Howard Washington Odum

Howard Washington Odum (May 24, 1884 – November 8, 1954) was a white American sociologist and author who researched African-American life and folklore. Beginning in 1920, he served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, founding the university press, the journal Social Forces, and what is now the Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, all in the 1920s. He also founded the university's School of Public Welfare, one of the first in the Southeast.

With doctorates in psychology and sociology, he wrote extensively across academic disciplines, influencing several fields and publishing three novels in addition to 20 scholarly texts.

Early life

Born in 1884 in Bethlehem, Georgia, Howard W. Odum's parents, William Pleasants and Mary Ann (Thomas) Odum, encouraged his pursuit of education. He attended local schools through high school.

Odum graduated from Emory University in 1904. Working as a teacher, he collected material on Black folk lore and songs for two dissertations while completing his master's at University of Mississippi. He received his first doctorate, in psychology, at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he studied with G. Stanley Hall. He received his second doctorate, in sociology, at Columbia University. While at Columbia, he studied with Franklin Henry Giddings, focusing on race. Both of his two dissertations on Black studies were published: the first was on religious traits in folk songs, and the second was on Black social life.

Career

He authored the 1929 social science methods textbook An Introduction to Social Research.