Papers of Joseph R. Gusfield, professor of sociology and founding chair of the UC San Diego Department of Sociology. The collection includes drafts of published and unpublished writings, a small amount of correspondence and biographical materials, and planning materials for UC San Diego's Third College.

Sociologist Joseph R. Gusfield (1923-2015) was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at the University of Chicago, earning his bachelor's (1946), master's (1949), and Ph.D. degrees (1954) in sociology. He taught at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and Hobart and William Smith College before being recruited to found the sociology department at UC San Diego in 1969. Gusfield was involved with the formation of Third College at UC San Diego, serving on its provisional faculty and executive committee. Gusfield also taught in India, Japan, and France, and served as president of the Pacific Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He was known for his works on alcohol use in society, including Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (1963), The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking, Driving and the Social Order (1981), and Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems (1996).

3.2 Linear feet (8 archives boxes)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.