Dates

• Existence: January 27, 1900 - July 18, 2002

Biography

Ernest Manheim, born in Budapest in 1900, began studying sociology in Germany at the Universities of Kiel and Leipzig. As a student of Ferdinand Tonnies and Hans Freier, he received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1928 and published his Habilitationsschrift in 1933. In 1937 he earned his second Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at the London School of Economics under the direction of Bronislaw Malinowski. After a year at the University of Chicago (1937-38), Manheim became a Sociology professor at the University of Kansas City in 1938. He remains an emeritus member of the department.

As a scholar, Ernest Manheim became internationally renowned with his pioneering works in the study of public opinion, music, and social theory. In the span of his career, Manheim has written four books, edited and translated selected writings of Karl Mannheim, and published numerous articles, book chapters, and book reviews in professional journals. He has received various honors, including August Stern, Guggenheim, and Fulbright fellowships; the Thomas Jefferson Award; the Henry Haskell Professorship at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; and he has been Vice-President of the Southwest Sociological Society and president of the Midwest Sociological Society. On November 4-5, 1997, the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C., bestowed the Decoration of Honor for Science and Art to Ernest Manheim.

Ernest Manheim has also been committed to the practical application of sociological knowledge to resolve social problems in the areas of crime, juvenile delinquency and community responsibility. During his early years in Kansas City, the city government called on him to assess new social problems resulting from fathers at war, mothers at work, and children on the streets. Assessing social breakdown and increasing juvenile delinquency, Manheim founded new community youth organizations in 1940-41 that tied young people to schools, community councils and neighborhoods under special coordinators in each high school. He was also at the forefront of the battle against racial segregation. Before the U.S. Supreme Court addressed Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, Manheim testified for Brown in the Topeka State court against the ideology of racial inequality.

What truly distinguishes, Ernest Manheim is his broad interests and talents that transcend his academic career. As a craftsman, he has built his own furniture, and he has been a life-long musician and composer inspired by classical and folk music. He began to study piano with Fritz Reiner at age 5, switched to violin lessons at age 10, and also played the recorder. He composed a symphony, chorus music, madrigals, chamber music, and pieces for his grandchildren. The Volker String Quartet and the Kansas City Symphony, among others, have performed his compositions.

Ernest Manheim died July 28, 2002, in Kansas City, MO.

Source: Dr. Ernest Manheim: 1900-2002. 2003. University of Missouri-Kansas City. 5 May 2008 /cas.umkc.edu/soc/manheim.htm>.

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