The classic study of a poor community in Boston's North End in the mid-twentieth century.Street Corner Society is one of a handful of works that can justifiably be called classics of sociological research. William Foote Whyte's account of the Italian American slum he called "Cornerville"—Boston's North End—has been the model for urban ethnography for fifty years.By mapping the intricate social worlds of street gangs and "corner boys," Whyte was amo...

There is increasing recognition, even among hard-nosed agricultural scientists, that progress in technology and in the scientific fields directly related to the growth of plants is necessary but not sufficient to produce major social and economic benefits. Agricultural scientists are therefore turning to behavioral scientists for advice and collaboration; they must search together for the solutions to problems of food shortages and rural development. Through an analysis of the procedures o...

This well-researched study should be read by anyone with an interest in worker cooperatives, community economic development, and work redesign programs.― Contemporary SociologySince its founding in 1956 in Spain's Basque region, the Mondragón Corporation has been a touchstone for the international cooperative movement. Its nearly three hundred companies and organizations span areas from finance to education. In its industrial sector Mondragón has had a ric...

George William Foote, a British secularist, was convicted and imprisoned on the charge of blasphemy after founding "The Freethinker", a magazine that, despite the best efforts of the 19th Century British judicial system, is still going strong. "Prisoner for Blasphemy" is a memoir of his several trials and final imprisonment in Holloway Gaol. Although Foote's was the last prominent blasphemy case in England, his hope that the blasphemy law would soon be abolished was not to be realised unti...

Maps for Family and Local History shows how three great land surveys can provide information on ancestral homes, as well as fascinating historical snapshots of specific areas. Covering 1836 to 1943, the Tithe, Valuation Office, and National Farm Surveys provide a wealth of information on rural and urban localities, on dwellings, settlements, and landscapes as well as the status of householders. The text gives the rationale behind the surveys and covers each in detail. Fully update...

Twenty years ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, but soon spent itself like a straw fire. Then arose the Salvation Army, doing the same kind of work, and indulging in the same vagaries. These were imitations of the antics of the cruder forms of Methodism. Even the all-night meetings of the Whitechapel Salvationists, ten years ago, were faint copies of earlier Methodist gatherings, especially of those in Cornwall, which were described by the Rev. Richard Polwhele. “At. St. A...

A fascinating book by famous atheist George William Foote, founder of the secular humanist magazine ‘The Freethinker’. In it he lays out his views on various Biblical stories, such as the Creation story, the Tower of Babel, Noah and the Flood, and many more.

The Archbishop of York is peculiarly qualified to speak on religion and progress. His form of thanksgiving to the God of Battles for our "victory" in Egypt marks him as a man of extraordinary intellect and character, such as common people may admire without hoping to emulate; while his position, in Archbishop Tait's necessitated absence from the scene, makes him the active head of the English Church. Let us listen to the great man. Archbishop Thomson recently addressed "a working-men's mee...

During the fierce controversy between the divines of the Protestant Reformation and those of the Roman Catholic Church, the latter asserted that the former treated the Bible--and treated it quite naturally--as a wax nose, which could be twisted into any shape and direction. Those who championed the living voice of God in the Church, against the dead letter of the written Bible, were always prone to deride the consequences of private judgment when applied to such a large and heterogeneous v...

The Book of Genesis is generally thought, as Professor Huxley says, to contain the beginning and the end of sound science. The mythology of the Jews is held to be a divine revelation of the early history of man, and of the cosmic changes preparatory to his creation. The masses of the people in every Christian country are taught in their childhood that God created the universe, including this earth with all its flora and fauna, in five days; that he created man, "the bright consummate flowe...

The Freethinker, founded in 1881 was one of the first secular humanist magazines, and also one of the oldest surviving one, moving online only in 2014. It was founded by G. W. Foote, who was its chief editor for 34 years and stated the magazine's purpose as The Freethinker is an anti-Christian organ, and must therefore be chiefly aggressive. It will wage relentless war against superstition in general, and against Christian superstition in particular. It will do its best to employ the resou...

English literature has its Comic Histories, its Comic Grammars, its Comic Geographies, and its Comic Law-Books, and Carlyle once prophesied that it would some day boast its Comic Bible. Tough as the fine old Sage of Chelsea was, he predicted this monstrosity with something of the horror a barbarian might feel at the thought of some irreverent fellow deliberately laughing at the tribal fetish. But what shocked our latter-day prophet so greatly in mere anticipation has partially come to pass...