George Herbert Mead (27 February 1863 - 26 April 1931)
Mead was born in South Hedley, Massachusetts. After studies at Oberlin College, Ohio he worked as a geodesist for many years. From 1887 he continued his studies in psychology and philosophy in Harvard, Leipzig and Berlin. In 1891 he returned to the USA, where he first taught at the University of Michigan and then at the University of Chicago from 1984. Almost all of his works were edited from the estate after his death. Mead’s estate in the Archive represents one of the most important contributions to the theory of social behaviour in sociology which it owes to the establishment of so-called “symbolic interactionism”. The complete estate is available on microfilm in the Archive. The originals can be found in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, Department of Special Collections. The copies were acquired with the help of Anselm Strauss and financed by the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation. An index is available.