[1] He served in the United States Navy from 1951 to 1955 before attending Reed College.
While researching his first book, Suttles moved to what became the Tri-Taylor area of Chicago's Near West Side, where he lived for three years.
[2][3] The Social Order of the Slum was published in 1968, and won the C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems that year, followed by the University of Chicago's Gordon J. Laing Award in 1970.
In 1993, the American Sociological Association bestowed upon Suttles its Robert and Helen Lynd Award for Lifetime Achievement.
[1] His "Ethnobiography," A Journey Through Social Change: From the Mountains of Western North Carolina to the Slums of Chicago, edited by Kirsten Gronbjerg, his wife, was published in 2020.