<P> To have given clear and unified answers in familiar empirical terms to those theoretical questions which most occupied men's minds at the time, and to have deduced from them clear practical directives without creating obviously artificial links between the two, was the principal achievement of Marx's theory...The sociological treatment of historical and moral problems, which Comte and after him, Spencer and Taine, had discussed and mapped, became a precise and concrete study only when the attack of militant Marxism made its conclusions a burning issue, and so made the search for evidence more zealous and the attention to method more intense . </P> <P> In the 1830s, Karl Marx was part of the Young Hegelians in Berlin, which discussed and wrote about the legacy of the philosopher, Hegel (1770--1831) (whose seminal tome, Science of Logic was published in 1816). Although, at first sympathetic with the groups strategy of attacking Christianity to undermine the Prussian establishment, he later formed divergent ideas and broke with the Young Hegelians, attacking their views in works such as The German Ideology . Witnessing the struggles of the laborers during the Industrial Revolution, Marx concluded that religion (or the "ideal") is not the basis of the establishment's power, but rather ownership of capital (or the "material") - processes that employ technologies, land, money and especially human labor - power to create surplus - value--lie at the heart of the establishment's power . This "stood Hegel on his head" as he theorized that, at its core, the engine of history and the structure of society was fundamentally material rather than ideal . He theorized that both the realm of cultural production and political power created ideologies that perpetuated the oppression of the working class and the concentration of wealth within the capitalist class: the owners of the means of production . Marx predicted that the capitalist class would feel compelled to reduce wages or replace laborers with technology, which would ultimately increase wealth among the capitalists . However, as the workers were also the primary consumers of the goods produced, reducing their wages would result in an inevitable collapse in capitalism as a mode of economic production . </P> <P> Herbert Spencer (1820--1903), the English philosopher, was one of the most popular and influential 19th - century sociologists . The early sociology of Spencer came about broadly as a reaction to Comte and Marx; writing before and after the Darwinian revolution in biology, Spencer attempted to reformulate the discipline in what we might now describe as socially Darwinistic terms . In fact, his early writings show a coherent theory of general evolution several years before Darwin published anything on the subject . Encouraged by his friend and follower Edward L. Youmans, Spencer published The Study of Sociology in 1874, which was the first book with the term "sociology" in the title . In the 1900 edition of the journal International Monthly, Franklin H. Giddings (1855--1931), the first professor of sociology at Columbia University, described it as the book that "first awakened in England, America, France, Italy and Russia a wide interest general interest" in the then fledgling discipline of sociology . In the United States, Charles Horton Cooley, stated in a 1920 article that The Study of Sociology "probably did more to arouse interest in the subject than any other publication before or since ." It is estimated that he sold one million books in his lifetime, far more than any other sociologist at the time . So strong was his influence that many other 19th century thinkers, including Émile Durkheim, defined their ideas in relation to his . Durkheim's Division of Labour in Society is to a large extent an extended debate with Spencer from whose sociology Durkheim borrowed extensively . Also a notable biologist, Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest" as a basic mechanism by which more effective socio - cultural forms progressed . Whilst many intellectuals of his day were proponents of socialism as a scientifically informed manner of steering society, Spencer was a critic of socialism and an advocate for a laissez - faire style of government . His ideas were highly observed by conservative political circles, especially in the United States and England . Although Spencer's work is rarely discussed in contemporary sociological theory, his work has been adapted and changed, and resurfaces in various contemporary forms . </P> <P> A contemporary of Spencer, Lester Frank Ward is often described as a father of American sociology and served as the first president of the American Sociological Association in 1905 and served as such until 1907 . He published Dynamic Sociology in 1883; Outlines of Sociology in 1898; Pure Sociology in 1903; and Applied Sociology in 1906 . Also in 1906, at the age of 65 he was appointed to professor of sociology at Brown University . </P>

When did sociology first took root in the united states