Carle Clark Zimmerman (April 10, 1897 – February 7, 1983) was an American sociologist, and an inaugural member of Harvard University's Department of Sociology.
Zimmerman's contribution to the field of sociology has been the stages of decline, corruption and social disintegration associated with the collapse of civilization.
[3][4] Both of his parents were professional school teachers, though his father eventually secured more remunerative work as a rural mail carrier.
[5] In order to make up for lost time, he enrolled in classes at the University of Missouri during the summer of 1916, where one of his professors, Luther Lee Bernard, introduced him to the discipline of sociology.
That same year, he returned to the University of Missouri to work as a secretary for the head of the sociology department, Charles A. Ellwood.
[6] In 1920, Zimmerman enrolled in North Carolina State College, where he spent three years studying with Charles C. Taylor, one of his former professors from the University of Missouri, with whom he also lived and worked during this time.
[8] Zimmerman determined to pursue his Ph.D. in 1923 and began taking classes at the University of Chicago, where he studied under Robert E. Park and Ellsworth Faris for a semester in the summer.
[14][15] Over the course of his career, he conducted fieldwork studying the family in Japan, China, Siam, Cuba, Mexico, and Europe, as well as in most of the American States.