When E. Digby Baltzell published “The Protestant Establishment” in 1964, he was already among the leading sociologists who were scientifically and systematically studying every aspect and sector of American society, and who explained social and cultural particulars in terms of their functions and histories, class and authority structures, economic and power relations. In 1958, Baltzell had published “Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class” — an analysis of the American business aristocracy of Colonial stock and Protestant affiliations that had settled along the eastern seaboard. With “The Protestant Establishment,” he dug yet more deeply into what makes for an elite in a democratic society.

Digby Baltzell was born in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square — an address that by itself indicated his membership in the aristocracy of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Their ancestors had come to America as poor immigrants, like most, but had seized whatever economic opportunities they found to enrich themselves — in mining, steel, railroads, oil, and banking. These robber barons had risen above the rest of society, lived in handsome mansions, employed servants, and socialized in exclusive clubs. Their children were educated, entered the professions, traveled to Europe, and thereby set themselves apart from ordinary citizens. Baltzell maintained that it was the function of such an upper class to wield authority, not through manipulation, force, or fraud, but through the respect and leadership qualities its members commanded throughout the broader democratic society. Although he belonged to an impecunious branch of the family, he clearly took these responsibilities seriously.

I met Professor Baltzell in the spring semester of 1970, when I was assigned as his teaching assistant in the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research. He told me that he didn’t really need an assistant because he was going to read and grade his students’ papers himself, but that under the circumstances, I ought to take careful notes of his lectures. By then, “The Protestant Establishment” already had become a sociological classic, which, for instance, pointed out that the myth propagated by Horatio Alger — the poor boy who graduated from a Brooklyn public school and climbed to the top of Wall Street — may well have been possible, but that the arriviste would not be accepted into the WASPs’ private clubs.

There were divisions within this elite: Not all members adamantly insisted on “gentlemanly anti-Semitism” and racism; some of them even advocated an ever-widening acceptance of deserving “men of talent” into their midst. If he was Jewish and well-mannered (with or without a Gentile wife), such a man might even be invited to sail with a Morgan or a Rockefeller, but his religion would keep him out of the Metropolitan, the Knickerbocker, and nearly every other social club — and even certain restricted neighborhoods.

In the preface to this book, written in July 1963, Baltzell was optimistic, pointing out that the Catholic John F. Kennedy’s election as president of America showed progress. But a few days after Kennedy’s assassination, he added a postscript: He explained that he had watched the president’s funeral “in a state of shock and sorrow,” and that he remained “in favor of the ideals once dramatized at Camelot.” All along, Baltzell kept emphasizing the importance of values and morals that would not allow anyone to discriminate against Jews and other minorities. He provided a myriad of historical examples to demonstrate that when conditions of aristocracy exist, upper-class values will carry authority both within the elite and in society as a whole. He called attention to democracy’s dilemma: to create and preserve communal order on the one hand, and to answer legitimate demands for upward social mobility on the other. He showed, for instance, that authority in America rose from the bottom to the top, while in the Soviet Union it descended from the top down. To illustrate that every society exists on a continuum, and that his dichotomies were not static, he showed that social forces for order, hierarchy, and authority tend to be antithetical to those for equality and social justice. All societies, he concluded, are only relatively orderly and always unjust.

By 1970, Baltzell already was working on his subsequent book, “Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia.” It zeroes in on the importance of religion on political success. Again, he took off from what he knew in his bones, from his access to relatives and friends among the elites of both cities — such as the Lowells, Eliots, Emersons, Biddles, Rockefellers, Adamses, Bigelows, Cabots, Drexels, and Cadwaladers. They all were firm proponents of democracy, who strongly believed that ambitious men of ability, regardless of background, had to be accepted into their circles. (Jews, Catholics, and dark-skinned people, however, somehow did not count.) But then, Baltzell asked, why had Boston produced so many more American presidents and senators, and amassed so much more wealth and power, than Philadelphia? He eventually found that the weight of the Boston Brahmins’ faith (being good) had produced a long tradition of class authority, whereas the Quakers’ (doing good) had not.

Even though Baltzell explained that gemeinschaft and gesellschaft are only ideal types, that institutionalizing authority is difficult, and that eventually we would do away with all inequalities, the very fact that he wrote about an “aristocracy” at a moment in American history when classlessness became the central ideal of his students — this alone meant he was called a conservative. Of course, he was conservative, insofar as he valued traditions in the best sense, and would argue with those of my classmates who quoted Marx or Mao’s “little red book,” as well as the ones who countered that C. Wright Mills’s power elite — military and industrial leaders — was more influential. Mostly, he calmly would go on to elaborate on achieved and ascribed status — to make clear how private property is one way of organizing social relations and public property another — and on how religion may or may not enter the public space. Values, morals, and ethics were the basis of his thought.

Given his faith in America, in the wisdom of the founding fathers, and his dismissal of conspiracy theories, Baltzell’s sharp observations of the 1960s radicals, especially his disagreements with those who had been born into the Protestant establishment, would seem to be reason enough for today’s students to forget his books. As we know, our culture has radically changed since the 1960s: Even if the study of history were not ignored or considered irrelevant, the process of democratization did not pan out in the way Baltzell foresaw. Our elites, at least on the surface, have taken up the manners and habits of the lower classes, and no longer seem to favor a meritocracy or “old-fashioned” standards of behavior, if only because our current incarnations of multiculturalism and ethnic pride have “trickled up.” Baltzell believed in orderly change. He was no activist, and he did not propose political remedies. He was a steadfast defendant of liberal, informed democracy. And his Protestant establishment has almost disappeared due to much intermarriage, denial of elite status, and popular will.

Ms. Kurzweil is the former editor of Partisan Review and University Professor Emeritus, Adelphi University. Her most recent book is “Full Circle: A Memoir.”