Once Merton was admitted to Harvard, Sorokin took him on as a research assistant, and by Merton's second year they were publishing together. While at Harvard, Merton spent much of his time reading essays by Emile Durkheim. Merton was also influenced by such thinkers as George Sarton, Pitirim Sorokin, Talcott Parsons, and L.J. Henderson. While attending Harvard University, Merton took a course in theory, which was taught by the young Talcott Parsons, still working through his ideas for what would become his 1937 work, The Structure of Social Action. The encounter with Parsons indeed proved to deepen Merton's thought of sociology (Calhoun 2003).
One of his earliest essays, Social Structure and Anomie (1938) was written and published during The Great Depression. The distress of this time appears to have forged and shaped a solid convention in the mind of Merton. The Great Depression era was a time Merton got a chance to realize the imbalance of power and means of achieving success. During the Great Depression, business was poor and many people were out of work. Many people lost everything they had, including their homes, most settled into what are known as Hoovervilles for shelter. What was once the land of opportunity now became the land of desperation (Sutton, 2004). At the same time, many wealthy individuals were not affected by The Great Depression in any way. In fact, about 40% of the population was not affected by the fall of the economy or the failing stock market (Bernanke 1995 p.119). It was during this era of desperation and imbalance of power that Merton pieced together his theory of anomie. While forming his theory of anomie, the United States was going through other numerous changes.
Coupled with the disaster of The Great Depression, the U.S. was also experiencing a huge incursion of immigrants. At this time, Merton also realized that certain groups of people were more likely to be able to attain the American Dream than others.
