referring to works on classical sociological theory and other sources, one can only arrive at the conclusion that Martineau provided a conceptual framework “capable of providing an integrating paradigm for the entire field of social-psychological-cultural relations” upon which many modern social theorists have been able to put forth theories that are attuned to postmodern realities, as well. (Hutcheon 2-3). In the seminal work, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, authors note the birth of meaningful social science concurrent with Martineau’s groundbreaking social research, as they explore her attempts to “move away from subjective authorship” in order to “devise objective methods for the observation and representation of the social state” (Cooper & Murphy, p. 122). Martineau, and her contemporaries such as George Ritzer, clearly have found the means to do this through the interactionist approach.As method researchers observe, for Martineau, and her contemporary Ritzer, aesthetic considerations are as key to their method as much as scientific observation and representation. Critics have considered both Society in America, Martineau’s most widely known work which attacks the reality/rhetoric issues confronting methodological strategy and ethnocentrism, and her foundational treatise on sociological theory in data collection, How to Observe Morals and Manners. These works were born out of Martineau’s two-year empirical study of the United States, which was published in two works, Society in America and Retrospect of Western Travel in 1837 and 1838. As social theory analyst Valerie Pichanick notes, Martineau was exploring territory only later examined by the likes of Max Weber or Karl Marx in terms of observable and unobservable, subjective versus scientific issues in the construct of social class, religion, suicide, national character, women’s status, national character a...
