[1][2] His parents were Carolina Adelaide "Lena" Duhring and Edward Digby Baltzell, an insurance broker.
[3] His paternal grandfather was Henry Eaton Baltzell of Baltimore, Maryland and Wyncote, Pennsylvania.
[9][10] Unable to afford Harvard or Yale or Princeton, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, paying for his tuition with a scholarship and worked at Franklin Field where he collected tickets, ushered, and parked cars.
[18] During World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a naval aviator and air combat intelligence officer in the Pacific theater.
You couldn't share the hardships, the dangers and boredom with people of all races and backgrounds and then turn around and exclude them from opportunities to which they were entitled.
[8][9] Baltzell realized that his background made him different from others in the field of sociology which was dominated by people from the middle class.
[9] He decided to write his dissertation on the American upper class, and "for the rest of his life remained the world’s foremost authority on it.
"[9] Baltzell's developed his class theory from Max Weber and Alexis de Tocqueville, rejecting a Marxist framework.
"[14] In his most influential book, The Protestant Establishment (1964), he asserted, "…While socialist faiths might aim for a classless society, the United States stressed equality of opportunity in an open class system.
[5] In the 1960s, Baltzell stated, "The existing elites must assimilate talented black leaders into a national aristocracy.
"[8] Frank Furstenberg, a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor, said, "He felt the best of WASP culture represented the best virtues to which everyone could aspire: honor, hard work, respect, authority.
[5][14] Baltzell was the Danforth Fellow at the Society for Religion in Higher Education of the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1967 to 1968.