

Edward Alsworth Ross

Edward Alsworth Ross (December 12, 1866–1951) was a Marxist sociologist, eugenicist, and major figure of early criminology in the United States.

Ross's understanding of Americanization and assimilation bore a striking resemblance to that of another Wisconsin professor, Frederick Jackson Turner. Like Turner, Ross believed that American identity was forged in the crucible of the wilderness. The 1890 census proclamation that the frontier had disappeared, then, posed a significant threat to America's ability to assimilate the mass of immigrants who were arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe. In 1897, just four years after Turner had presented his frontier thesis to the American Historical Association, Ross, still a professor at Stanford, argued that the loss of the frontier destroyed the machinery of the melting pot process.

Ross supported the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, even as he acknowledged its bloody origins, and was a member of the Dewey Commission, which cleared Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow Trials.

Books By:

Books About:

See Also: