Herbert Blumer

Herbert George Blumer was an American sociologist whose main scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methods of social research. Believing that individuals create social reality through collective and individual action, he was an avid interpreter and proponent of George Herbert Meads social psychology, which he labelled symbolic interactionism. Blumer elaborated and developed this line of thought in a series of articles, many of which were brought together in the book Symbolic Interactionism. An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that the creation of social reality is a continuous process. Blumer was also a vociferous critic of positivistic methodological ideas in sociology.

Blumer was born March 7, 1900 in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, with his parents. He moved to Webster Groves with his family in 1905 onto a farm, but his father commuted to St. Louis every day to run a cabinetmaking business. Blumer attended Webster Groves High School and later the University of Missouri from 1918 to 1922. Herbert Blumer was constantly being grounded in the world of economics and labor, insofar as having to drop out of high school to help his fathers woodworking shop. Moreover, during the summer, Blumer worked as a roustabout to pay for his college education. While studying undergraduate at the University of Missouri, Blumer was fortunate enough to work with Charles Ellwood, a sociologist, and Max Meyer, a psychologist.

Source: Wikipedia