First published 2005 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2004058034
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heer, David M.
Kingsley Davis : a biography and selections from his writings /
David M. Heer, author and editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7658-0267-8 (cloth : alk paper)
1. Davis, Kingsley, 1908- 2. SociologistsUnited States
Bibliography. 3. Sociology. 4. Demographic transition. I. Davis,
Kingsley, 1908- II. Title.
HM479.D38A3A3 2004
301.092dc22
[B]
2004058034
ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0267-5 (hbk)
I am most indebted to Dr. Marta Seoane, widow of Kingsley Davis, for the many instances in which she has helped me during the writing of this book. In particular, I need to thank her for her assistance in allowing me access to Kingsley Daviss file as a graduate student in sociology at Harvard. Ordinarily, permission to access such a file is not granted until eighty years following the individuals receipt of his highest Harvard degree (i.e., in the case of Kingsley Davis in 2016). However, if the widow of a deceased gives permission, access is possible immediately after the individuals death. I also need to thank her for giving me the latest version of Kingsley Daviss bibliography and curriculum vitae and for the large number of reprints of his writings. Finally, I wish to thank her for her many valuable comments on the initial draft of each chapter in this book.
I am also highly indebted to Professor John Weeks of the Geography Department at San Diego State University. Professor Weeks read and commented on the draft of the entire manuscript and provided many valuable suggestions for revision.
Furthermore, I am indebted to Professor Charles Camic, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, for informing me of the possibility of obtaining Kingsley Daviss graduate file from the Harvard University archives.
I wish to thank the Emeriti College of the University of Southern California for awarding me a small grant (from funds provided by the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation) for the expense of two trips to Stanford University to inspect the Kingsley Davis archive at the Hoover Institution library. I also wish to thank Carol A. Leadenham, assistant archivist for reference at the Hoover Institution Archives, and her staff for the courtesies extended to me during my two trips.
I also wish to thank Dr. Mikhail S. Bernstam of the Hoover Institution for his suggestions with respect to my remarks concerning Julian L. Simon. Similarly, I wish to thank Maurice D. Van Arsdol, Jr., Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of Southern California, for providing me with his reminiscences of Kingsley Daviss time at the University of Southern California.
I wish to thank Blackwell Publishers for permission to reprint the following five articles from Population and Development Review : Kingsley Davis and Pietronella van den Oever, Age Relations and Public Policy in Advanced Industrial Societies; Kingsley Davis and Pietronella van den Oever, Demographic Foundations of New Sex Roles; Kingsley Davis, Wives and Work: The Sex Role Revolution and Iits Consequences; Kingsley Davis, Low Fertility in Evolutionary Perspective; and Kingsley Davis, Population and Resources: Fact and Interpretation.
With respect to the Selections from the Writings of Kingsley Davis, I wish to thank Robert Orozco, president of Choice Imaging Solutions, who reproduced all of the graphs by means of digital photography from the originals in the library of the University of California, San Diego. A few of the graphs, particularly the one on page 548, are less clear than would be ideal. However, there is no way that the reproduction could have been improved.
Finally, I am indebted to the large number of Kingsley Daviss former students who sent me their curriculum vitae so that I could prepare biographical sketches of them. Among his former students, I am particularly indebted to Beth Berkov, who also provided information concerning June Sklar and to J. Herman Blake, who also provided information concerning Katherine Fox Organski.
1
Introduction
The Legacy of Kingsley Davis
Kingsley Davis lived from 1908 to 1997. Why is it important to remember his legacy? In my opinion, we have two important reasons to remember. First is his contribution to social demography. Second is his contribution to sociology, particularly to sociological theory, the study of family and kinship, and social stratification.
Consider first his contribution to social demography. Kingsley Davis was one of the pioneers of the theory of the demographic transition (1945), which states that the process of industrialization first causes mortality to decline leading to a substantial rate of population growth and only later causes fertility to fall, leading eventually to the cessation of population growth. He was also the author of a revised and improved theory of demographic transition (1963), which outlined the changes in motivation that eventually produced fertility decline. Along with his wife, Judith Blake, he wrote an influential article in 1956 on intermediate variables affecting fertility. Moreover, he is especially to be remembered for his arresting and forceful critique of the sufficiency of family-planning programs to achieve zero population growth (1967). In the field of social demography we are indebted to him for his linguistic innovations. He coined the term zero population growth and was the first to popularize the term demographic transition and the metaphor of population explosion. Finally, Kingsley Davis is to be remembered for the very large number of prominent demographers trained under his stewardship.
However, before Kingsley Davis devoted his major attention to social demography, he had already distinguished himself as the author of several influential articles on the structure of family and kinship. The topics included jealousy and sexual property (1936), the sociology of prostitution (1937), illegitimacy (1939), parent-youth conflict (1940), and extreme social isolation as a child (1940, 1947). In his studies of family and kinship, Davis was influenced by the courses he took as a graduate student in sociology at Harvard with the noted anthropologist, W. Lloyd Warner. Indeed, his first published work in social demography, Reproductive Institutions and the Pressure for Population (1937), was written from the standpoint of his interest in family and kinship.
At Harvard graduate school, another important mentor was Talcott Parsons, then a mere instructor in the newly established sociology department. Parsons no doubt influenced Daviss early interest in a structural-functional approach to stratification. Structural-functional analysis attempts to examine the effect of each separate social institution on the survival of society as a whole. Daviss early articles on stratification included the topic of mental hygiene and the class structure (1938), and a conceptual analysis of stratification (1942). Daviss most famous and controversial article on stratification, co-authored with Wilbert Moore, appeared in 1945.
