Stanton Wheeler Papers

Stanton Wheeler was born on September 27, 1930, in Pomona, California. He was educated at Pomona College, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1952, and subsequently earned both a master's and doctorate in sociology from the University of Washington in 1956 and 1958 respectively. In 1958, Dr. Wheeler joined the faculty of the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University, and in 1960 he took a leave of absence to serve as a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Institutes of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Oslo, Norway. Dr. Wheeler returned to Harvard in 1961 and continued there as an Assistant Professor until 1963, when he left to become an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. From 1966 to 1968, he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law and Sociology at Yale University, and in 1968 he joined the faculty of the Yale Law School as Professor of Law and Sociology, a position he held for the remainder of his career.

Stanton Wheeler was notable for being one of the first professors at an American law school who did not hold a law degree. His research and teaching interests included white collar crime, prison systems, juvenile delinquency, the sociology of law, sports law, and music law. He was the author of ten books, as well as many published articles. In addition to teaching at the Yale Law School, Dr. Wheeler also served for many years as Master of Morse College, one of Yale's undergraduate residence halls. Stanton Wheeler died on December 7, 2007, at the age of 77.