Research Catalog

Title

August Vollmer : the father of American policing / Willard M. Oliver.

Author

Oliver, Willard M.

Publication

Durham, North Carolina : Carolina Academic Press, LLC, [2017]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 785 pages; 26 cm

Summary

"August Vollmer was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected town marshal and appointed police chief in American history. It was Vollmer who brought policing out of its wholly corrupt and often brutal era of politics, by professionalizing not only his own police department in Berkeley, California, but police departments across the country and around the world. He was instrumental in the creation of the polygraph machine (lie detector), patrol car radio communication systems, and, as the Los Angeles Police Chief, the first crime lab in America. His greatest legacy, however, was the higher education program he created at UC Berkeley, which developed into the disciplines of criminal justice and criminology that are so widespread today. This...biography by Willard M. Oliver, ten years in the making, is the first single-volume, full-length biography of marshal, police chief, and Professor August Vollmer. [This] book draws upon newly discovered material, interviews, and writings of Vollmer s never before used, allowing Oliver to craft a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of Vollmer's life story. This...portrait of one of policing's greatest leaders promises to reshape our understanding of both the man and his era and to rightfully restore August Vollmer as a household name."--

Subjects

• Criminologists
• College teachers
• Police
• Biographies
• California
• Criminologists > California > Biography
• College teachers > California > Biography
• Police > California > Biography
• Vollmer, August, 1876-1955

Genre/Form

Biographies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references, discography, and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue: January 16, 1904 -- Youth -- Germany to America (1869) -- New Orleans (1869-1875) -- Childhood (1876-1890) -- San Francisco (1890-1891) -- Berkeley (1891-1898) -- War (1898) -- Battle & insurgency (1898-1899) -- Police chief -- A proposition (1900-1905) -- Town marshal (1905) -- Marshal Vollmer (1905-1906) -- Earthquake (1906) -- The progressive (1906-1907) -- Police education (1907-1909) -- Police chief (1909-1910) -- Lydia (1910-1915) -- Crime lab (1916-1917) -- College cops (1917-1919) -- A national reputation (1917-1922) -- Lie detector (1921-1923) -- L.A.P.D. (1923) -- L.A. politics (1923-1924) -- The BPD (1924-1929) -- College professor -- University of Chicago (1929-1931) -- University of California at Berkeley (1931-1933) -- Author & professor (1934-1937) -- The criminologist (1937-1941) -- Retirement -- Retirement (1942-1949) -- Decline (1950-1954) -- Suicide (1955) -- Epilogue: legacy (1955+) -- Acknowledgments -- Sources -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Photo credits -- Index.

ISBN

• 9781611635591
• 1611635594

LCCN

^^2016045363

OCLC

• 970395904
• SCSB-11386564

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library