 30, 1840, in Paterson, N. J. His parents were both of English ancestry and of modest social background. The family moved to Connecticut, where Sumner attended the public schools and Yale College. After graduation, he studied ancient languages and history at Göttingen (1864) and theology and philosophy at Oxford (1866). The following year he was appointed tutor at Yale and then was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church. In 1869 he left Yale to be rector of churches in New York City and Morristown, N. J. In 1872 he became the first professor of political and social science at Yale--a position he long held.

Sumner...