Portal:Society

The Society Portal

A society (/səˈsaɪəti/) is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members.

Human social structures are complex and highly cooperative, featuring the specialization of labor via social roles. Societies construct roles and other patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts acceptable or unacceptable—these expectations around behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. So far as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis.

Societies vary based on level of technology and type of economic activity. Larger societies with larger food surpluses often exhibit stratification or dominance patterns. Societies can have many different forms of government, various ways of understanding kinship, and different gender roles. Human behavior varies immensely between different societies; humans shape society, but society in turn shapes human beings. (Full article...)

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To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World is an open letter written on February 24, 1836, by William B. Travis, commander of the Texian forces at the Battle of the Alamo, to settlers in Mexican Texas. On February 23, the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, had been besieged by Mexican forces led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna. Fearing that his small group of men could not withstand an assault, Travis wrote this letter seeking reinforcements and supplies from supporters. The letter was initially entrusted to courier Albert Martin, who carried it to Gonzales and then handed the letter to Launcelot Smithers. Partially in response to the letter, men from throughout Texas and the United States began to gather in Gonzales. Between 32 and 90 of them reached the Alamo before it fell; the remainder formed the nucleus of the army which eventually defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. After the Texas Revolution, the original letter was delivered to Travis's family in Alabama, and in 1893, one of his descendants sold it to the State of Texas. For many decades it was displayed at the Texas State Library; the original letter is now protected and a copy is on display under a portrait of Travis.

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Credit: Artist: Ethel McClellan Plummer; Restoration: Lise Broer

The cover to the June 1914 issue of Vanity Fair, an American magazine published from 1913 to 1936 by Condé Montrose Nast, the first of many published by his company Condé Nast Publications. Nast purchased a men's fashion magazine titled Dress in 1913 and renamed it Dress, and Vanity Fair. In 1914, the title was shortened to Vanity Fair. During its run, it competed with The New Yorker as the American establishment's top culture chronicle and featured writing by Thomas Wolfe, T. S. Eliot, P. G. Wodehouse, and Dorothy Parker. However, it became a casualty of the Great Depression and declining advertising revenues, and it was folded into Vogue in 1936. In 1983, Condé Nast revived the title as a new publication.

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Did you know...

... that Japanese flying ace Kaneyoshi Muto was compared to the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi?
... that people's preferred walking speed is correlated with their country's per capita GDP and purchasing power parity?
... that the celebration of the Dodoleglime festival by the Ve people of Ghana (pictured) commemorates the escape, through a town wall hole, of their ancestors from a tyrant king in Togo?

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3 March 1920 - A bill to constitute the Indian Red Cross Society, Independent of the British Red Cross, was introduced in the Indian Legislative Council
4 March 1970 - After 167 years of male-only membership, the first female members of the Demosthenian Literary Society were inducted
12 March 1888 - Death of Henry Bergh (pictured), founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
25 March 1973 - First admission of women into the Friar Society

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As long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it.

”

— R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (1921)

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Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890–1998) was an American journalist, writer, feminist, and environmentalist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, Douglas became a freelance writer, producing over a hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass, which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp; its impact has been compared to that of the influential 1962 book Silent Spring. Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, which she used to advance her causes. Douglas lived until age 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration. Upon her death, an obituary in The Independent in London stated, "In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas." (Full article...)

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1913 – Woodrow Wilson's Address to the American Indians

Woodrow Wilson's address on the affairs of American Indians, "The great white father now calls you his brothers". The speech recognised the wrongs of the past and the injustices inflicted on the Native Americans and was a formal apology by Wilson to the Native Americans.

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Definition of Society from the OED.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Industrial Revolution
"The Day the World Took Off" Six part video series from the University of Cambridge tracing the question "Why did the Industrial Revolution begin when and where it did."
BBC History Home Page – Industrial Revolution
National Museum of Science and Industry website – machines and personalities
Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living by Clark Nardinelli - the debate over whether standards of living rose or fell.

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