GOODE, William Josiah 1917-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born August 30, 1917, in Houston, TX; died of an abdominal blood clot May 4, 2003, in Washington, DC. Sociologist, educator, and author. Goode was a respected sociologist who was well known for his studies concerning divorce. After earning his master's degree in 1939 from the University of Texas, he was a sociology instructor at Pennsylvania State University and an analyst for the Inter-American Statistics Institute; he also served as a radar operator for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Following the war he completed his Ph.D. in sociology at Pennsylvania State University in 1946, and joined the faculty at Wayne State University during the late 1940s. From 1952 to 1977 he taught at Columbia University, where he was an associate director of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, advancing to chair of the sociology department before becoming Giddings Professor in 1975. He moved to Stanford University in 1977 and then to Harvard University in 1986, leaving in 1992 to serve as visiting professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for a year. A former president of the American Sociological Association, Goode wrote on a variety of topics but was especially recognized for his books about the sociology of divorce and the family, including After Divorce (1956; reprinted as Women in Divorce, 1965), The Family (1964; second edition, 1982), Social Systems and Family Patterns: A Propositional Inventory (1971), and World Changes in Divorce Patterns (1993); he also edited and contributed to numerous sociology publications. In 1982, in honor of his work, the American Sociological Association named a book award after him.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, May 8, 2003, p. A29.

Washington Post, May 17, 2003, p. B7.