William Foote Whyte, June 27, 1914 - July 16, 2000 was a prominent sociologist chiefly known for his ethnological study in urban sociology, Street Corner Society. A pioneer in particpant observation, Participatory Action Research, he lived for four years in an Italian community in Boston while a Junior Fellow at Harvard researching social relations of street gangs in Boston's North End.

Whyte, from an upper middle class background, showed an early interest in writing, economics and social reform. After graduating from Swarthmore College, he was selected for the Junior Fellows program where his landmark research was done. After his research in Boston, he entered a graduate program at the University of Chicago. Street Corner Society was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1943. He a year teaching at the University of Oklahoma, but developed polio in 1943 and spend two years in rehabilitation at the Warm Springs Foundation. Rehabilitation was only partially successful; Whyte walked with two canes and arm braces for the rest of his life.

He briefly returned to the University of Chicago in 1944, then joined the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1948, remaining at Cornell for his career. He worked for social reform and social change directing his efforts toward "empowering the disenfranchized and narrowing the gap between rich and poor." He studied in industrial and rural workers' cooperatives in Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala and in the Basque region of Spain. He authored hundreds of articles and 20 books including an autobiography. He is considered a pioneer in industrial sociology.

He served as the president of the American Sociological Association in 1981 and also of the American Anthropological Association. At his death he was survived by his wife, Helen, two sons and two daughters.

Further reading

• William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum University of Chicago Press (4th edition, 1993), trade paperback, ISBN 0226895459; hardcover, University of Chicago Press (3rd edition, revised and expanded, 1981, ISBN 0226895424; earlier editions available on ABE
• William Foote Whyte, Participant Observer: An Autobiography, Cornell University Press (1994), trade paperback, ISBN 0875463258
• William Foote Whyte, Creative Problem Solving in the Field: Reflections on a Career, Rowman and Littlefield (1997), trade paperback, ISBN 0761989218; hardcover, ISBN 076198920X

External links

• photograph, a few links (http://www.asanet.org/governance/whyte.html)
• "Social Inventions for Solving Human Problems" American Sociological Association, 1981 Presidential Address (http://www.asanet.org/governance/PresidentialAddress1981.pdf)
• Salutations by colleagues upon his death (http://www.asanet.org/governance/Whyte%20Footnotes%20Sept%202000.pdf)