Professor John Leggett served on the faculty of the Sociology department from 1971 to 2004. His research, teaching, and activism focused on labor-related issues, unemployment and occupational health in central NJ, and race and working-class consciousness.
Professor Leggett published several well-received books, including Taking State Power: Sources and Consequences of Political Challenge (Harper & Row); Class, Race, and Labor: Working Class Consciousness in Detroit (OUP); and the satirical The Eighteen Stages of Love (a book that he and his wife, Rutgers Historian and Women’s Studies professor, Lora Dee Garrison) developed in the Erma Bombeck comedic self-analysis genre craze of the 1980s. He was the recipient of many awards, including a Ford Foundation fellow (1954-1955) and the Rutgers Distinguished Faculty Person Award, Livingston College Association Graduates (1987). In 2011, the ASA section on Marxist sociology honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In lieu of flowers and gifts, please consider making a donation to the Rutgers Sociology Gift Fund in Memory of Professor John C. Leggett. Funds will be given to like-minded undergraduate and graduate students in his name.
Professor Leggett's obituary is available here.
