William Graham Sumner

Who was William Graham Sumner?

William Graham Sumner was a Classic Liberal American academic and "held the first professorship in sociology" at Yale College. For many years he had a reputation as one of the most influential teachers there. He was a polymath with numerous books and essays on American history, economic history, political theory, sociology, and anthropology. He is credited with introducing the term "ethnocentrism," a term intended to identify imperialists' chief means of justification, in his book Folkways. Sumner is often seen as a proto-libertarian. He was also the first to teach a course entitled "Sociology".