One of the things that always fascinates me is how things came to be.
Being born in 1994, I really knew nothing of how things were prior to my existence. In my early years, I always assumed everything was always that way, not knowing it took years, even decades for some things to occur.
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Today’s subject, Samuel Delbert Clark, paved the way for sociology by publishing countless books on the subject.
Clark entered the world in Lloydminster in 1910 but outgrew small-town Alberta. He spent his childhood near Streamstown before leaving the area for university.
He was off to the University of Saskatchewan, receiving his bachelor of arts in political science and history in 1930 and his master of arts in 1931.
In 1932, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science before returning to Canada in 1933.
He then earned an MA from McGill University in 1935.
He completed his PhD at the University of Toronto in 1938 and began teaching in the Department of Political Economy.
Thanks to Clark, sociology was steadily gaining respect from other scholars. It culminated in the formation of the Department of Sociology in 1963, where he served as the first chair until 1969.
He was named honorary president of the Canadian sociology and anthropology association in 1967.
His ambitions continued as he published a number of books, such as Church and Sect in Canada and The Social Development of Canada. Clark published other sociology-related works and was a strong voice for sociology in the country.
In 1975, he served for a year as the president of the Royal Society of Canada. He also received an honorary doctor of law from the University of Toronto in 1988.
Clark also received the Order of Canada in 1978, being cited as a social historian of international repute and as one of Canada’s most distinguished scholars. Very high, but deserved praise for all the effort he put into his studies and research over the years.
He died in September 2003 at the age of 93.
It’s hard to think of sociology in Canada without mentioning Clark.
It’s also amazing to see someone from our neck of the woods take to the national stage and be a leading force in this academic study.
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