Abstract
The article concentrates on the historical context of American sociology's development in the period between 1930 and 1965, which is here associated with a specific project of the field's unification elaborated at Harvard University and Columbia University. It is argued that the idea of unified sociology is worked in the very project of American sociology as a science and found its genuine expression in the efforts to reach "objectivity and coherence" of sociological thought/knowledge.
It also distinctly formed the professional identity of the discipline. It was expected that the scientific integrity would be achieved by means of securing the continuity of theory and practice, which was to provide a general methodological pillar for cumulative research.
The historical contextualization of this formative period studies how the very idea of unified sociology affected both theoretical and methodological perspectives within the discipline and also the possibility of its integrated research agenda.