Book excerpt: The writings in this volume highlight Hughes's contributions to the sociology of work and professions; race and ethnicity; and the central themes and methods of the discipline. Hughes was the first sociologist to pay sustained attention to occupations as a field for study and wrote frequently and searchingly about them. Several of the essays in this collection helped orient the first generation of Black sociologists, including Franklin Frazier, St. Clair Drake, and Horace Cayton.