Between Sumner and Galton: A Further Look at Albert Galloway Keller’s Sociology

Abstract

Largely forgotten today, Albert Galloway Keller was one of the foremost sociologists of his time. A brilliant scholar and a staunch disciple of William Graham Sumner, Keller spent his entire academic career at Yale, first as a student and then as Professor of the Science of Society, the chair formerly held by his mentor. The main coordinates of Keller’s sociology are to be found in his major work, Societal Evolution (1915), where he sought to apply Charles Darwin’s mechanism of variation, selection, and transmission to Sumner’s general scheme. Although Keller gave priority to social variables, his evolutionary sociology retained many elements of the typically Progressive Era preoccupations with heredity and the biological quality of individuals. The aim of this paper is to examine in some detail Keller’s views on eugenics and related issues, and to assess whether and to what extent these biologically deterministic elements played a role in his Darwinian approach to institutional change.