“Acting as a switchboard”: Mrs. Ethel Sturges Dummer’s role in sociology

Mrs. Ethel Sturges Dummer played a significant role in sociology in the interwar period, although this has been largely forgotten; that is probably due to our lack of a name for what she did, combined with the fact that despite a high level of “professional” activity she never held a paid job. Although she was an exceptional individual, consideration of her case draws attention to the need to take into account, in writing the history of sociology, the important contributions sometimes made by people who did not bear the job title “sociologist.”