| Sumner, William Graham |
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Social critic (1840-1910) |  |
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Sumner grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of a working-class English immigrant. After graduating from Yale University in 1863, he studied for the ministry and eventually became a priest in the Protestant Episcopal church. In 1872, however, he left the ministry and returned to Yale as professor of political and social science. He quickly became a popular teacher known for his provocative ideas, rigorous intellectual standards and staunch moral conviction. He continued teaching at Yale until his death almost forty years later. |
 | | William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), Yale social sci | | © 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin |
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In his lectures and writings, Sumner became one of the leading proponents of laissez-faire economics and Social Darwinism, opposing all government efforts to regulate business or to combat social inequality. As one historian summarized this worldview, "Inequality, expressed in the ability of some men to accumulate substantial wealth by frugal living and hard work, was for him the mainspring of material progress in a society of open competition." He criticized welfare programs for foolishly disrupting this rightful stratification and unfairly burdening what he called "the forgotten man," the autonomous citizen who worked hard and pulled his own weight.
SOURCES: Encyclopedia of American Biography; Webster's American Biographies; Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. |
