William Graham Sumner

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1840 and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, he studied at Yale and later continued his education in Europe before entering the Episcopal ministry. He went on to join Yale's faculty in 1872, where he taught political and social science for decades and became one of the most influential teachers associated with the early development of sociology in the United States.

His work ranged across economics, history, politics, and social theory. He argued strongly for free markets, limited government, and individual responsibility, and he became widely known as an American advocate of ideas often linked to Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism. Among his best-known books are What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, The Challenge of Facts, and Folkways.

He was also an outspoken public intellectual, criticizing imperialism as well as many reform movements he believed overreached. Whether readers agree with him or not, his books offer a vivid look at major arguments about liberty, inequality, society, and the role of the state in late nineteenth-century America.