Albion Woodbury Small (May 11, 1854 - 1926) founded the first Department of Sociology in the USA at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois in 1892. He was influential on the establishment of sociology as an valid field of academic study.

Small was the son of Albion K. Parris and Thankful Lincoln Woodbury. He was born in Buckfield, Maine. He studied theology from 1876 to 1879 at the Andover Newton Theological School. From 1879 to 1881 he studied at the Germany history, social economics and social politics.

He taught for some years at Colby College, Waterville in Maine. From 1888 to 1889 he studied history at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and was promoted in 1889 with a Ph.D. thesis about "The Beginnings of American Nationality.", at the same time continuing teaching at Colby College.

In 1892 he founded the first Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. He chaired this department for over 30 years. In 1895 he established the American Journal of Sociology. From 1905 to 1925 he served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature at the University of Chicago.

His works include:

• General Sociology (1905)
• Adam Smith and Modern Sociology (1907)
• and Between Eras: From Capitalism to Democracy (1913)

See also

• Emile Durkheim
• Florian Znaniecki

• List of liberal thinkers