Robert Morrison MacIver

Robert Morrison MacIver was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland on April 17, 1882, to Donald MacIver, a general merchant and tweed manufacturer, and Christina MacIver (née Morrison). His father was a Calvinist,{{cite journal|last1=Hughes|first1=Everett C.|title=Book Review: As a Tale That Is Told: The Autobiography of R. M. MacIver. R. M. MacIver|date=1914-04-01|publisher=The School Review |url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-1076674|doi=10.1086/224621}} specifically, Scottish Presbyterian.{{cite book|last1=Bierstedt|first1=Robert|title=American Sociological Theory: A Critical History|date=September 24, 2013|publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-1-4832-7330-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gYOLBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA243 |access-date=30 September 2016}} On 14 August 1911 he married Elizabeth Marion Peterkin. They had three children: Ian Tennant Morrison, Christina Elizabeth, and Donald Gordon.

He received degrees from the University of Edinburgh (M.A. 1903; D.Ph. 1915), the University of Oxford (B.A. 1907), and Columbia University (Litt.E. 1929) and Harvard (1936). In his rather long period of formal education, he had never made any academically supervised study of sociology. His work in that field was distinguished by his acumen, his philosophical understanding, and extensive study of the major pioneering works of Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl, Simmel and others in the British Museum Library in London,Obituary by Mirra Komarovsky, [http://www.asanet.org/about-asa/asa-story/asa-history/past-asa-officers/past-asa-presidents/robert-m-maciver-obituary The American Sociologist, February 1971.] while resident as a student in Oxford.

He was a university Lecturer in Political Science (1907) and sociology (1911) at the University of Aberdeen. He left Aberdeen in 1915 for a post at the University of Toronto where he was Professor of Political Science and later Head of department from 1922 to 1927. MacIver was vice chairman of the Canada War Labor Board from 1917 to 1918. In 1927 he accepted an invitation from Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, where he became professor of Social Science from 1927 to 1936. He was subsequently named Lieber Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Columbia University and taught there from 1929 to 1950. He was president of The New School for Social Research from 1963 until 1965. During these years, he was the founder of the School's Center for New Your City Affairs. He became chancellor in 1966.Obituary by Mirra Komarovsky, [http://www.asanet.org/about-asa/asa-story/asa-history/past-asa-officers/past-asa-presidents/robert-m-maciver-obituary The American Sociologist, February 1971.]

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He was a member of the American Sociological Society, and was elected as its 30th President in 1940.[https://web.archive.org/web/20080828092254/http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/governance/past_officers/presidents_by_date asanet] He was a member of the Institut International de Sociologie and of Phi Beta Kappa.

In the 1950s, MacIver was activist at Boris Gourevitch's the Union for the Protection of the Human Person.{{Cite news |date=1964-04-06 |title=Boris Gourevitch Is Dead at 74; Author Was Worker for Peace |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/06/archives/boris-gourevitch-is-dead-at-74-author-was-worker-for-peace.html |access-date=2022-09-30 |issn=0362-4331}} Among its activities, with Albert Simard, in 1955, the three signed a letter addressed to South Africa on equality.{{Cite book |last=Gourevitch |first=Boris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3BVFAQAAIAAJ&q=cordial%20wishes |title=The Road to Peace and to Moral Democracy: An Encyclopedia of Peace |date=1955 |publisher=International Universities Press |page=1532 |language=en}}

• Community: A Sociological Study, (1917)
• [https://archive.org/details/laborinchanging00macigoog Labor in the Changing World], (1919)
• Elements of Social Science, (1921)
• The Modern State, (1926)
• Relation of Sociology and Social Work, (1931)
• Society 1st Edition (textbook), (1931)
• Economic Reconstruction, (1934)
• Towards an Abiding Peace, (1935)
• Society 2nd Edition (textbook), (1937)
• [https://archive.org/details/leviathanpeople0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up Leviathan and the People], (1939)
• Social Causation, (1942)
• Foreword to Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944)
• [https://archive.org/details/webofgovernment0000rmma The Web of Government], (1947)
• The More Perfect Union (1949)
• The Ramparts We Guard (1950)
• [https://archive.org/details/pursuitofhappine013177mbp The Pursuit of Happiness A Philosophy For Modern Living] (1955)
• [https://archive.org/details/SocietyAnIntroductoryAnalysis1959R.M.Maciver Society 3rd Edition (textbook)], With Charles Page, (1959)
• The Nations and the United Nations (1959)
• Life: Its Dimensions and its Bounds (1960)
• The Challenge of The Passing Years (1962)
• Power Transformed (1964)
• The Prevention and Control of Delinquency (1966)
• As a Tale That Is Told: The Autobiography of R. M. MacIver (1968)

Entry in: A Dictionary of Sociology, George Marshall (Ed.), 1998, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-280081-7}}

Curriculum vitae provided by MacIver to the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches in 1950, in box 428.11.01.1 of the archives of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland (http://library.oikoumene.org/en/home.html)

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Category:1882 births

Category:1970 deaths

Category:American sociologists

Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh

Category:Academics of the University of Aberdeen

Category:Presidents of the American Sociological Association

Category:The New School faculty

Category:Columbia University faculty

Category:Academic staff of the University of Toronto

Category:Canadian sociologists

Category:Scottish sociologists

Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society