William Fielding Ogburn (June 29, 1886 – April 27, 1959) was an American sociologist who was born in Butler, Georgia and died in Tallahassee, Florida.
Perhaps Ogburn's most enduring intellectual legacy is the theory of social change he offered in 1922.
[5] He suggested that technology is the primary engine of progress, but tempered by social responses to it.
Ogburn posited four stages of technical development: invention, accumulation, diffusion and adjustment.
Inventions are collective contributions to an existing cultural base that cannot occur unless the society has already gained a certain level of knowledge and expertise in the particular area.