Joseph Slabey Roucek papers

Joseph R. Roucek (1902-1984) was born in Prague, Bohemia. He came to the United States in 1921 and studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA, supporting himself with work as a concert pianist, lecturer, and silent movie actor. Roucek later received his Ph.D. from New York University and taught sociology at various American, Canadian and European colleges and universities, in 1948 joining the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he spent the majority of his teaching career. He was the author of numerous books; with Francis J. Brown, he co-authored one of the pioneering works in the field, Our Racial and National Minorities; Their History, Contributions, and Present Problems (New York, 1937) and wrote, co-authored, edited or co-edited over 90 books in the fields of sociology, political science, history, education and educational sociology, regularly demonstrating an interdisciplinary approach to his subjects, including that which was later to evolve into immigration history and ethnic studies. In addition to writing numerous conference papers, articles and book reviews for some of the leading journals in their fields, he was also the founder of Delta Tau Kappa, an international social science honorary society.