William Graham Sumner – Social DarwinistSumner was the follower of Darwin's ideas and the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. He is considered a vigorous and influential social Darwinist in America. He was a professor at Yale College. He developed the concepts of Folkways, diffusion and ethnocentrism. He's not as great as Spencer but his ideas were bold enough to be recognized. He had three important roles in the development of American thought: he was a great Puritan preacher, exponent of the classical pessimism of Ricardo and Malthus, assimilator and popularizer of evolution. He was able to build a bridge between the economic ethics set in motion by the Reformation and the thought of the 19th century. William Graham Sumner came from a family of hard workers. He grew up in an environment where he was taught to respect Protestant economic virtues. Hard work and efficient use of money lead to success. After reading Illustration of Political Economy written by Harriet Marti, he learned about the wage fund doctrine and other theories associated with it. His understanding of capital, labor, money and trade was based on the book Illustration of Political Economy. He has published books such as Earth Fame, The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over, The Forgotten Man, Folkways and others. His intellectual ideas were broadcast through the columns of popular newspapers and from the lecture platform, he waged a holy war against reformism, protectionism, socialism and government interventionism. Sumner was greatly influenced by Spencer's ideas. Spencer's ideas about creating a systematic science of society after his graduation were not clear to him. However, Spencer's proposals helped Sumner solve the problems and issues that a middle-class man faces in such a system. He attacked democracy but had no sympathy for plutocracy. He was about to resign from Yale because of his argument with President Porter over the excessive use of The Study of Sociology as a textbook. He never became weak despite many critics. The Republican press and Yale Republican alumni were fighting for his dismissal from Yale. Folkways was some of his best work, but the ideas presented in Folkways were never reconciled with the rest of his thinking. Folkways were considered the product of natural forces as evolutionary growths. Works Cited: Porter, Duncan M. and Graham, Peter W. The Portable Darwin. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.Bowler, Peter J. Evolution: The Story of an Idea. London: University of California Press, 1989.