W. I. Thomas
Pioneer Sociologist and His Kin
By Leland B. Tate
With the encouragement of Talcott Parsons of Harvard University and others
including James Brown, University of Kentucky, much time has been spent
recently on a very interesting and revealing study of the life, contributions,
appraisals, and extended family connections of W. I. Thomas, 1863-1947,
"the most creative of the First Big Four Sociologists at the University
of Chicago." (Reference 5, page 13; and others).
Considerable is known about the contributions
of Thomas to social science and several books and articles reveal these,
but relatively little is known by most people about the background and
kinfolks of Thomas and how these may relate to his dynamic nature, profound
thinking, and scientific accomplishments. Since he was a (native and boy)
of Russell County, Virginia, and later a youth in
Tennessee, and I was reared near his birthplace and boyhood home, I have
an added incentive to know more than the minimum about this man's highly
regarded work as a teacher and researcher, and his life, background, and
extensive array of relatives.
Dr. W. I. or William Isaac Thomas, who lived
for nearly 85 years from 1863 to 1947 was an amazing American scholar
of human behavior, attitudes, values, situations, personality, and social
organizations. He was an outstanding sociologist in our Nation's first
Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago for nearly a quarter
of a century, and later a lecturer at the New School for Social Research
in New York, a lecturer at Columbia and Harvard and President of the American
Social Science Research Council, and President of the American Sociological
Society for 1927. He was a colorful, dynamic, and creative person with
exceptional physical and mental vigor. He was a speaker extraordinary
who once gave a lecture in a room seating 250 persons and had such an
overflow audience that he repeated the performance the next day in a room
seating 1200 and had it full of intellectually curious listeners. He
was a teacher of outstanding sociologist Ernest W. Burgess, Kimball Young,
Stuart Queen, and others, and an influential force in the lives of many
American sociologists. He was discoverer of Robert E. Park with Booker
T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and responsible for Park's
joining the Sociology staff at the University of Chicago. And as Park
and Burgess became outstanding sociologists they were tremendously influenced
by Thomas. He was the most active researcher of the first sociologists
at the University of Chicago including A. W. Small, Charles Henderson,
George Vincent and himself, and he produced more than forty publications.
Some of these were Source Book for Social Origins, The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, "The Problem of Personality
in an Urban Environment," "The Behavior Pattern and the Situation,"
"The Configurations of Personality," "The Relation of Research
to the Social Process," "The Comparative Study of Cultures,"
etc. (References 1-2-3-4-5-6)
Donald Young of the Russel Sage Foundation has
said that "friendly curiosity about people characterized the life
of W. I. Thomas. He always wanted to know more about how they lived and
why they behaved as they did." (Reference 3, Introduction).
Florian Znaniecki, his research associate for
the classic and internationally acclaimed study of The Polish Peasant
in Europe and America, said of him some time later that "never have
I known, heard or read about anybody with such a wide sympathetic interest
in the vast diversity of sociocultural patterns and such a genius for
understanding the uniqueness of every human personality. The famous statement
of Terence, 'I am a man and nothing human seems alien to me' expresses
the ideal which few men ever realized so fully as Thomas." (Sociology
and Social Research, V, 32, Mar-Apr 1948).
Edmund H. Volkart of Yale University has said
that "the importance of Thomas in the development of American social
science has been widely recognized, that he was a profound and versatile
thinker, that his basic conceptions can be discerned in much of contemporary
theory and research." (Reference 3)
Ernest W. Burgess of the University of Chicago
has said that "thousands of students who did not know him personally
are indebted to him for concepts that have become common currency in Sociology."
(Sociology and Social Research, V, 32, Mar-Apr 1948).
On we could go with appraisals, but let's see
some of this man's life, background, and family connections.
W. I. Thomas was born August 13, 1863 on a farm
in the Elk Garden locality of Russell County, Virginia, east of the courthouse
town of Lebanon, and lived there during his first ten formative years.
Over half a century later he told me in a letter from New York, "My
memories of Lebanon and Russell County are very vivid, and in retrospect
I consider the time spent there a big block of my life." (Thomas
to Tate at Cornell University, January 12, 1832).
His parents were scholarly, T. P. and Sarah Price
Thomas, who seeking better educational opportunities for their children,
moved to Morristown, Tennessee, in 1873 and on to Knoxville in 1874, where
several of the children made outstanding records at the University of
Tennessee. By age 23 in
1886, W. I. had earned three degrees in Literature and Languages, including
the first Ph.D. given by the University, received special recognition
for his high accomplishments, been Cadet Captain of the R.O.T.C., excelled
in oratory, and was appointed instructor, and a year later Professor.
(10) (24-V, 295- 97)
On June 6, 1888, when nearly 25 years of age,
W. I. was married to Harriet Park, daughter of Dr. James Park, a graduate
of Tennessee and Princeton, who was Pastor of Knoxville's First Presbyterian
Church for 50 years, 1866-1916. Soon after their marriage he and his wife
traveled to Germany, the earlier habitat of the Thomas ancestors, where
he had a year of special study. Upon their return to the United States
he became Professor of English at Oberlin College in Ohio and remained
there until 1893. (Leon Waterhouse letter, University of Tennessee records
and others)
Apparently, extended family influence, contact
with Herbert Spencer's Sociology, German writings on Folk Psychology,
and news that the Nation's first Department of Sociology was being established
in the new University of Chicago stimulated W. I. to retrain himself for
a new professional field. He became one of the first graduate students
of Sociology, University of Chicago, 1893-94 under Small and Henderson,
and received one of the University's first Ph.D. degrees in Sociology,
1896 - which for him was his second Ph.D. degree by age 33.
After receiving this degree with highest honors,
W. I. Thomas was on the staff of the University of Chicago for more than
two decades, where he was a very prominent teacher and research sociologist.
He and his wife were also active in the affairs of the city, and in rearing
their children, William
Alexander and Edward. Following this period of service in Chicago, he
was at the New School for Social Research in New York, on the American
Social Science Research Council, a lecturer at Columbia and Harvard, and
a researcher and lecturer in Sweden. Finally he was a semi-retiree in
Berkeley, California.
Late in life he married for the second time his research associate Dr.
Dorothy Swain who is well known professionally as Dorothy Swain Thomas,
co-author of their book, The Child in America, and as a specialist in
population studies. She still lives and we have had a pleasant exchange
of correspondence.
Although W. I. died in Berkeley, California,
his ashes are buried in Knoxville, Tennessee, with those of his first
wife, Harriett Park, in Lot 790 of the "Old Gray Cemetery",
543 Broadway, where his parents, T. P. and Sarah Price Thomas, are also
buried, as well as his younger brother, Charlie. This cemetery is well
preserved with a perpetual-care fund, and has an entrance office with
a card file of records which was in charge of Mrs. Robert Dempster when
I visited it in 1970.
Many Related Scholars
and Educators
Numerous relatives of W. I. Thomas have been excellent scholars, strong
believers in education, patrons of schools, teachers, and school administrators.
His father, T. P. Thomas, was a "man of very superior talent and
a critical scholar, thoughtful, clear and fluent," a graduate of
Emory and Henry
College in 1853, and afterwards an able teacher, tutor, and school official.
(24-V-295-96) His mother, Sarah Price Thomas, was "a lady of superior
talent and education," and a graduate of Greensboro College (24-V-297,
and others). His grandfather, John W. Price, was "endowed with an
intellect of high order and
discriminative powers, and sufficiently informed to feel at home in the
best educated circles." He was the first chairman of the board of
trustees of Emory and Henry College founded in 1836, and on the board
for more than twenty years. (24-IV-330-31, and others) His grandmother,
Mary Miller Price, was a "diligent
reader with a strong philosophical mind who could enter into the spirit
of the profoundest discourses,
written or spoken." (24-IV-339) His uncle, Richard N. Price, was
"a minister, teacher and historian of
much ability - positive, deliberate, and composed - who appealed to mind
more than emotions." (From his memorial by Wiley, Holston Methodist
Conference Records, 1923). Both his parents and his mother's parents changed
their places of residence seeking better education opportunities for their
children. (24)
Both his grandfather, John W. Price and his great-uncle, William Price,
were school commissioners in Russell County, Virginia prior to 1835. (Reference
7) His great-grandfather, Joseph Miller, was a "a man of intelligence,
integrity and great symmetry of character." (24-IV-328) His great-grandfather,
Richard
Price, "a powerful robust person," specified in his will made
and recorded in 1803 that his widow, Priscilla, use part of the income
from the land left to her "to school and educate the children as
well as it is in her power." Apparently he also gave the site for
the first "school house" in the frontier Elk Garden,
Virginia settlement which is mentioned in his will, and which was only
a short distance from his home. (24-IV-329+) and (7).
As a consequence of these and other influences,
the writer has discovered more than twenty relatives of W. I. Thomas who
have graduated from Emory and Henry College, and several who have attended
the University of Tennessee and other schools. W. I.'s older brother,
Price Thomas, graduated from Emory and Henry, earned a Ph.D. at Tennessee,
and later was a school administrator, and State Superintendent of Schools
in Tennessee under Governor Bob Taylor. His younger brother, Thad, attended
Tennessee and Vanderbilt, earned a Ph.D. at John Hopkins in 1895, and
later was Professor of History and Sociology at Goucher College in Baltimore.
His younger brother, Henry Bascom, attended
Tennessee, earned an M. D. at Northwestern, later taught there and was
an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago. W. I.'s various relatives, including
father, uncles and others, have been attending and graduating from Emory
and Henry College for more than a hundred years and becoming useful and
influential citizens. For example: his uncle Richard N. Price, who graduated
in 1854, lived to be nearly 93 and had a ministerial service record of
62 years; Richard G. Waterhouse who graduated in 1885 and married W. I.'s
double first cousin, Mary Thomas Carriger, after the loss of his first
wife, was for sometime a teacher at Emory and Henry and subsequently president;
Richard G. Waterhouse, Jr., who
graduated in 1920 earned a M. D. at the University of Virginia and since
has been a surgeon in Knoxville, Tennessee; and more distant relatives,
William D. Richmond, John A. Richmond and Phil Wynn, who were my fellow
students and good friends at Emory and Henry College have been educators
in Virginia. William D. Richmond, now retired, was recently Superintendent
of Schools in Wise County,
and his brother, John, also retired, was recently Superintendent of Schools
in Lee County.
Other relatives of W. I. Thomas who descend from
his grandparents, Isaac and Rebecca Barb Thomas, include Miss "Bashi"
or Bathsheba Kincaid, retired teacher and counselor of Rose Hill, Virginia,
her deceased brother, Charles M. Kincaid, Ph.D., former professor of Animal
Science at Virginia Tech, her deceased sister, Nannie Kincaid Stickley,
who did considerable research on the
Thomas family, and Mrs. Stickley's children: Mary K. Rose, Fred, and Sara,
all of whom are teachers. Mary K. lives at Rose Hill, Virginia. Rose is
the wife of Joseph C. Smiddy, Chancellor of Clinch Valley College, Wise,
Virginia. Fred is Principal of the Thomas Walker High School in Lee County,
and Sara is the wife of Richard Hummel, Blacksburg businessman, and a
daughter-in-law of Professor B. L. Hummel (deceased), an Extension Sociologist
at Virginia Tech for 27 years. (References 17-18, and others,including
personal knowledge)
Several Related
Public Officials and Prominent Citizens
From frontier days to contemporary times, the relatives of W. I. Thomas
have been active in public affairs. By the 1770's three of his forefathers
had migrated to the fringe of westward-moving American frontier in southwest
Virginia, almost as far west as present Michigan. His twice-great-grandfathers,
William Crabtree and Humberson Lyon had located in the Holston Valley
at a place called Big Lick, now present Saltville, and his great-grandfather,
Richard Price and a brother, Thomas, had settled northward in the Elk
Garden area of Clinch Valley which is now part of Russell County, east
of the town of Lebanon. (17) (18) (20) (24)
His twice-great-grandfather, William Crabtree,
who died in 1777 was in 1773 one of the overseers of "a good horseway
road" from the North Fork of Holston River to Clinch Mountain, appraiser
of an estate with Archibald Buchanan, and a member of a jury in the frontier
county of Fincastle, which existed for four years, January, 1773, to January,
1777, and extended indefinitely westward from the eastern edge of the
Mississippi River basin at present Blacksburg, Virginia. (20)
His twice-great-grandfather, Humberson Lyon,
who died in 1784 was a member of a jury with Simon Cockrell and others
in 1773, security with Abraham Crabtree for Hannah Crabtree, administrator
of the William Crabtree estate in 1777, one of the appraisers of the John
Hargis estate in 1779, a provider of "venison for public service"
prior to 1782, a member of the Washington County militia, and a participant
in the Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain, South Carolina, in
1780, which some historians say was the favorable turning point in the
struggle for American Independence from Great Britain. In earlier years
he was also an explorer and "long hunter" with friends for several
months per year beyond the frontier settlements of that time. Such exploring
and hunting took great courage, stamina, skills, and knowledge to survive.
(8) (20) (21)
His great-grandfather, Richard Price, was justice
on the Russell County, Virginia court of governing board for several years
starting in 1787. Previously he had been a member of the local militia,
one of the men at the Elk Garden Fort in 1774 for protection of settlers
from Indians, an appraiser of estates, an overseer of the poor, etc. Later
he was county sheriff, and twice one of the county's delegates in the
Virginia Legislature of the 1790's. (7) (20)
His great-grandfather, Joseph Miller, was a justice
on the Washington County, Virginia court of governing board for several
years, and one of his county's delegates in the Virginia Legislature in
1825 at the time of General Lafayette's second visit to America after
the Revolutionary War. (8) (24-IV, 328).
His great-uncle, Crabtree Price, was a justice
in Russell County, Virginia, for 20 years, 1818-1838, before moving to
Missouri, where his son, William Cecil Price, became a prominent lawyer
and judge and Treasurer of the United States under President James Buchanan.
W. C. could have been Treasurer under President Abraham Lincoln, but declined
Lincoln's offer. (7) (24-IV-330)
His great-uncle, William Price, was a justice
in Russell County, Virginia, for 19 years, 1818-1837, a school commissioner
and treasurer of the school board for several yeears, an overseer of the
poor one of his county's delegates in the Virginia Legislature in 1821,
and Lieutenant Colonel in the county militia in 1825. (7) (24-IV-329+)
His great-uncle, Thomas Price, who moved to Kentucky
after his marriage "had eight sons who served in the war between
the States - four on one side and four on the other - and all of them
were either killed or died during the war." (24-IV-339)
His twice great-grandfather, Martin Thomas, of
German-Swiss descent, came to America from Heidelberg, Germany in 1749,
helped to found the Heidelberg township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
and served as a ranger on the frontiers during the French and Indian Wars.
(17) (18)
His great-grandfather, Jacob Thomas, was born
in Pennsylvania, served in the Revolutionary War for Independence from
Cumberland County, and afterwards moved to Sullivan County, Tennessee,
between present Bristol and Blountville. (17) (18)
His grandfather, Isaac Thomas, was a justice
in Claiborne County, Tennessee for more than 20 years prior to 1850, and
while a justice performed many marriage ceremonies. In later life he lived
at "Oldtown" near Cumberland Gap, but previously had been born
and lived in Sullivan County near present Bristol, married Rebecca Barb
of nearby Washington County, Virginia, served in the War of
1812, and participated in a campaign against the Creek Indians under General
Andrew Jackson. (9) (17)
His uncle, William S. Thomas, an older brother
of his father, was also a justice in Claiborne County, Tennessee, prior
to 1850. He participated in the Civil War as a Confederate and died in
a Federal Prison in Illinois. (9) (17) (18)
His cousin, James Bishop, son of Polly Thomas
and Elisha Bishop, served in the Civil War as a Confederate and was killed
at Kernstown, Virginia.
His aunt, Ann Vance Price, wife of Richard N.,
had a brother, Robert Vance, who was a General in the Confederate forces,
and later a U. S. Congressman; and a brother, Zebulon Vance, who was twice
Governor of North Carolina and a U. S. Senator. Prior to that he was a
graduate of the University of North Carolina and a lawyer. (24-IV-385,
V-207, et al)
His uncle, William Humberson Price, was a surgeon
with General "Jeb" Stuart in the Civil War, and a physician
in Washington County, Virginia for several years before entering another
occupation, to be mentioned later. His memoir says he was educated at
Emory and Henry College, the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia,
and the New Orleans School of Medicine, and his father's will reveals
he also had been in Richmond, Virginia, and the State of Georgia. (24-Martin-406)
(8)
His cousin, John W. Price, son of William Humberson,
was a lawyer in Abingdon and Bristol, Virginia, a member of the Virginia
Legislature in 1899, and later a judge in the city of Bristol. (Summers,
History of Washington County, VA)
His wife, Harriett Park Thomas, while in Chicago,
"maintained close connections with social work," and in 1915
she was active in Henry Ford's Peace Party, part of which Henry led on
a pilgrimage to Europe hoping to bring an end to World War I. (4) (15)
(17)
His son, William A. Thomas, MD, has been a prominent
physician in Chicago. (15) (17) (18)
His son, Edward B. Thomas, has served as a diplomat
in the Consular Service of the U. S. Government in Japan, China and Russia.
(15) (17) (18)
His cousin, Dr. Richard G. Waterhouse, a surgeon
of Knoxville, Tennessee, has been a trustee of Emory and Henry College
for 39 years, and as such is walking in the footsteps of John Wesley Price,
one of the first trustees, who was the grandfather of W. I. Thomas and
great-grandfather of Dr. Waterhouse.
Dr. Waterhouse was born on the Emory and Henry College campus while his
father was president of the school. (15 and interviews)
His younger relative, Richard G. Waterhouse,
III, is an officer in the U. S. Air Force. (15)
His relative, William S. Richmond, son of William
D. Richmond, mentioned previously, graduated from Hampden-Sydney College
in 1959, entered the U. S. Navy and out of 1800 trainees was chosen to
receive the American Spirit Honor Award for the display of outstanding
qualities of leadership.
(17) (18)
Related Methodists,
Lay Leaders, and Ministers
Numerous relatives of W. I. Thomas have been Methodist church members,
lay leaders, and ministers since the late 1700's. Soon after his great-grandfather,
Richard Price, came from Pennsylvania and a Quaker background to the frontier
settlement of Elk Garden, Virginia, he married Priscilla Crabtree of present
Saltville, and for some time afterwards they attended Methodist religious
meetings at Keywoods many miles south of their home. It is also likely
that they attended some meetings in the home of William and Elizabeth
Russell at Saltville, for in the 1780's the Russells were the most prominent
converts to Methodism in that area - she being a sister of Patrick Henry
and former wife of General William Campbell, deceased, and he being a
former Colonel and General in the Revolution for Independence and a prominent
person in local and state affairs. (24-IV, 327) (23-1, 570)
In order to have nearer services for his family
and neighbors, Richard Price initiated the organization of a small Methodist
society in his locality, became its first lay leader, helped to provide
a meeting place, and after was a host to the traveling ministers who came
there. The first Methodist Bishop, Francis Asbury, who was the most widely
traveled American of his time, was a guest in the Price home two or more
times from 1790 to 1801. On September 22, 1801, Bishop Asbury wrote in
his journal that he had a service at the Elk Garden meeting house, and
dined with Richard Price, who was growing infirm. After Mr. Price's death
the Rev. Jacob Young was a guest in the household and wrote in his diary
that his hosts were Methodists of the right sort. (24-1, 1959; 23-11,
307; and others)
Apparently the Prices were strong sprouts capable
of multiplying their influence and combining their talents with others.
John Wesley Price, son of Richard, and grandfather of W. I. Thomas, married
Mary Miller and had nine children, eight of whom became adults. "The
three sons became Methodist
ministers, and three of the daughters married men who became Methodist
ministers," at least part-time. The three sons were Joseph H. Price,
first a teacher, Richard N. Price, minister, teacher, historian, etc.,
and William H. Price, first a physician and surgeon. The three daughters
and their husbands were Sarah and her husband, Thaddeus Peter Thomas;
Virginia and her husband, Francis Asbury Buhrman, and Margaret and her
husband, Henry Fuller Kendrick. (24-IV, 328)
There are sufficient facts about several of these
persons to consider them separately, and some background items which may
help to better understand them as Methodists. Methodism started about
1727 as a rational, methodical movement among some students of Oxford
University in England and within the Church of England. Later it became
a growing and revitalizing force in England and America
before it became a separate religious denomination in our country in 1784,
after American Independence. In the first Methodist headquarters building
in London, John Wesley and associates emphasized the educated head,
better health, the warm heart, and the helping hand, by having a school
and a library, a chapel, and a clinic, and much concern for persons less
fortunate than themselves. They even had a handcranked machine with which
to give mental and emotional patients shock treatments. (References, misc.
Methodist history, facts from two trips to England, and other sources.)
John Wesley Price, grandfather of W. I. Thomas,
carried the name of the early Methodist leader in England, had a father
who was a frontier Methodist lay leader, and had an early teacher, Will
Webb, who was partly trained at Oxford. Out of this background he became
a concerned patron of education for his children and others, and a very
active Methodist layman. "He was an authority on Christian doctrine
and church policy. He often discussed religious questions with his neighbors,
visitors, and ministers � He was a friend of the poor and granted poor
men the privilege of cutting trees and building homes on his land - He
made it a rule to try to bring a knowledge of salvation through Christ
to his tenants and their families, and he generally succeeded - He declined
to be licensed as a local preacher, but was always ready to speak as a
lay leader. Frequently, he occupied pulpits at camp meetings - His exhortations
often displayed genuine eloquence and spiritual power." (24-IV-333-34-35)
Mary Miller Price, grandmother of W. I. Thomas,
"was a professor of religion for more than three-score years, and
never known to say or do anything inconsistent with her profession - in
her prime she was a faithful church goer, and an attentive and intelligent
hearer of the Word - No sermon was so poor or dry that it did not have
food for her soul - She loved the church - Her faith in God never staggered
- In her religion she was not noisy not demonstrative - Her experience
was deep and intense - Her religion was lived rather than professed -
She had a tender and merciful concern for everybody, and could not bear
to see cruelty inflicted on any living creature." (24-IV, 338-39-40)
T. P. Thomas, father of W. I., "was a prominent
local preacher for several years, but apparently never a full-time minister."
He graduated from Emory and Henry College in 1853, and was licensed to
preach in 1854 at Marion, N. C., where he was teaching. Seemingly he felt
that his ministerial work was a worthy service he could render in addition
to his other successive jobs as teacher, principal, farm operator, and
marble-business man, and for a short while co-owner and co-editor of a
publication entitled The Holston Methodist. He was a man of much talent.
"But for his heart weakness, he had capabilities of high order -
One year he was employed as the preacher at Abingdon, Virginia, where
his sermons were held in high repute and his people were much attached
to him - Once he was a lay delegate to the General Conference of his Church."
While he was farming at Elk Garden, Virginia for 16 years, 1857-1873,
he apparently served well the local Elk Garden Methodist Church which
his wife's grandfather had a hand in starting. His son, Henry Bascom,
visited this church with much sentiment in the 1950's and left it a legacy
of $5,000 as a token of his appreciation for what it had meant to his
people for three prior generations. (24-V, 295) (25 and others)
Sarah Price Thomas, mother of W. I., was a talented
and well-trained person, and "a devoted Christian wonderfully unselfish
and self-sacrificing. She was earnest in church work and always felt a
keen interest in the poor and oppressed." Her son, Henry Bascom,
was named for a prominent Methodist leader. (24-V, 197, and others, including
letters from Thad Thomas to Richard N. Price - Ref. 11)
Richard G. Waterhouse, Sr., whose second wife,
Mary, was a daughter of James D. Thomas and Julia Price, and a double-first
cousin to W. I. Thomas was a Methodist minister, college teacher, college
president and Methodist Bishop. Five times from 1894 to 1910 he was a
delegate to the General Conference of his Church, and for some time while
he was President of Emory and Henry College he had the unique distinction
of a pleasant home life with two mothers-in-law as members of his household.
(13- 14-15-24-25)
William H. Price, a younger brother of W. I.
Thomas' mother, spent several years of his life as a physician, then became
a Methodist minister for an active period of 28 years. "He served
as both pastor and presiding elder (now called district superintendent),
and was quite successful as a leader of revivals and church building."
(Ref. 24-Martin's Methodism in Holston, p. 406)
Francis Asbury Buhrman, brother-in-law of W.
I. Thomas' mother, was a combination teacher, farmer, and part-time local
preacher for several years, and had a son, William P. Buhrman, who was
a teacher and minister. Both father and son were graduates of Emory and
Henry College. (14) (24)
Richard Nye Price, an older brother of W. I.
Thomas' mother, had a most unusual career as a Methodist minister. He
lived to be nearly 93, and his Memoir written by E. E. Wiley says, "Nearly
a century of eventful years ran their course between the birth and death
of this distinguished man. He was born in Elk Garden, Russell County,
Virginia, July 30, 1830, and died in Morristown, Tennessee, February 7,
1923. His life was older in years and longer in ministerial service than
any other in all the annals of Holston Methodism. He also served in a
larger number of relationships than any other member of this body, past
or present. He served as local preacher, junior preacher, circuit rider,
chaplain, station pastor, presiding elder, Conference secretary, General
Conference delegate (six times), college professor, college president,
founder and first editor of the Holston Methodist, and finally Conference
historian and author of five volumes on the history of Holston Methodism.
In each of these, by all accounts, he acquitted himself with credit. The
officer was equal to his office. He leaves behind a worthy record. Perhaps
he will be longest remembered as an author after he was three-score and
ten. He lived into the third generation of his times and knew by personal
contact what others knew, if at all, only by tradition." (13) (24,
Price, misc., & Martin, p.404)
Much more about Richard N. Price may be learned
from his unpublished manuscripts in the Emory and Henry College Library,
and his five volumes on Holston Methodism. In his autobiographical materials
he says, "From infancy I had an unusual thirst for knowledge. I first
went to my cousin Richard
Price's school in Elk Garden, soon learned to spell and did much practice.
I think I could read at the age of 4. After we moved to Washington County,
I attended a school taught by my father, and another near Saltville before
going to Emory and Henry College in the preparatory department. I began
to study Latin
at the age of 14 and later studied Greek. At Emory and Henry College I
became a member of the Calliopean Literary Society, and for some time
had my uncle William Miller and my brother Joseph as roommates. I left
Emory and Henry College in my senior year 1850 without graduating, but
later made up the delayed work with T. P. Thomas as my tutor, took a special
examination with Prof Longley, and received my A. B. Degree in 1854."
(Reference 11, autobiographical portions)
From the available evidence, it is easy to conclude
that a shocking teenage experience provided part of the thrust that propelled
Richard N. Price into his extremely dedicated and active life, as did
another experience for another man of his time, the gifted lecturer, Russell
H. Conwell. As Price refeals in his early journal at about twenty years
of age he says in essence, "In college I had many good companions,
but temporarily associated with some who were bad, became rude and wicked
and emotionally upset, and left school and the church. That year brother
John died, and I resolved to reform and start anew for heaven." Stated
in another way, he did some "reflective thinking" prior to its
emphasis by educator John Dewey, he arrived at a "definition of the
situation" prior to its emphasis by his nephew W. I. Thomas, and
he started in search of "Acres of Diamonds", or opportunities
nearby, prior to their emphasis by lecturer Russell H. Conwell. In starting
anew Richard N. Price became a young Methodist minister on trial October,
1850,at Abingdon, Virginia, and soon left for Asheville, North Carolina
with David Sullins, G. W. Alexander, and G. A. Regan under whom he had
been appointed junior preacher. He continued on and up in his church until
his last historical writing in 1912. On his first circuit in Nort
Carolina he met Ann Vance who became his wife in May, 1855. Shortly before
their wedding his journal reveals a young man once again happy and in
love with his world. In one place he said, "This the month of My
is the month of birds and flowers, of music and beauty. All the sounds
and scenes awaken in the heart emotions of gratitude towards the great
Creator." Fifty-seven years later at the age of 82 he still had a
remarkable use of words in his description of the mother of Governor Bob
Taylor of Tennessee. He said, "Her whole nature was a perpetual May
morning. Her heart, as young at sixty as at sixteen, was a veritable tropical
paradise, overflowing with sunshine, music and flowers. She was a perfect
impersonation of a joyous Christianity - She had an optimism that was
rooted in an immovable faith. In the presence of danger she was dauntless,
and she laughed in the face of adversity. She was as full of hope as a
rainbow and of energy as a dynamo. She was not only a marvel of efficiency
in the practical affairs of life, but she was by nature a poet and a dreamer,
and her ideals were as high as the heavens." (Reference 11, autobiographical
misc., & 24-V, 383)
Like W. I. Thomas, his uncle Richard had a way
with words.
At present, information is limited about the
children of Richard N. Price, but it is known that his son Vance Price,
a first cousin of W. I. Thomas, was a Methodist minister. In 1882 he served
the people of the Dickensonville Circuit in Russell County, which included
both the Copper Creek and Moccasin Valleys, and while there he had much
association with the lay leader William B. Aston and his wife, who was
Margaret Alderson and a descendant of Elder John Alderson, an early Baptist
minister from England, buried at Fincastle, Virginia. (13-24, and others)
Related Property
Owners and Businessmen
Several relatives of W. I. Thomas were substantial land owners and farm
operators. Some were merchants, and a few were money lenders before banks
were started in their localities.
His parents, T. P. and Sarah Price Thomas owned
and operated nearly 500 acres of land while they lived in Elk Garden,
Virginia, for 16 years, 1857-1873, part of which was inherited by his
mother from her father, John W. Price. There they first lived in the log
house built by the pioneer, Richard Price, which apparently was the birthplace
of W. I. Thomas, of his mother, and of her father. Later they built a
brick house which is still a residence near the Elk Garden Methodist Church.
When they moved to Tennessee, this property was sold to William Alexander
Stuart, brother of General "Jeb" Stuart, and father of Henry
C. Stuart, later Governor of Virginia and a large land owner of Elk Garden.
At the time, Henry C. Stuart was a student at Emory and Henry College,
but the Thomas house became successively his parental home and his own
for several years before he moved a mile or more southwest to another
dwelling now occupied by the widow of his nephew, Harry Stuart, a state
senator at the time of his death in Richmond, a few years ago. (Reference
7, 14, and others)
W. I.'s grandfather was Isaac Thomas who lived
mainly in Claiborne County, Tennessee, was a regular buyer of land for
several years, and apparently obtained some for his military service with
General Andrew Jackson. Although most of the Claiborne County records
have been destroyed by fire, some duplicates in the McClung Collection
of the Lawson McGhee Library in Knoxville show that Isaac Thomas made
at least twenty land purchases from 1820 to 1859. Acres were not listed,
but the amounts paid, ranged up to $5,500 per purchase, which was considerable
for that time. (9)
His grandfather John W. Price, owned about 1200
acres of lland in Russell and Washingto counties, Virginia, including
600 in Elk Garden and 600 south of Glade Spring. The latter became his
home place with the founding of Emory and Henry College a few miles west
at Emory, so his boys could take advantage of the nearby educational facilities
and services. Mr. Price farmed his lands with the use of tenants, and
some Negroes who were personal property, one of whom was an able overseer
of farm operations; so, he had or took time for many other activities,
educational, religious and economic. "He had shrewd business talent,
a capacity for utilizing the skill and industry of his workers, excellent
judgement of livestock, and high trading ability." He accumulated
some money and did some money lending. (References 7, 8, 24-IV, 331-32)
His great-grandfather Richard Price, who came
from Pennsylvania to Elk Garden, Virginia about 1770, accumulated several
thousand acres of land in southwest Virginia and east Tennessee prior
to his death in 1803. A former native of the area has said that he probably
didn't know exactly how many acres
he had. His long will recorded in the Russell County Clerk's Office in
Lebanon, Virginia, provided that his widow, Priscilla, and each of his
nine children, Hannah, Mary, Richard, Thomas, Crabtree, William, Joseph,
John Wesley, and Henry Carr, receive specified tracts of Elk Garden land.
Also the will stipulated that his children received in addition an equal
child's part of his remaining 4600 acres. Of these about 800 acres were
in three tracts in Russell County, 800 acres in one tract in Lee County,
and 3,000 acres in one tract in Knox County, Tennessee. (Ref. 7)
Coincidental and
Marginal Discoveries
W. I. Thomas was a native and a boy of the country locality of Elk Garden
in the bluegrass area of Russell County, Virginia, only seven miles east
of the courthouse town of Lebanon, where the writer was mainly reared.
Another earlier sociologist, Charles Johnson of Fisk University, was born
and reared in Bristol, less than 40 miles southwest.
The writer's study of the Lebanon, Virginia community,
published by Virginia Tech in 1843 included the Elk Garden locality as
part of the town's outlying high school service area, a brief case story
of W. I. Thomas imaginatively entitled, "A Boy and Four Wishes,"
and a hypothesis suggested at a meeting of the Southern Sociological Society
by Robert E. Park, retired Chicago sociologist who was discovered and
enticed to Chicago by Thomas. (After receiving a copy of the study, Thomas
wrote me that he "read it with great pleasure and thought it a fine
piece of work.)
The first person to make me aware of W. I. Thomas
was my close professional friend and major professor, Wilson Gee, of the
University of Virginia, who was an acquaintance and admirer of Thomas,
a co-founder of the Southern Sociological Society, and its second president.
Dwight Sanderson, my major professor at Cornell
University, his former Dean, Albert Mann, and Floyd House, one of my teachers
at the University of Virginia, all had training in Sociology at the University
of Chicago, and apparently were influenced by Thomas. It's interesting
to see that Thomas
stressed the study of social organization and that for some time at Cornell
University there was a Department of Rural Social Organization started
by Albert Mann and later directed by Dwight Sanderson, the 32nd president
of the American Sociological Society.
One of my most dynamic teachers at Emory and
Henry College was John C. Orr, a distant relative of W. I. Thomas, and
several of my fellow students there, including four Richmonds and two
Wynns, were Thomas relatives and my friends.
Several relatives of W. I. Thomas who attended
Emory and Henry College were members and officials of the Calliopean Literary
Society of which I was a member and president and recipient of two awards.
W. I. Thomas' great-grandfather, Richard Price,
who died in 1803 and my ancestor, John Tate, who died in 1828 were both
frontier settlers of the 1770's in present Russell County, Virginia, and
both were fellow justices on the county court or local governing board
for many years starting in September, 1787 after appointment by the Governor
of Virginia. Sometimes they were half of the quorum of four necessary
to conduct monthly and quarterly county affairs, and sometimes they were
writers of the proceedings in a form quite attractive and readable. Richard
Price also served in the Virginia Legislature of the 1790's as a fellow
delegate from Russell County with my ancestor Thomas Johnson. (Ref. 7
and others)
Two great-uncles of W. I. Thomas and five of
my ancestors were fellow "Gentleman Justices" for a special
session of the Russell County Court, August 2, 1825, when James P. Carrell
was appointed the second county clerk - "one of the best in Virginia,"
according to Governor David Campbell of Abingdon. W. I.'s relatives participating
in the appointment were Crabtree Price and William Price, and mine were
Col. John Tate, Rev. Ezekiel Burdine, Robert Fugate, John Jessee, Jr.,
and Benjamin Sewell. A few years later Benjamin Sewell moved to Claiborne
County, Tennessee, northeast of Knoxville, and there became a fellow justice
with Isaac Thomas, W. I.'s grandfather. (Refs. 7-9 and others)
By strange coincidence, W. I. Thomas was the
17th president to the American Sociological Society, the writer was the
17th president of the Southern Sociological Society; and, each of us had
had a relative who was a Methodist Minister for 62 years, according to
church and tombstone records. His was the outstanding Richard N. Price,
and mine was the less illustrious Ezekiel Burdine, a native of Virginia,
partly reared in South Carolina, who as a young man in early 1800 served
our church in Blacksburg, Virginia, and subsequently settled in "Russell
County."
The parents and Price grandparents of W. I. Thomas
had both black and white workers on their homesteads and observed their
relative behavior, and W. I. as a teacher in Chicago quite early presented
evidence to show that people of all races had great mental potentials.
(Ref. 24, and Sociologist Ernest W.
Burgess).
The father of W. I. Thomas, while living near
Lebanon, Virginia was an affirmative debater of women's rights, and W.
I. as a teacher in Chicago marshaled facts to show that women had equal
mental ability with men. (References, earlier Judge William Hendricks,
Lebanon, VA, and sociologist Ernest W. Burgess of Chicago.)
Ernest W. Burgess, both student and colleague
of W. I. Thomas at the University of Chicago was a teacher of Leonard
S. Cottrell, Jr., a graduate of Virginia Tech 1922, who has relatives
in Blacksburg and whose niece Fanny Apperson was one of my students and
a graduating major in Sociology. Leonard was the 40th president of the
American Sociological Association, earlier called the American Sociological
Society when W. I. Thomas was president in 1927.
From contact with evidence concerning W. I. Thomas,
and his array of relatives for 200 years or more, I have detected only
a few apparent or alleged cases of deviant behavior in terms of idealized
norms, including W. I.'s alleged case in Chicago, and I surmise this is
a normal revealed minimum to expect from so many dynamic persons. I've
found a similar number of revealed cases for my extended family members,
and other family lines.
T. P. Thomas, who became the father of W. I.
and his older brother James D., were twice recorded persons or double
statistics, in the U. S. Census of 1850. They were listed in the records
for Claiborne County, Tennessee, as members of their father's family,
and in the records for Washington County, Virginia as students at Emory
and Henry College.
W. I. Thomas was the third son and fourth child
among the seven children of his parents; his mother was the third daughter
and fifth child among the nine children of her parents; and his father
and grandfathers were among the youngest children of their parents.
W. I. Thomas was from a family of scholarly persons,
and one of three brothers who earned early Ph.D degrees. He had another
brother who earned a M. D. degree, and a sister who was scholastic head
and valedictorian of her class at former Martha Washington College in
Abingdon, Virginia.
Recently I've discovered that Fred Wygal, retired
Virginia educator, is another distant relative of W. I. Thomas. Fred has
served well in various positions, including Superintendent of Radford
City Schools, member of the Virginia State Department of Education, Dean
of Ferrum College, twice Acting President of Longwood College, and once
Acting President of Virginia Commonwealth University. And again there
are connections of Thomas relatives with the writer. Fred and I were students
together at Emory and Henry College, his sister Sue and his Uncle John
Orr were two of my teachers and now Fred
and I are members of the Virginia Methodist Commission on Higher Education.
The Important Topics
The preceeding coincidental discoveries are revealing bits of knowledge,
but they are marginal to the main part of this presentation.
The main story tells first of the talented and
dynamic W. I. Thomas, a native of Russell County, Virginia, who became
an outstanding man, an extraordinary teacher, a trail blazer in research,
and a significant contributor of social science concepts and principle
based on his profound thinking, observations, and investigations. The
main story also reveals that W. I. Thomas came from several generations
of talented and dynamic ancestors who produced numerous creative and successful
persons.
Some apparent influences back of these persons
include many of the factors affecting behavior emphasized by W. I. Thomas
as a professional sociologist, such as attitudes, values, social origins,
situations, definitions of situations, personality, culture, crises, social
organization, and the four wishes for recognition, response, security,
and new experience. Also quite evident is the on-going family and Methodist-member
emphasis on education as a concern of high rank.
References to W.
I. Thomas and His Kinfolks
1. Articles
and books by W. I. Thomas and his research associates, 1893 to the 1940's.
2. The book, Social Attitudes by Kimball Young and others
in honor of W. I. Thomas, 1931
3. The book, Social Behavior and Personality: Contribution
of W. I. Thomas to Theory and Social Research, edited by Edmund H. Volkart,
and published by the Social Science Research Council, New York, 1951.
4. The book, W. I. Thomas on Social Organization and Personality,
edited by Morris Janowitz,and published by the University of Chicago Press,
1966.
5. The book, Chicago Sociology, by Robert E. L. Faris, published
by the Chandler Publishing Co.,1967.
6. Related articles by former students and colleagues of W.
I. Thomas, in sociological journals,some of which have been abstracted
to show appraisals.
7. The records of Russell County, Virginia in the County Clerk's
Office, Lebanon, Virginia.
8. The records of Washington County, Virginia in the County
Clerk's Office, Abingdon, Virginia.
9. Some duplicate records of Claiborne County, Tennessee,
in the Lawson McGhee Library,Knoxville, Tennessee.
10. The alumni and old catalog records of the University of Tennessee
in Knoxville.
11. The papers of Richard N. Price in the Emory and Henry College
Library, Emory, Virginia.
12. The collection of Isaac P. Martin in the Emory and Henry College
Library, Emory, Virginia.
13. The Holston Conference Records of the Methodist Church in the
Emory and Henry College Library, Emory, Virginia.
14. The alumni records of Emory and Henry College, in the Emory
and Henry College Library, Emory, Virginia.
15. Family records of Dr. and Mrs. Richard G. Waterhouse, Jr., 3829
Dellwood Drive, Knoxville, Tennessee.
16. Office and tombstone records of The Old Gray Cemetery, 543 Broadway,
Knoxville, Tennessee.
17. Family records of Miss Bashi Kincaid and Miss Mary K. Stickley,
Rose Hill, Virginia.
18. Family records of Mrs. Richard Hummell, 601 Preston Avenue,
Blacksburg, Virginia.
19. Old U. S. Census records for Russell and Washington Counties,
Virginia and Claiborne County, Tennessee, in the National Archives Building,
Washington, D. C.
20. Annals of Southwest Virginia, prepared and published by Lewis
Preston Summers, Abingdon, Virginia.
21. "The Long Hunters," by Emory L. Hamilton in Historical
Sketches of Southwest Virginia. Publication No. 5, March 1970, pages 29-61.
22. The book of cemetery records of Washington County, Virginia,
called High on a Windy Hill, prepared and published by Catherine S. McConnell,
Abingdon, Virginia.
23. The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, in three volumes,
edited by J. Manning Potts and others, the Abingdon Press, Nashville,
Tennessee, 1958.
24. The history of Holston Methodism, in five volumes, written by
Richard N. Price, an uncle of W.I. Thomas, and issued by the Methodist
Publishing House, Nashville, Tennessee. Here "Uncle Richard"
tells a great deal about the Prices and W. I.'s father, T. P. Thomas and
others. (More is told in a later book on Methodism in Holston by Isaac
P. Martin)
25. "A History of the Elk Garden Methodist Church," by
William Smith, Post Office, Rosedale, Virginia (deceased November 1973)
26. The papers of Dr. James G. Johnson, University of Virginia Library,
Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Johnson, (like W. I. Thomas, was a native
of Elk Garden, Virginia) a Ph.D, University of Virginia, 1909, and Superintendent
of Schools in Charlottesville, Virginia, for 36 years. In his papers he
has mentioned relatives of W. I. Thomas, and others, and has revealed
an unusual affinity with his native locality in these words: "The
magic of Elk Garden is something that will forever be in the physical
and mental makeup of anyone who has been so fortunate as to see its beauty,
breathe its air, and yield to its charms in the plastic days of his youth."
Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia,
published by the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, Publication
8, June 1974, pages 5 to 25.
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