The United States Reception of Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method

Durkheim has not always been treated by U.S. sociology as obviously important, as the career of The Rules shows. Initially, its social realism was strongly criticized. Gradually, however, more specialized study of Durkheim was done, which led to more contextualized understandings of his work. As U.S. sociology became more empirical the character of interest in The Rules shifted; by the 1960s, it was read in the light of Suicide, then newly translated, and interpreted as an ancestor of functionalism. The meanings imputed to key ideas such as the treatment of social facts as things also shifted. It is argued that his, then newly won, status as a founding father promoted more favorable interpretation of his meanings and that various factors in the social structure of the discipline also contributed to this change.