Daniel Bell Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Daniel Bell

Born	(1919-05-10)May 10, 1919 New York City, New York, United States
Died	January 25, 2011(2011-01-25) (aged 91) Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Alma mater	City College of New York Columbia University
Known for	Post-industrialism
Scientific career
Fields	Sociology
Institutions	University of Chicago, Columbia University, Harvard University
Doctoral students	Mustafa Emirbayer
Influences	Karl Polanyi

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Daniel Bell (born May 10, 1919 – died January 25, 2011) was an important American thinker, writer, and professor. He taught at Harvard University. Bell is most famous for his ideas about the "post-industrial society." Many people called him one of the top American thinkers after World War II. His three most well-known books are The End of Ideology, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.

Biography
Scholarship
Personal life
See also

Biography

Early life

Daniel Bell was born in 1919 in New York City. He grew up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His parents, Benjamin and Anna Bolotsky, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. They worked in the clothing industry.

Daniel's father passed away when he was only eight months old. He grew up in poverty, living with his mother and older brother Leo. They often stayed with relatives. When he was 13 years old, his family changed their last name from Bolotsky to Bell.

Education

Bell went to Stuyvesant High School. He earned his first college degree from the City College of New York in 1938. He then continued his studies at Columbia University from 1938 to 1939.

He later earned his PhD in sociology from Columbia in 1961. For his PhD, he was allowed to use his book, The End of Ideology, instead of a traditional long research paper.

Career

Daniel Bell started his career as a journalist. He was a managing editor for The New Leader magazine from 1941 to 1945. Later, he worked as a labor editor for Fortune from 1948 to 1958. He also co-edited The Public Interest magazine with his college friend Irving Kristol.

In the late 1940s, Bell taught social sciences at the University of Chicago. He then became a sociology professor at Columbia University (1959–1969). After that, he taught at Harvard University until he retired in 1990.

Bell was recognized for his work by many groups. He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1964. He also joined the American Philosophical Society in 1978. He was a visiting professor at Cambridge University in 1987.

He also helped the U.S. government. He was part of the President's Commission on Technology in 1964–1965. He also served on the President's Commission on a National Agenda for the 1980s in 1979.

Bell received special degrees from many universities. These included Harvard, the University of Chicago, and fourteen other U.S. universities. He also got degrees from universities in Scotland and Japan. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sociological Association in 1992. In 1995, the French government gave him the Tocqueville Award.

Daniel Bell once described himself in a unique way. He said he was "a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture." This means he had different views on money, government, and traditions.

Scholarship

Daniel Bell is most famous for his ideas about post-industrialism. His most important books are The End of Ideology (1960), The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973). Two of his books were listed among the 100 most important books of the second half of the 20th century.

The End of Ideology

In his 1960 book, The End of Ideology, Bell suggested something important. He believed that old, big ideas about how society should work were fading away. These ideas came from the 1800s and early 1900s. He thought new, smaller ideas would soon appear.

Bell argued that as countries became richer and offered more support to people, big revolutionary movements would lose their appeal. Working-class people would no longer be drawn to groups trying to completely change democracy.

The Coming of Post-Industrial Society

In his 1973 book, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, Bell described a new type of society. He called it the post-industrial society. He thought this new society would be driven by information and services. Bell believed it would take the place of the industrial society.

Bell said a post-industrial society has three main parts:

It shifts from making goods to providing services.
New industries based on science become very important.
New groups of skilled experts rise to power.

Bell also explained how data, information, and knowledge are different. Data is raw facts about the world. Information is when you organize data into meaningful patterns. Knowledge is using information to make smart decisions.

The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Bell talked about a problem in modern capitalism. He argued that people in the 20th century were encouraged to want instant fun and buy many things. This is called consumerism.

However, the economy still needed people to work hard and be productive. Bell saw this as a conflict. He divided society into three areas: culture, economy, and politics.

Bell worried that as governments provided more social support, people would demand more instant pleasures. At the same time, the government still needed a strong economy to grow. He believed these clashing demands put a lot of stress on the government. This stress led to economic problems and political unrest in the 1970s.

Personal life

Daniel Bell was married three times. His first two marriages ended in divorce. In 1960, he married Pearl Kazin. She was a scholar who studied literature.

Bell had a son named David Bell. David is a history professor at Princeton University. Daniel's daughter, Jordy Bell, was a teacher and academic administrator. She taught U.S. Women's history before she retired in 2005.

Daniel Bell passed away at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 25, 2011.

Daniel Bell facts for kids

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