David Sills oral history interview

1979-04-14

Sills, David; Mayo, Marlene J.

Oral history interview with David Sills conducted by Marlene Mayo on April 14, 1979. David Sills (August 24, 1920 - July 20, 2015), born in New York City, was a sociologist and author. He received his bachelor's in English Literature from Dartmouth College before enlisting with the 87th mountain infantry regiment following graduation. During the war, Sills reached the rank of second lieutenant and was also a prison officer. He stayed with the Army until 1946, when he attended Yale University for his master's in sociology. In 1947, he got a job working in Japan with the Media Research Unit of the Central Information and Education Division. While in Japan, he married another civilian employee in the Occupation, Yole Granata, in 1948. In December of 1950, the two decided to leave Japan, and then Sills received his PhD from Columbia University in 1956. He went on to have a fruitful career in sociology before retiring in 1988, having held various distinguished positions, including heading Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research and being the editor of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. In 1989, the American Sociological Association awarded him with the Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology. David Sills passed away at the age of 94 in Branford, CT.

University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

Oral histories

Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952

Japan; New York; Hastings-on-Hudson

Postwar Japan

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

Recording: 01:31:00 (audiocassette; mp3); Transcript: 35 pages (PDF)

This oral history interview is part of the Marlene J. Mayo oral histories. A guide to the full collection of Marlene J. Mayo oral histories is available in our archival collections: http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/42478.
Accession 2009-209-GWP
An interview transcript is available.

Filename: prange-087583