William Lloyd Warner was born on October 26, 1898 in Redlands, California. He began his career at the University of California-Berkeley and majored in anthropology. He went on to Harvard University from 1925-1935 for graduate school while teaching at both Harvard and Radcliffe. Warner used anthropology for ways to research American Society and its class structure. He divided social classes by three distinct groups which were called, lower, middle, and upper with each class divided again into a lower and an upper.
Warner spent many years as a professor teaching anthropology and sociology to students from 1935 to 1959 in Chicago and then the rest of his life at Michigan State University. In the field of sociology he was considered one of the best and used the research methods he learned from cultural anthropology to apply them to contemporary social problems.
There have been many publications with Warner's discoveries in them. Some of these publications include Democracy in Jonesville (1949). It was a study in equality and inequality, and Social Class in America, which has instructions for the measurement of social study. His basic conclusions are laid out in American Life: Dream and Reality. The Living and the Dead, is a study of the symbolic behavior of Americans and considered one of his most important works. "Warner's studies of the social class systems within American society became a model for administrators of governmental and institutional programs," (Encyclopedia Britannica 2003).
References:
"Warner, W Lloyd." Biography.com <http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=20516> 07 Mar, 2003
"Warner, W Lloyd." Encyclopedia Britannica, 2003 Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service.
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9076122>. 07 Mar, 2003
Written by Ryan Selly, 2003
Edited by Marcy L. Voelker, 2007