C. Wright Mills - Biography

Biography

Mills was born in Waco, Texas on August 28 1916. His family moved consistently when he was growing up and as a result, he lived a relatively isolated life with limited continuous relationships. Mills graduated from Dallas Technical High School in 1934. He initially attended Texas A&M University but left after his first year and subsequently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939. By the time he graduated Mills had already been published in the two leading sociology journals in the U.S., the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology.

While studying at Texas Mills met his first wife, Dorothy Helen Smith who was also a student there. After their marriage in 1937 Dorothy Helen, or "Freya," worked to support the couple while Mills completed his graduate work, and typed and copy edited much of his work including his Ph.D. dissertation.

Mills received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1942. His dissertation was entitled "A Sociological Account of Pragmatism: An Essay on the Sociology of Knowledge." Mills left Wisconsin in early 1942 upon being appointed professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 1945, Mills moved to New York after securing a research associate position at Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research. Mills separated from Freya with the move, and the couple were divorced in 1947. Mills was appointed assistant professor in the university's sociology department in 1946.

In the mid-1940s while still at Maryland, Mills began contributing 'journalistic sociology' and opinion pieces to intellectual journals such as The New Republic, The New Leader, and Politics, the journal established by Mills friend Dwight Macdonald in 1944.

1946 saw publication of From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, a translation of essays by Weber co-authored with one of Mills' mentors and friends at Wisconsin, Hans Gerth. In 1953 the two published a second work, Character and Social Structure: The Psychology of Social Institutions

In 1947 Mills married his second wife Ruth Harper, a Bureau of Applied Social Research statistician who worked with Mills on New Men of Power (1948), White Collar (1951), and The Power Elite (1956). Mills and Harper separated in 1957 and divorced in 1959.

Mills married his third wife, Yaroslava Surmach, an American artist of Ukrainian descent, in 1959. Mills had one child with each of his wives: Pamela (with Freya), Kathryn (with Ruth), and artist Nikolas (with Yaroslava).

Mills suffered from a series of heart attacks throughout his life and his final attack lead to his death on March 20 1962.