William Isaac Thomas (1863 - 1947), was an American sociologist.
According to an anecdote told by Thomas himself, it was a complete accident that inspired him to use personal written material as an ethnographic source and to develop the biographic approach in sociology, which would later establish his lasting reputation in sociology. While walking down a street near his home in Chicago, Thomas was almost hit by a garbage bag which had been thrown out of a window. The bag burst open and Thomas discovered a letter in it, which he curiously picked up to discover it was written by a Polish woman immigrant. He spent the next years collecting both oral reports and written materials in the Chicago Polish community and its country of origin. He utilised a variety of documents ranging from newspaper reports, archives of organisations, to personal letters and diaries, which he acquired by placing advertisements in the Chicago Polish-language press - offering, e.g., 10 to 20 cents per letter sent from Poland.
Thomas theorem: “If men define situations as real they are real in their consequences”. 如果人定義情境為實，則結果為實。 [Thomas, William I.; Thomas, Dorothy: The Child in America (Alfred Knopf, 1929, 2nd ed., p. 572)]
Thomas's Situational Analysis - http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Thomas/THOMASW6.HTML
related: situation
Related school
Related persons
.