Citation

Hart H. Am. J. Sociol. 1946; 52(2): 112-122.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1946, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/219958

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study presents twelve different series of statistical data, in which growth previous to 1928 conformed very closely to logistic trends. In seven of these, the great depression brought statistically significant departures from previous trends, with no clearly established post-depression trend; in five series, two or more successive logistic trends are shown. Of the nine series inaugurated before 1915, five maintained their logistic trends during World War I. The hypothesis is suggested that human culture develops through a series of growth surges, which tend to conform to logistic or Gompertz trends and that various sociological phenomena can be understood and dealt with successfully only if viewed as space-time configurations in which parts are mathematical functions of wholes.