Finding an Out-of-Print Book: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Favorite Find”

Edward Jandy’s Book: Tracking Down a Copy of Charles Horton Cooley: His Life and His Social Theory

Edward Jandy: 1899-1980

While cleaning out my mother-in-law Laurel Jandy Aird’s house following her death a few years ago, we found a copy of a book written by her father in 1942. I had never heard about Edward Jandy’s book, a biography titled Charles Horton Cooley: His Life and His Social Theory, and was curious. Another family member kept Laurel’s copy, so when we returned home, I decided to acquire a copy so our children would have their great-grandfather’s book. After some searching online, I found a copy that was in good condition for a reasonable price of $14.99. I bought it, and it has become a favorite find.

I think you can learn a lot about a person by reading their written thoughts. I have barely started reading Prof. Jandy’s book, but it has already been illuminating. In addition, finding the book prompted me to do further research on Edward, and I turned up a research paper and several book reviews on sociology texts and books that he penned. I am just beginning to understand the breadth of his research and interests.

To provide some background, Ed was born on May 22, 1899 to parents Emanuel Jandesjek and Emily Tomsche Jandesjek. The couple had immigrated to Chicago from the Bohemian area of Czechoslovakia. Ed was the second youngest of their nine children.

Money was tight for the family, particularly after Emanuel died in 1905 when Ed was only five years old. Most of Ed’s siblings left school early to start working. However, Ed chose to put himself through college—not an easy task in the early twentieth century. He began his education at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois, and completed his undergraduate degree at Coe College in Iowa. From there he pursued graduate degrees in psychology and sociology at the University of Michigan, beginning in 1927. At some point, he "Americanized" his surname from "Jandesjek" to "Jandy". 

At Michigan, he studied under Charles Horton Cooley and was greatly influenced by him.  Following Cooley's death, Ed sought and received permission to write the biography and analysis of Cooley’s sociological theory as his PhD thesis. The book was published in 1942 and reprinted in 1969.

Dr. Edward Jandy, November 1940

It is interesting to read a non-fiction book from the 1940s, noting how the genre has changed over eighty years. The language in Ed's book is a bit more flowery and more abstruse than I am used to. Of course this is partly due to the fact that the book was written as a PhD thesis with an intended audience of fellow sociology PhDs rather than the general public. The most striking difference was Ed’s insertion of his own feelings and reactions in the text using the awkward reference “the author” or "this writer"; there was less emphasis on trying to make the text appear factual and without bias. Ed’s personality and attitudes were much more apparent than in non-fiction and biographies of current times.

Title page of Ed's book, held open with an Ethiopian knife Ed brought home from his time working in Ethiopia later in his career. 

The book also shows me how the field of sociology has changed. During the period Ed was pursuing his doctorate, the leaders in the field were trying to shift the emphasis in the field of social science away from the humanities toward a true science. From what I have gleaned thus far, Ed was drawn initially to the “social” or humanities side of the field, having come from an undergrad study of philosophy. Cooley was opposed to the push for a more scientific approach, which Ed agreed with when he first started his doctorate. However, by the time he was writing his doctoral thesis, he saw the benefits of using statistics and a more scientific approach to sociological problems. The following passage from the book’s final chapter demonstrates this change in his views:

“We come now to one of the most crucial problems that Cooley ever posed. It has to do with the making of sociology into a philosophy as well as an art. However ardent a disciple the writer may be, he is frankly of the opinion that here Cooley raised as many, or more problems than he solved…[T]here are some dangers in making sociology a philosophy and also an art…a sociology of this sort may find itself spread over a tremendous surface with corresponding thinness. It may find itself speculating to no definite purpose…”

“In our time, sociology can no longer afford to be autobiographical nor can sociologists presume that their own lives afford materials enough for the science they need.”

“If the author appears to be mildly skeptical and critical of some of Cooley’s views on science and method, it is hardly because he is not basically sympathetic with them. It is rather because he feels seriously that this whole problem of sociology also taking on the role of philosophy and art is one so crucial that it needs to be worked out much more adequately than is has been up to now.”

I am so glad to have found a copy of Ed’s book and to be able to understand what drew him to the field of sociology. I look forward to learning more about his work and research.

Sources:

Charles Horton Cooley: His Life and His Social Theory. Edward C. Jandy. Copyright 1942. Reprint 1969, Octogon Books, New York.