William Isaac Thomas was born in Russell County, Virginia, on August 13, 1863. He initially devoted himself to the study of the social effects of sexual differences , exploiting biological and sociocultural data and emphasizing the influence on behavior of factors not strictly linked to the biological substrate, such as the desire for novelty and the tendency to control. He also studied the condition of immigrants in America, but what William Thomas became famous for was his research on human behavior , with numerous studies on Polish peasants, and above all the introduction of the concept of " definition of the situation " into sociological inquiry. William Thomas also headed the Chicago School until 1918, when he was arrested and forced to resign to make way for Robert Park.
Thomas's Theorem
“ If men define certain situations as real, they will be real in their consequences .” This statement, coined in 1928 by William Thomas and Dorothy Swaine – his future wife – is the basis of what is called the “definition of the situation,” also known as Thomas’s Theorem . Contained in the work The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs , this statement by Thomas has been considered one of the most important “laws” of the social sciences, and its success is also due to its longevity. In fact, it seems that this rule is so general and abstract that it can be applied to different social contexts and in different periods. Through this assertion, William Thomas wanted to clarify the ability of groups to make the social situations they deem as such real through behavior that is appropriate to those situations. A good example of situations that men “define as real” is reported by William Thomas himself. In a country, a civil war is underway between two ethnic groups vying for political power. The same war is reflected on a small island in this country. One day the war ends, but it is not possible to quickly communicate the news to the small island, where therefore the inhabitants of the two ethnic groups, unaware of the peace that has taken place, will continue to fight each other. In this example, the men have "defined a situation as real," that is, they have behaved as if the war were not yet over, ignoring the news, and in fact they have acted accordingly, that is, they have continued to fight. Following the Thomas Theorem, Robert K. Merton developed the self-fulfilling prophecy , that is, a prophecy referring to a social situation through social action that is transformed into a social fact , fulfilling the prophecy.
William Thomas's contribution
The American sociologist's most important work is undoubtedly The Polish Peasant in Europe and America : Monograph of an Immigrant Group – 1918–1920, written in collaboration with Polish sociologist Florian Znaniecki . After the outbreak of World War I, Znaniecki left Poland and moved to Chicago, where he became Thomas's research assistant. Znaniecki thus co-authored what Lewis Coser called " the most important landmark in American sociological research ." Thomas undertook several trips to Europe to analyze the context of Eastern European immigrant groups. The initial idea was to study different nationalities, but Thomas later focused his attention solely on immigrants from Poland, who constituted the largest and most visible ethnic community in Chicago. Considered a pioneer of the biographical approach in social research, Thomas always claimed that an accident inspired him to use personal writings as primary ethnographic sources. While walking along a street near his home, Thomas was nearly hit by a garbage bag thrown from a window. The bag burst open on the sidewalk, and from inside fell a letter written by a Polish immigrant.
The Scandal of 1918
Despite the prominence he achieved with The Polish Peasant , William Thomas faced considerable criticism, not only in academic circles. First, his left-wing political views were well known, making him unpopular with the public. Second, some of his research—such as that on sexual behavior—was deemed highly controversial. Finally, he was accused of leading a bohemian lifestyle , deemed inappropriate for the image of a respectable professor. In 1918, he was arrested by the FBI under the Mann Act, which prohibited "the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes ." Thomas's arrest was believed to have served to discredit his wife, at the time a peace activist. Although Thomas was acquitted of all charges in court, his career was irreversibly damaged. The University discharged him without waiting for the outcome of the trial, with little protest from his colleagues. William Thomas died on December 5, 1947, in Berkeley, California, at the age of 84.
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