STERN, BERNHARD JOSEPH

STERN, BERNHARD JOSEPH (1894–1956), U.S. sociologist. Born in Chicago, Stern was educated at universities in the U.S. and England and was also ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He taught at the City College in New York, the University of Washington, the New School for Social Research, and Columbia University, but failed to receive a permanent appointment because of his membership in the Communist Party. He was, however, secretary for many years of the Eastern Sociological Society and received research assignments. Stern was editor of Science and Society, a Marxist-oriented social science journal. Contrary to other Marxist social scientists in the United States, he was always outspoken about his adherence to the principles of historical materialism and his abhorrence of exploitation in any shape or form. Bearing in mind this background, his contribution to medical sociology and to the sociology of minorities is remarkable. His major books were Social Factors in Medical Progress (1927), The Family, Past and Present (1938), and Society and Medical Progress (1941). He co-edited When Peoples Meet (1942, 19462) and Outline of Anthropology (1948). His selected papers, Historical Sociology, were published posthumously in 1959. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Science and Society, 21 (1957), 1–9, 28–29, includes bibliography of his writings. (Werner J. Cahnman)