Fromthe New Yorker
from The New Yorker
January 11, 1999
ANNALS OF SOCIETY
Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg
She's a grandmother, she lives in a
big house in Chicago, and you've never
heard of her. Does she run the world?
by Malcolm Gladwell
1.
rhinestone-studded glasses Cindy Mitchell first met Lois
that make her big eyes look
twenty-three years ago,
Everyone who knows Lois positively enormous. "I have when she bundled up her
Weisberg has a story about no idea why I asked you to baby and ran outside into
meeting Lois Weisberg, and come here, I have no job for one of those frigid Chicago
although she has done you," Lois told Wendy winter mornings because
thousands of things in her Willrich when Willrich went some people from the
life and met thousands of to Lois's office in downtown Chicago Park District were
people, all the stories are Chicago a few years ago for an
about to cart away a
pretty much the same. Lois interview. But by the end of beautiful sculpture of Carl
(everyone calls her Lois) is the interview Lois did have a von Linné from the park
invariably smoking a job for her, because for Lois across the street. Lois
cigarette and drinking one of
meeting someone is never just
happened to be driving by at
her dozen or so daily cups of
about meeting someone. If the time, and, seeing all the
coffee. She will have been up
she likes you, she wants to commotion, she slammed on
until two or three the recruit you into one of her her brakes, charged out of
previous morning, and up grand schemes -- to sweep you
her car -- all five feet of her -
again at seven or seven-
up into her world. A while - and began asking Cindy
thirty, because she hardly back, Lois called up Helen questions, rat-a-tat-tat:
seems to sleep. In some Doria, who was then working "Who are you? What's going
accounts -- particularly if for someone on Chicago's city
on here? Why do you care?"
the meeting took place in council, and said, "I don't By the next morning, Lois
the winter -- she'll be have a job for you. Well, I had persuaded two Chicago
wearing her white, fur-
might have a little job. I need
Tribune reporters to
topped Dr. Zhivago boots someone to come over and interview Cindy and turn the
with gold tights; but she may
help me clean up my office." whole incident into a cause
have on her platform tennis By this, she meant that she célèbre, and she had
shoes, or the leather jacket had a big job for Helen but recruited Cindy to join an
with the little studs on it, or
just didn't know what it was
organization she'd just
maybe an outrageous piece yet. Helen came, and, sure started called Friends of the
of costume jewelry, and, enough, Lois got her a big job.
Parks, and then, when she
always, those huge,
found out that Cindy was a
young mother at home who and lawyers and politicians who wrote for my paper."
was too new in town to have
and activists and
Pause. "I said, 'Do you know
many friends, she told her, environmentalists, and once, anyone in Chicago
"I've found a friend for you. on a whim, she opened a interested in talking to
Her name is Helen, and she
secondhand-jewelry store
Arthur Clarke?' He said,
has a little boy your kid's named for her granddaughter 'Yeah, Isaac Asimov is in
age, and you will meet her Becky Fyffe, and every step of
town. And this guy Robert,
next week and the two of the way Lois has made friends
Robert...Robert Heinlein.'
you will be best friends." and recruited people, and a So they all came over and sat
That's exactly what
great many of those people in my study." Pause. "Then
happened, and, what's more,
have stayed with her to this they called over to me and
Cindy went on to spend ten day. "When we were doing the
they said, 'Lois' -- I can't
years as president of Friends
jazz festival, it turned out -- remember the word they
of the Park. "Almost surprise, surprise -- that she used. They had some word
everything that I do today was buddies with Dizzy for me. It was something
and eighty to ninety per cent
Gillespie," one of her friends about how I was the kind of
of my friends came about recalls. "This is a woman who
person who brings people
because of her, because of cannot carry a tune. She has together."
that one little chance no sense of rhythm. One night
meeting," Cindy says. Tony Bennett was in town, This is in some ways the
"That's a scary thing. Try to
and so we hang out with Tony
archetypal Lois Weisberg
imagine what would have Bennett, hearing about the old
story. First, she reaches out
happened if she had come days with him and Lois."
to somebody -- somebody
by five minutes earlier."
outside her world. (At the
Once, in the mid-fifties, on a time, she was running a
It could be argued, of whim, Lois took the train to drama troupe, whereas
course, that even if Cindy New York to attend the World
Arthur C. Clarke wrote
hadn't met Lois on the street
Science Fiction Convention science fiction.) Equally
twenty-three years ago she and there she met a young important, that person
would have met her writer by the name of Arthur responds to her. Then
somewhere else, maybe a C. Clarke. Clarke took a shine
there's the fact that when
year later or two years later to Lois, and next time he was
Arthur Clarke came to
or ten years later, or, at in Chicago he called her up. Chicago and wanted to meet
least, she would have met "He was at a pay phone," Lois
someone Lois came up with
someone who knew Lois or recalls. "He said, 'Is there Isaac Asimov. She says it
would have met someone anyone in Chicago I should was a fluke that Asimov was
who knew someone who meet?' I told him to come over
in town. But if it hadn't been
knew Lois, since Lois to my house." Lois has a Asimov it would have been
Weisberg is connected, by a throaty voice, baked hard by someone else. Lois ran a
very short chain, to nearly half a century of nicotine, and
salon out of her house on
everyone. Weisberg is now she pauses between sentences
the North Side in the late
the Commissioner of to give herself the opportunity
nineteen-fifties, and one of
Cultural Affairs for the City for a quick puff. Even when the things that people
of Chicago. But in the course
she's not smoking, she pauses
remember about it is that it
of her seventy-three years anyway, as if to keep in was always, effortlessly,
she has hung out with actors
practice. "I called Bob integrated. Without that
and musicians and doctors Hughes, one of the people salon, blacks would still
have socialized with whites all know a Lois Weisberg type,
Lois, it must be said, did not
on the North Side -- though
we don't know much about set out to know everyone.
it was rare back then, it the Lois Weisberg type. Why "She doesn't network for the
happened. But it didn't is it, for example, that these sake of networking," says
happen by accident: it few, select people seem to Gary Johnson, who was
happened because a certain know everyone and the rest of
Lois's boss years ago, when
kind of person made it us don't? And how important she was executive director of
happen. That's what Asimov
are the people who know the Chicago Council of
and Clarke meant when they
everyone? This second Lawyers. "I just think she
said that Lois has this thing
question is critical, because has the confidence that all
-- whatever it is -- that once you begin even a cursory
the people in the world,
brings people together.
examination of the life of whether she's met them or
someone like Lois Weisberg not, are in her Rolodex
2.
you start to suspect that he or
already, and that all she has
she may be far more to do is figure out how to
Lois is a type -- a important than we would ever
reach them and she'll be
particularly rare and
have imagined -- that the able to connect with them."
extraordinary type, but a people who know everyone, in
type nonetheless. She's the some oblique way, may Nor is Lois charismatic -- at
type of person who seems to
actually run the world. I don't
least, not in the way that we
know everybody, and this mean that they are the sort think of extroverts and
type can be found in every who head up the Fed or public figures as being
walk of life. Someone I met General Motors or Microsoft, charismatic. She doesn't fill
at a wedding (actually, the but that, in a very down-to-
a room; eyes don't swivel
wedding of the daughter of earth, day-to-day way, they toward her as she makes her
Lois's neighbors, the
make the world work. They entrance. Lois has frizzy
Newbergers) told me that if I
spread ideas and information.
blond hair, and when she's
ever went to Massapequa I They connect varied and thinking -- between her
should look up a woman isolated parts of society. coffee and her cigarette --
named Marsha, because Helen Doria says someone she kneads the hair on the
Marsha was the type of high up in the Chicago top of her head, so that by
person who knew
government told her that Lois
the end of a particularly
everybody. In Cambridge, is "the epicenter of the city difficult meeting it will be
Massachusetts, the word is administration," which is the standing almost straight up.
that a tailor named Charlie right way to put it. Lois is far
"She's not like the image of
Davidson knows everybody. from being the most the Washington society
In Houston, I'm told, there important or the most doyenne," Gary Johnson
is an attorney named Harry powerful person in Chicago. says. "You know, one of
Reasoner who knows But if you connect all the dots
those people who identify
everybody. There are that constitute the vast you, take you to lunch, give
probably Lois Weisbergs in apparatus of government and you the treatment. Her
Akron and Tucson and Paris
influence and interest groups social life is very different.
and in some little town in in the city of Chicago you'll When I bump into her and
the Yukon Territory, up by end up coming back to Lois she says, 'Oh, we should
the Arctic Circle. We've all again and again. Lois is a catch up,' what she means is
met someone like Lois connector.
that someday I should go
Weisberg. Yet, although we
with her to her office, and
we'd go down to the snack lady who sold jewelry," Lois Chinese food. They could eat
bar and buy a muffin and said. "She was a person out of
it seven days a week. So
then sit in her office while Dickens. She was bedraggled. Sandra brought this man
she answered the phone. For
She had a houseful of cats. But
over here. His name was Shi
a real treat, when I worked she knew how to buy jewelry,
Young. He was a graduate
with her at the Council of and I wanted her to teach me.
student at the Art Institute
Lawyers she would take me I met her whole circle of of Chicago." Shi Young lived
to the dining room in the friends, all these old gay men with Lois and her family for
Wieboldt's department
who had antique stores. Once
two years, and during that
store." Johnson is an old-
a week, we would go to the time Chicago was in the
school Chicago intellectual Salvation Army." Lois was midst of political turmoil.
who works at a fancy law arguably the most important Harold Washington, who
firm and has a corner office civic activist in the city. Her would later become the first
with one of those husband was a judge. She black mayor of the city, was
Midwestern views in which, lived in a huge house in one of
attempting to unseat the
if you look hard enough, you
Chicago's nicest
remains of the Daley
can almost see Nebraska, neighborhoods. Yet somehow political machine, and Lois's
and the memory of those she managed to be plausible house, naturally, was the site
lunches at Wieboldt's seems
as a flea-market peddler to a of late-night, top-secret
to fill him with delight. bunch of flea-market
strategy sessions for the pro-
"Now, you've got to peddlers, the same way she Washington reformers of
understand that the
managed to be plausible as a Chicago's North Side. "We'd
Wieboldt's department store
music lover to a musician like
have all these important
-- which doesn't exist Tony Bennett. It doesn't people here, and Shi Young
anymore -- was a notch matter who she's with or what
would come down and
below Field's, where the she's doing; she always listen," Lois recalls. "I didn't
suburban society ladies have
manages to be in the thick of think anything of it." But Shi
their lunch, and it's also a things. "There was a woman I
Young, as it turns out, was
notch below Carson's," he knew -- Sandra -- who had a going back up to his room
says. "There was a kind of kid in school with my son
and writing up what he
room there where people Joseph," Lois told me. Lois heard for the China Youth
who bring their own string has a habit of telling stories Daily, a newspaper with a
bags to go shopping would that appear to be tangential circulation in the tens of
have a quick lunch. This was
and digressive but, on millions. Somehow, in the
her idea of a lunch out. reflection, turn out to be improbable way that the
We're not talking Pamela parables of a sort. "She helped
world works, a portal was
Harriman here."
all these Asians living uptown.
opened up, connecting
One day, she came over here Chicago's North Side reform
In the mid-eighties, Lois and said there was this young
politics and the readers of
quit a job she'd had for four
Chinese man who wanted to the China Youth Daily, and
years, as director of special meet an American family and that link was Lois's living
events in the administration
learn to speak English better room. You could argue that
of Harold Washington, and and was willing to cook for his
this was just a fluke -- just as
somehow hooked up with a room and board. Well, I'm it was a fluke that Isaac
group of itinerant peddlers always eager to have a cook, Asimov was in town and that
who ran the city's flea and especially a Chinese cook,
Lois happened to be driving
markets. "There was this because my family loves by when Cindy Mitchell
came running out of her letters finally arrived at the students on their attitudes
apartment. But sooner or stockbroker's house Milgram you'll find out that this is an
later all those flukes begin to
could look at the roster of illusion, and that what
form a pattern.
names and establish how friends really tend to have in
closely connected someone common are activities.
3.
chosen at random from one We're friends with the
part of the country was to people we do things with,
In the late nineteen-sixties, another person chosen at not necessarily with the
a Harvard social
random in another part. people we resemble. We
psychologist named Stanley Milgram found that most of don't seek out friends; we
Milgram conducted an the letters reached the simply associate with the
experiment in an effort to stockbroker in five or six people who occupy the same
find an answer to what is steps. It is from this physical places that we do:
known as the small-world experiment that we got the People in Omaha are not, as
problem, though it could concept of six degrees of a rule, friends with people
also be called the Lois separation.
who live in Sharon,
Weisberg problem. It is this:
Massachusetts. So how did
How are human beings That phrase is now so familiar
the packets get halfway
connected? Do we belong to
that it is easy to lose sight of
across the country in just
separate worlds, operating how surprising Milgram's five steps? "When I asked an
simultaneously but
finding was. Most of us don't intelligent friend of mine
autonomously, so that the have particularly diverse how many steps he thought
links between any two groups of friends. In one well-
it would take, he estimated
people, anywhere in the known study, two
that it would require 100
world, are few and distant? psychologists asked people intermediate persons or
Or are we all bound up living in the Dyckman public-
more to move from
together in a grand, housing project, in uptown Nebraska to Sharon,"
interlocking web? Milgram's
Manhattan, about their closest
Milgram wrote. "Many
idea was to test this question
friend in the project; almost people make somewhat
with a chain letter. For one ninety per cent of the friends similar estimates, and are
experiment, he got the lived in the same building, surprised to learn that only
names of a hundred and and half lived on the same five intermediaries will -- on
sixty people, at random, who
floor. In general, people chose
the average -- suffice.
lived in Omaha, Nebraska, friends of similar age and Somehow it does not accord
and he mailed each of them
race. But if the friend lived with intuition."
a packet. In the packet was down the hall, both age and
the name and address of a race became a lot less The explanation is that in
stockbroker who worked in important. Proximity
the six degrees of separation
Boston and lived in Sharon, overpowered similarity.
not all degrees are equal.
Massachusetts. Each person Another study, involving When Milgram analyzed his
was instructed to write his students at the University of experiments, for example,
name on a roster in the Utah, found that if you ask he found that many of the
packet and send it on to a
someone why he is friendly chains reaching to Sharon
friend or acquaintance who with someone else he'll say followed the same
he thought would get it that it is because they share asymmetrical pattern.
closer to the stockbroker. similar attitudes. But if you Twenty-four packets
The idea was that when the actually quiz the pairs of reached the stockbroker at
his home, in Sharon, and or co-workers), and you Maura, who was my
sixteen of those were given worked backward from each roommate because she had
to him by the same person, a
person until you could worked with a writer named
clothing merchant whom identify who was ultimately Sarah L., who was a college
Milgram calls Mr. Jacobs. responsible for setting in friend of my friend Jacob.
The rest of the packets were
motion the series of No Jacob, no Sarah S. In
sent to the stockbroker at connections which led to that fact, when I go down my list
his office, and of those the friendship. Imet my oldest of forty friends, thirty of
majority came through just friend, Bruce, for example, in them, in one way or another,
two men, whom Milgram first grade, so I'm the lead back to Jacob. My
calls Mr. Brown and Mr. responsible party. That's easy.
social circle is really not a
Jones. In all, half of the I met my college friend Nigel circle but an inverted
responses that got to the because he lived down the hall
pyramid. And the capstone
stockbroker were delivered in the dormitory from Tom, of the pyramid is a single
to him by these three people.
whom I had met because in person, Jacob, who is
Think of it. Dozens of my freshman year he invited responsible for an
people, chosen at random me to play touch football. overwhelming majority of
from a large Midwestern Tom, then, is responsible for my relationships. Jacob's
city, sent out packets Nigel. Once you've made all full name, incidentally, is
independently. Some went the connections, you will find Jacob Weisberg. He is Lois
through college
the same names coming up Weisberg's son.
acquaintances. Some sent again and again. I met my
their packets to relatives. friend Amy when she and her
This isn't to say, though,
Some sent them to old friend Katie came to a that Jacob is just like Lois.
workmates. Yet in the end, restaurant where I was having
Jacob may be the capstone
when all those idiosyncratic dinner. I know Katie because of my pyramid, but Lois is
chains were completed, half she is best friends with my the capstone of lots and lots
of the packets passed friend Larissa, whom I know of people's pyramids, and
through the hands of Jacobs,
because I was told to look her
that makes her social role
Jones, and Brown. Six up by a mutual friend, Mike different. In Milgram's
degrees of separation A., whom I know because he experiment, Mr. Jacobs the
doesn't simply mean that went to school with another clothing merchant was the
everyone is linked to friend of mine, Mike H., who person to go through to get
everyone else in just six used to work at a political to the stockbroker. Lois is
steps. It means that a very weekly with my friend Jacob. the kind of person you
small number of people are No Jacob, no Amy. Similarly, I
would use to get to the
linked to everyone else in a met my friend Sarah S. at a stockbrokers of Sharon and
few steps, and the rest of us
birthday party a year ago also the cabaret singers of
are linked to the world because she was there with a Sharon and the barkeeps of
through those few.
writer named David, who was
Sharon and the guy who
there at the invitation of his gave up a thriving career in
There's an easy way to agent, Tina, whom I met orthodontics to open a small
explore this idea. Suppose through my friend Leslie, vegetarian falafel hut.
that you made a list of forty
whom I know because her
people whom you would call
sister Nina is best friends with
4.
your circle of friends (not my friend Ann, whom I met
including family members through my old roommate
There is another way to look
except that Tjaden then went 2.85075 score. John Wayne
at this question, and that's back and performed an even made a hundred and eighty-
through the popular parlor more heroic calculation, three movies in his fifty-year
game Six Degrees of Kevin figuring out what the average career and still ranks only a
Bacon. The idea behind the degree of connectedness was hundred and sixteenth, at
game is to try to link in
for everyone in the database. 2.7173. What sets someone
fewer than six steps any Bacon, it turns out, ranks only
like Meredith apart is his
actor or actress, through the
six hundred and sixty- eighth.
range. More than half of
movies they've been in, to Martin Sheen, by contrast, can
John Wayne's movies were
the actor Kevin Bacon. For be connected, on average, to Westerns, and that means
example, O. J. Simpson was
every other actor, in 2.63681 he made the same kind of
in
"Naked
Gun"
with
steps, which puts him almost movie with the same kind of
Priscilla Presley, who was in
six hundred and fifty places actors over and over again.
"The Adventures of Ford higher than Bacon. Elliott Burgess Meredith, by
Fairlane" with Gilbert Gould can be connected even contrast, was in great
Gottfried, who was in more quickly, in 2.63601. movies, like the Oscar-
"Beverly Hills Cop II" with Among the top fifteen are winning "Of Mice and Men"
Paul Reiser, who was in people like Robert Mitchum, (1939), and in dreadful
"Diner" with Kevin Bacon. Gene Hackman, Donald movies, like "Beware! The
That's four steps. Mary Sutherland, Rod Steiger, Blob" (1972). He was
Pickford was in "Screen Shelley Winters, and Burgess nominated for an Oscar for
Snapshots" with Clark Meredith.
his role in "The Day of the
Gable, who was in "Combat
Locust" and also made TV
America" with Tony
Why is Kevin Bacon so far commercials for Skippy
Romano, who, thirty-five behind these actors? Recently,
peanut butter. He was in
years later, was in "Starting in the journal Nature, the four "Rocky" movies, and
Over" with Bacon. That's mathematicians Duncan
also played Don Learo in
three steps. What's funny Watts and Steven Strogatz Godard's "King Lear." He
about the game is that published a dazzling
was in schlocky made- for-
Bacon, although he is a fairly
theoretical explanation of TV movies, in B movies that
young actor, has already connectedness, but a simpler pretty much went straight to
been in so many movies with
way to understand this video, and in pictures
so many people that there is
question is to look at who considered modern classics.
almost no one to whom he Bacon is. Obviously, he is a lot
He was in forty-two dramas,
can't be easily connected. younger than the people at the
twenty-two comedies, eight
Recently, a computer top of the list are and has adventure films, seven
scientist at the University of
made fewer movies. But that action films, five sci-fi films,
Virginia by the name of accounts for only some of the five horror flicks, five
Brett Tjaden actually sat difference. A top-twenty Westerns, five
down and figured out what person, like Burgess Meredith,
documentaries, four crime
the average degree of made a hundred and fourteen
movies, four thrillers, three
connectedness is for the movies in the course of his war movies, three films noir,
quarter million or so actors career. Gary Cooper, though, two children's films, two
and actresses listed in the starred in about the same romances, two mysteries,
Internet Movie Database: he
number of films and ranks one musical, and one
came up with 2.8312 steps. only eight hundred and animated film. Burgess
That sounds impressive, seventy-eighth, with a
Meredith was the kind of
actor who was connected to then, Lois was living in a big B.P.I. she became concerned
everyone because he
house on Chicago's near about the fact that Chicago's
managed to move up and North Side, and on Friday parks were neglected and
down and back and forth nights people from the Paper crumbling, so she gathered
among all the different gathered there for editorial together a motley collection
worlds and subcultures that meetings. William Friedkin, of nature lovers, historians,
the acting profession has to who went on to direct "The civic activists, and
offer. When we say, then, French Connection" and "The housewives, and founded
that Lois Weisberg is the Exorcist," was a regular, and the lobbying group Friends
kind of person who "knows so were the attorney Elmer of the Parks. Then she
everyone," we mean it in Gertz (who won parole for became alarmed on
precisely this way. It is not Nathan Leopold) and some of
discovering that a commuter
merely that she knows lots the editors from Playboy, railroad that ran along the
of people. It is that she which was just up the street. south shore of Lake
belongs to lots of different People like Art Farmer and Michigan -- from South
worlds.
Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Bend to Chicago -- was
Gillespie and Lenny Bruce about to shut down, so she
In the nineteen-fifties, Lois would stop by when they were
gathered together a motley
started her drama troupe in in town. Bruce actually lived collection of railroad
Chicago. The daughter of a in Lois's house for a while. enthusiasts and
prominent attorney, she was
"My mother was hysterical environmentalists and
then in her twenties, living about it, especially one day commuters, and founded
in one of the suburbs north when she rang the doorbell South Shore Recreation,
of the city with two small and he answered in a bath thereby saving the railroad.
children. In 1956, she towel," Lois told me. "We had
Lois loved the railroad buffs.
decided to stage a festival to
a window on the porch, and "They were all good friends
mark the centenary of he didn't have a key, so the of mine," she says. "They all
George Bernard Shaw's window was always left open wrote to me. They came
birth. She hit up the for him. There were a lot of from California. They came
reclusive billionaire John D.
rooms in that house, and a lot
from everywhere. We had
MacArthur for money. ("I go
of people stayed there and I meetings. They were really
to the Pump Room for didn't know they were there." interesting. I came this
lunch. Booth One. There is a
Pause. Puff. "I never could close" -- and here she held
man, lurking around a pillar,
stand his jokes. I didn't really
her index finger half an inch
with a cowboy hat and dirty,
like his act. I couldn't stand all
above her thumb -- "to
dusty boots. It's him.") She the words he was using."
becoming one of them."
invited William Saroyan and
Instead, though, she became
Norman Thomas to speak Lois's first marriage -- to a the executive director of the
on Shaw's legacy; she put on
drugstore owner named Chicago Council of Lawyers,
Shaw plays in theatres Leonard Solomon -- was a progressive bar
around the city; and she got
breaking up around this time,
association. Then she ran
written up in Life. She then so she took a job doing public
Congressman Sidney Yates's
began putting out a relations for an injury-
reëlection campaign. Then
newspaper devoted to Shaw,
rehabilitation institute. From her sister June introduced
which mutated into an there, she went to work for a her to someone who got her
underground alternative
public-interest law firm called
the job with Mayor
weekly called the Paper. By B.P.I., and while she was at Washington. Then she had
her flea-market period. and dusty furniture and weird
"Star something," she said.
Finally, she went to work for
bric-a- brac, such as a "'Star...Star Trek'! Nichelle
Mayor Daley as Chicago's collection of four hundred was Lieutenant Uhura!"
Commissioner of Cultural antique egg cups. She was
Affairs.
wearing bluejeans and a 5.
flowery-print top and she was
If you go through that smoking Carlton Menthol On a sunny morning not
history and keep count, the 100s and cooking pasta and long ago, Lois went to a little
number of worlds that Lois
holding forth to her son Joe café just off the Magnificent
has belonged to comes to on the subject of George Mile, in downtown Chicago,
eight: the actors, the writers,
Bernard Shaw, when she to have breakfast with
the doctors, the lawyers, the
started talking about Burgess Mayor Daley. Lois drove
park lovers, the politicians, Meredith. "He was in Chicago
there in a big black Mercury,
the railroad buffs, and the in a play called 'Teahouse of a city car. Lois always drives
flea-market aficionados.
the August Moon,' in 1956," big cars, and, because she is
When I asked Lois to make she said, "and he came to see
so short and the cars are so
her own list, she added my production of 'Back to big, all that you can see
musicians and the visual Methuselah,' and after the when she drives by is the top
artists and architects and play he came up to me and of her frizzy blond head and
hospitality-industry people said he was teaching acting the lighted ember of her
whom she works with in her
classes, and asked would I cigarette. She was wearing a
current job. But if you come and talk to his class short skirt and a white vest
looked harder at Lois's life about Shaw. Well, I couldn't and was carrying a white
you could probably
say no." Meredith liked Lois, cloth shopping bag. Just
subdivide her experiences and when she was running her
what was in the bag was
into fifteen or twenty alternative newspaper he unclear, since Lois doesn't
worlds. She has the same would write letters and send have a traditional
ability to move among in little doodles, and later she
relationship to the trappings
different subcultures and helped him raise money for a of bureaucracy. Her office,
niches that the busiest play he was doing called for example, does not have a
actors do. Lois is to Chicago
"Kicks and Company." It desk in it, only a sofa and
what Burgess Meredith is to
starred a woman named chairs and a coffee table. At
the movies.
Nichelle Nichols, who lived at
meetings, she sits at the
Lois's house for a while. head of a conference table in
Lois was, in fact, a friend of
"Nichelle was a marvellous the adjoining room, and, as
Burgess Meredith. I learned singer and dancer," Lois said.
often as not, has nothing in
this by accident, which is the
"She was the lead. She was front of her except a lighter,
way I learned about most of
also the lady on the first..." a pack of Carltons, a cup of
the strange celebrity details Lois was doing so many things
coffee, and an octagonal
of Lois's life, since she at once -- chopping and orange ceramic ashtray,
doesn't tend to drop names.
stirring and smoking and which she moves a few
It was when I was with her eating and talking -- that she inches forward or a few
at her house one night, a big,
couldn't remember the name inches back when she's
rambling affair just off the of the show that made Nichols
making an important point,
lakeshore, with room after a star. "What's that space or moves a few inches to the
room filled with odds and thing?" She looked toward Joe
side when she is laughing at
ends and old photographs for help. He started laughing. something really funny and
feels the need to put her to a developer. But before he "apprentices" the first year,
head down on the table.
could build on it the real-
1990. This year, there were
estate market crashed. The lot
more than three thousand.
Breakfast was at one of the was an eyesore. The Mayor The kids study sculpture,
city's tourist centers. The asked for ideas about what to
painting, drawing, poetry,
Mayor was there in a blue do with it. Lois suggested that
theatre, graphic design,
suit, and he had two city they cover the block with dance, textile design,
officials by his side and a tents. Then she heard that jewelry-making, and music.
very serious and thoughtful Keith Haring had come to Lois opened a store
expression on his face. Next
Chicago in 1989 and worked downtown, where students'
to him was a Chicago with Chicago high-school works of art are sold. She
developer named Al
students to create a giant five-
has since bought two
Friedman, a tall and slender
hundred-foot-long mural. Lois
buildings to house the
and very handsome man loved the mural. She began to
project full time. She got the
who is the chairman of the think. She'd long had a Parks Department to run
Commission on Chicago problem with the federal Gallery 37 in neighborhoods
Landmarks. Lois sat across money that Chicago got every
around the city, and the
from them, and they all year to pay for summer jobs Board of Education to let
drank coffee and ate muffins
for disadvantaged kids. She them run it as an after-
and batted ideas back and didn't think it helped any kid school program in public
forth in the way that people
to be put to work picking up high schools. It has been
do when they know each garbage. So why not pay the copied all around the world.
other very well. It was a kids to do arts projects like Last year, it was given the
"power breakfast," although the Haring mural, and put the
Innovations in American
if you went around the table
whole program in the tents? Government Award by the
you'd find that the word She called the program Ford Foundation and the
"power" meant something Gallery 37, after the number Harvard school of
very different to everyone of the block. She enlisted the government.
there. Al Friedman is a rich help of the Mayor's wife,
developer. The Mayor, of Maggie Daley, whose energy Gallery 37 is at once a jobs
course, is the administrative
and clout were essential in program, an arts program, a
leader of one of the largest order to make the program a real- estate fix, a schools
cities in the country. When success. Lois hired artists to program, and a parks
we talk about power, this is teach the kids. She realized, program. It involves federal
usually what we're talking though, that the federal money and city money and
about: money and authority.
money was available only for private money, stores and
But there is a third kind of poor kids, and, Lois says, "I buildings and tents, Maggie
power as well -- the kind don't believe poor kids can Daley and Keith Haring,
Lois has -- which is a little advance in any way by being poor kids and middle-class
less straightforward. It's lumped together with other kids. It is everything, all at
social power.
poor kids." So Lois raised
once -- a jumble of ideas and
money privately to bring in people and places which
At the end of the nineteen-
middle-income kids, to mix Lois somehow managed to
eighties, for example, the with the poor kids and be put
make sense of. The ability to
City of Chicago razed an in the tents with the artists. assemble all these disparate
entire block in the heart of She started small, with two parts is, as should be
downtown and then sold it hundred and sixty
obvious, a completely
different kind of power from
directly. This much is not closest to you, and the more
the sort held by the Mayor surprising: the best way to get
people you know who aren't
and Al Friedman. The in the door is through a close to you the stronger
Mayor has key allies on the personal contact. But the your position becomes.
city council or in the majority of those personal
statehouse. Al Friedman can
connections, Granovetter
Granovetter then looked at
do what he does because, no
found, did not involve close what he called "chain
doubt, he has a banker who friends. They were what he lengths" -- that is, the
believes in him, or maybe a called "weak ties." Of those number of people who had
lawyer whom he trusts to who used a contact to find a to pass along the news about
negotiate the twists and job, for example, only 16.7 per
your job before it got to you.
turns of the zoning process. cent saw that contact "often," A chain length of zero means
Their influence is based on as they would have if the that you learned about your
close relationships. But contact had been a good job from the person offering
when Lois calls someone to friend; 55.6 per cent saw their
it. A chain length of one
help her put together one of
contact only "occasionally"; means that you heard about
her projects, chances are and 27.8 per cent saw the the job from someone who
she's not calling someone contact "rarely." People were had heard about the job
she knows particularly well. getting their jobs not through from the employer. The
Her influence suggests their friends but through people who got their jobs
something a little surprising
acquaintances.
from a zero chain were the
-- that there is also power in
most satisfied, made the
relationships that are not Granovetter argues that when most money, and were
close at all.
it comes to finding out about unemployed for the shortest
new jobs -- or, for that matter,
amount of time between
6.
gaining new information, or jobs. People with a chain of
looking for new ideas -- weak
one stood second in the
The sociologist Mark ties tend to be more important
amount of money they
Granovetter examined this than strong ties. Your friends,
made, in their satisfaction
question in his classic 1974 after all, occupy the same with their jobs, and in the
book "Getting a Job." world that you do. They work
speed with which they got
Granovetter interviewed
with you, or live near you, and
their jobs. People with a
several hundred
go to the same churches, chain of two stood third in
professional and technical schools, or parties. How all three categories, and so
workers from the Boston much, then, do they know that
on. If you know someone
suburb of Newton, asking you don't know? Mere who knows someone who
them in detail about their acquaintances, on the other knows someone who has lots
employment history. He hand, are much more likely to
of acquaintances, in other
found that almost fifty-six know something that you words, you have a leg up. If
per cent of those he talked to
don't. To capture this you know someone who
had found their jobs through
apparent paradox,
knows someone who has lots
a personal connection, about
Granovetter coined a
of acquaintances, your
twenty per cent had used marvellous phrase: "the chances are that much
formal means
strength of weak ties." The better. But if you know
(advertisements,
most important people in your
someone who has lots of
headhunters), and another life are, in certain critical acquaintances -- if you know
twenty per cent had applied realms, the people who aren't someone like Lois -- you are
still more fortunate, because
getting ahead is not the deep fryer at Burger King,
suddenly you are just one quality of your relationships we usually talk about the
step away from musicians but the quantity -- not how importance of rebuilding
and actors and doctors and close you are to those you inner-city communities,
lawyers and park lovers and
know but, paradoxically, how attracting new jobs to
politicians and railroad buffs
many people you know whom
depressed areas, and re-
and flea-market aficionados you aren't particularly close investing in neglected
and all the other weak ties to. What he's saying is that the
neighborhoods. We want to
that make Lois so strong.
key person at that breakfast in
give that kid the option of
downtown Chicago is not the another, better-paying job,
This
sounds
like
a
Mayor or Al Friedman but right down the street. But
reformulation of the old saw
Lois Weisberg, because Lois is
does that really solve his
that it's not what you know,
the kind of person who it problem? Surely what that
it's who you know. It's much
really is possible for most of eighteen-year-old really
more radical than that, us to know. If you think about
needs is not another
though. The old idea was the world in this way, the marginal inducement to stay
that people got ahead by whole project of affirmative in his neighborbood but a
being friends with rich and action suddenly starts to make
way to get out of his
powerful people -- which is a lot more sense. Minority-
neighborhood altogether. He
true, in a limited way, but as
admissions programs work needs a school system that
a practical lesson in how the
not because they give black provides him with the skills
world works is all but students access to the same to compete for jobs with
useless. You can expect that
superior educational
middle-class kids. He needs
Bill Gates's godson is going resources as white students, a mass-transit system to
to get into Harvard and have
or access to the same rich take him to the suburbs,
a fabulous job waiting for cultural environment as white
where the real employment
him when he gets out. And, students, or any other formal opportunities are. And, most
of course, if you play poker or grandiose vision of of all, he needs to know
with the Mayor and Al engineered equality. They someone who knows
Friedman it is going to be a
work by giving black students
someone who knows where
little easier to get ahead in access to the same white all those good jobs are. If the
Chicago. But how many students as white students -- world really is held together
godsons can Bill Gates have?
by allowing them to make by people like Lois
And how many people can acquaintances outside their Weisberg, in other words,
fit around a poker table? own social world and so how poor you are can be
This is why affirmative shortening the chain lengths defined quite simply as how
action seems pointless to so
between them and the best far you have to go to get to
many people: It appears to jobs.
someone like her. Wendy
promise something -- entry
Willrich and Helen Doria
to the old-boy network -- This idea should also change and all the countless other
that it can't possibly deliver.
the way we think about people in Lois's circle
The old-boy network is helping the poor. When we're needed to make only one
always going to be just for faced with an eighteen-year-
phone call. They are well-off.
the old boys.
old high-school dropout The dropout wouldn't even
whose only career option is know where to start. That's
Granovetter, by contrast, making five dollars and fifty why he's poor. Poverty is not
argues that what matters in cents an hour in front of the deprivation. It is isolation.
7.
through the "W"s in his head,
catalogue and knew it had to
and then said, "No, but I'm be me, and when he was out
I once met a man named sure if I made two phone here he showed up on my
Roger Horchow. If you ever calls..."
doorstep. I hadn't seen him
go to Dallas and ask around
since I was seven. We had
about who is the kind of Roger has a very good zero in common. It was
person who might know memory for names. One time,
wonderful." The
everyone, chances are you he says, someone was trying juxtaposition of those last
will be given his name. to talk him into investing his two sentences was not
Roger is slender and money in a business venture ironic; he meant it.
composed. He talks slowly, in Spain, and when he asked
with a slight Texas drawl. He
the names of the other In the book "The Language
has a kind of wry, ironic investors he recognized one of
Instinct," the psychologist
charm that is utterly them as the same man with Steven Pinker argues against
winning. If you sat next to whom one of his ex-girlfriends
the idea that language is a
him on a plane ride across had had a fling during her cultural artifact -- something
the Atlantic, he would start junior year abroad, fifty years
that we learn "the way we
talking as the plane taxied to
before. Roger sends people learn to tell time." Rather,
the runway, you would be cards on their birthdays: he he says, it is innate.
laughing by the time the has a computerized Rolodex Language develops
seat-belt sign was turned off,
with sixteen hundred names "spontaneously," he writes,
and when you landed at the
on it. When I met him, I "without conscious effort or
other end you'd wonder became convinced that these formal instruction," and "is
where the time had gone.
techniques were central to the
deployed without awareness
fact that he knew everyone -- of its underlying logic....
I met Roger through his that knowing everyone was a People know how to talk in
daughter Sally, whose sister kind of skill. Horchow is the
more or less the sense that
Lizzie went to high school in
founder of the Horchow spiders know how to spin
Dallas with my friend Sara Collection, the first high-end webs." The secret to Roger
M., whom I know because mail-order catalogue, and I Horchow and Lois Weisberg
she used to work with Jacob
kept asking him how all the is, I think, that they have a
Weisberg. (No Jacob, no connections in his life had kind of social equivalent of
Roger.) Roger spent at least helped him in the business that instinct -- an innate and
part of his childhood in world, because I thought that spontaneous and entirely
Ohio, which is where Lois's this particular skill had to involuntary affinity for
second husband, Bernie have been cultivated for a people. They know everyone
Weisberg, grew up, so I reason. But the question because -- in some deep and
asked Roger if he knew seemed to puzzle him. He less than conscious way --
Bernie. It would have been a
didn't think of his people they can't help it.
little too apt if he did -- that
collection as a business
would have made it all strategy, or even as something
8.
something out of "The X-
deliberate. He just thought of
Files" -- but instead of just it as something he did -- as Once, in the very early
answering, "Sorry, I don't," who he was. One time, nineteen-sixties, after Lois
which is what most of us Horchow said, a close friend had broken up with her first
would have done, he paused
from childhood suddenly husband, she went to a party
for a long time, as if to flip resurfaced. "He saw my for Ralph Ellison, who was
then teaching at the there like this." Lois put her triangle -- then it makes
University of Chicago. There
hands on either side of her perfect sense. The social
she spotted a young lawyer face. "Finally I said to Bernie,
instinct makes everyone
from the South Side named 'There are some things I
seem like part of a whole,
Bernie Weisberg. Lois liked should tell you about. Lenny and there is something very
him. He didn't notice her, Bruce is a friend of mine. He's
appealing about this,
though, so she decided to staying at my house. The because it means that people
write a profile of him for the
second thing is I'm defending like Lois aren't bound by the
Hyde Park Herald. It ran a murderer.'"(But that's same categories and
with a huge headline. Bernie
another story.) Lois and partitions that defeat the
still didn't call. "I had to Bernie were married a year rest of us. This is what the
figure out how I was going to
later.
power of the people who
get to meet him again, so I
know everyone comes down
remembered that he was The lesson of this story isn't to in the end. It is not -- as
standing in line at the obvious until you diagram it much as we would like to
reception with Ralph culturally: Lois got to Bernie believe otherwise --
Ellison," Lois says. "So I through her connections with something rich and
called up Ralph Ellison" -- Ralph Ellison and Lenny complex, some potent
whom she had never met -- Bruce, one of whom she didn't
mixture of ambition and
"and said, 'It's so wonderful know (although later,
energy and smarts and
that you are in Chicago. You
naturally, they became great vision and insecurity. It's
really should meet some friends) and one of whom she
much simpler than that. It's
people on the North Side. was afraid to say that she the same lesson they teach
Would it be O.K. if I have a
knew, and neither of whom, it
in Sunday school. Lois
party for you?'" He said yes,
is safe to speculate, had ever knows lots of people because
and Lois sent out a hundred
really been connected with she likes lots of people. And
invitations, including one to
each other before. It seems all those people Lois knows
Bernie. He came. He saw like an absurdly roundabout and likes invariably like her,
Dizzy Gillespie in the way to meet someone. Here too, because there is nothing
kitchen and Ralph Ellison in
was a thirtyish liberal Jewish more irresistible to a human
the living room. He was intellectual from the North being than to be
impressed. He asked Lois to
Side of Chicago trying to meet
unqualifiedly liked by
go with him to see Lenny a thirtyish liberal Jewish another.
Bruce. Lois was mortified; intellectual from the South
she didn't want this nice Side of Chicago, and to get Not long ago, Lois took me
Jewish lawyer from the there she charted a cross-
to a reception at the
South Side to know that she
cultural social course through Museum of Contemporary
knew Lenny Bruce, who was,
a black literary lion and an Art, in Chicago -- a brand-
after all, a drug addict. "I avant-garde standup comic. new, Bauhaus-inspired
couldn't get out of it," she Yet that's a roundabout building just north of the
said. "They sat us down at a
journey only if you perceive Loop. The gallery space was
table right at the front, and the worlds of Lenny Bruce and
impossibly beautiful -- cool,
Lenny keeps coming over to
Ralph Ellison and Bernie airy, high-ceilinged. The
the edge of the stage and Weisberg to be impossibly artist on display was Chuck
saying" -- here Lois dropped
isolated. If you don't -- if, like
Close. The crowd was sleek
her voice down very low -- Lois, you see them all as three
and well groomed. Black-
"'Hello, Lois.'I was sitting points of an equilateral clad young waiters carried
pesto canapés and glasses of
white wine. Lois seemed a
bit lost. She can be a little
shy sometimes, and at first
she stayed on the fringes of
the room, standing back,
observing. Someone
important came over to talk
to her. She glanced up
uncomfortably. I walked
away for a moment to look
at the show, and when I
came back her little corner
had become a crowd. There
was her friend from the state
legislature. A friend in the
Chicago Park District. A
friend from her
neighborhood. A friend in
the consulting business. A
friend from Gallery 37. A
friend from the local
business- development
group. And on and on. They
were of all ages and all
colors, talking and laughing,
swirling and turning in a
loose circle, and in the
middle, nearly hidden by the
commotion, was Lois,
clutching her white bag, tiny
and large-eyed, at that
moment the happiest person
in the room.
© 1999 Malcolm Gladwell
