Frank Tannenbaum (March 4, 1893 – June 1, 1969) was an Austrian-American historian, sociologist and criminologist, who made significant contributions to modern Mexican history during his career at Columbia University.

In January 1914, Tannenbaum, then 21 years old and a member of the IWW-affiliated Waiter's Industrial Union, proposed a campaign of demanding relief from New York City churches.

On March 4, Tannenbaum led a group of unemployed workers from Rutgers Square to the Catholic St. Alphonsus Church on West Broadway.

[5][6] Emma Goldman described his arrest and imprisonment in her memoirs, Living My Life (1931): We all had loved Frank for his wide-awakeness and his unassuming ways.

[4] A notable student at Columbia was Robert J. Alexander, who went on to become professor of history at Rutgers University, specializing in the trade union movement in Latin America and dissident communist political parties.

Randall Jr., and Herbert W. Schneider with his essays "The Coordinate State" and "The Balance of Power in Society," published in his book of the same title.

[4] His conception of the "Dramatization Of Evil" led to the further development of the symbolic interactionist labeling theory, widely used in both sociology and social psychology.

Townsend places Tannenbaum's theoretical thought within the theory of "Symbolic Interactionism," whose perspective emphasizes "individual levels of interaction, began to emerge spearheaded by the writings of George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley," which formed the basis of Societal Reaction theories of which Tannenbaum's form part.