Samuel Delbert Clark

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Samuel Delbert Clark (24 February 1910 – September 18, 2003) was a Canadian sociologist.

Born in Lloydminster, Alberta, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and history in 1930 and a Master of Arts degree in 1931 from the University of Saskatchewan. From 1932 to 1933, he studied at the London School of Economics. In 1935, he received a Master of Arts degree from McGill University and a Ph.D. in 1938 from the University of Toronto. In 1943, he was awarded a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

In 1938, he started teaching at the University of Toronto in the Department of Political Economy. In 1963, he help found the Sociology department and served as the first chair until 1969. He retired in 1976.

As a sociologist, Clark became known for studies interpreting Canadian social development as a process of disorganization and re-organization on a series of economic frontiers. His scholarship won him acceptance at a time when Canadian academics were still skeptical of the new discipline of sociology. Under Clark’s direction, a series on the Social Credit movement produced 10 monographs by Canadian scholars. In the 1960s, Clark’s interest shifted to contemporary consequences of economic changes, especially suburban living and urban poverty.

Clark’s publications – mainly books -- include The Canadian Manufacturers Association (1939), The Social Development of Canada (1942), Church and Sect in Canada (1948), Movements of Political Protest in Canada (1959), The Developing Canadian Community (1962), The Suburban Society (1966), Canadian Society in Historical Perspective (1976) and The New Urban Poor (1978).

In 1978, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada as "social historian of international repute and, as one of our most distinguished scholars". ^[1] A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he also served as its president from 1975 to 1976. He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. He was also awarded the J.B. Tyrrell Historical Medal in 1960.

[edit] Selected bibliography

• The Canadian Manufacturers Association (1939)
• The Social Development of Canada (1942)
• Church and Sect in Canada (1948)
• Movements of Political Protest in Canada (1959)
• The Developing Canadian Community (1962)
• The Suburban Society (1966)
• Canadian Society in Historical Perspective (1976)
• The New Urban Poor (1978)

[edit] References

• In memoriam: Professor Emeritus Samuel Delbert (Del) Clark. University of Toronto. Retrieved on May 31, 2006.
• Dennis William Magill and William Michelson, editors, Images of Change. Toronto: Canada Scholars' Press 1999. [history of Department of Sociology, University of Toronto]