C. Wright Mills
| C. Wright Mills | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Charles Wright Mills August 28, 1916 Waco, Texas |
| Died | March 20, 1962 (aged 45) West Nyack, New York |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin (BA, MA); University of Wisconsin–Madison (PhD) |
| Occupation | Political sociologist |
| Known for |
The Power Elite White Collar The Sociological Imagination |
Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills was published widely in popular and intellectual journals, and is remembered for several books, among them The Power Elite, which introduced that term and describes the relationships and class alliances among the U.S. political, military, and economic elites; White Collar, on the American middle class; and The Sociological Imagination, where Mills presents a model of analysis for the interdependence of subjective experiences within a person's biography, the general social structure and historical development.
Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post-World War II society, and advocated public and political engagement over disinterested observation. Mills' biographer, Daniel Geary, writes that Mills' writings had a "particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s." It was Mills who popularized the term "New Left" in the U.S. in a 1960 open letter, Letter to the New Left.
Charles Wright Mills was born in Waco, Texas on August 28, 1916 and lived in Texas until he was twenty-three years old. His father, Charles Grover Mills, worked as an insurance salesman while his mother, Frances Wright Mills, stayed at home as a housewife. His father moved to Texas from his home state of Florida, whereas his mother and maternal grandparents were all born and raised in Texas. His family moved constantly when he was growing up and as a result, he lived a relatively isolated life with few continuous relationships. Mills spent time living in the following cities (in order): Waco, Wichita Falls, Fort Worth, Sherman, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. He graduated from Dallas Technical High School in 1934.
Mills initially attended Texas A&M University but left after his first year and subsequently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in philosophy. By the time he graduated, Mills had already been published in the two leading sociology journals in the U.S., the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology.
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