American sociologist who was a specialist in the social problems of the southern United States and a pioneer of sociological education in the South. He worked to replace the Southern sectionalism with a sophisticated regional approach to social planning, race relations, and the arts, especially literature. A student of folk sociology, particularly that of Southern blacks, he was ahead of his time in urging equal opportunity for African Americans.

Odum studied under noted psychologist G. Stanley Hall at Clark University and sociologist Franklin H. Giddings at Columbia University. In 1920 he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina, where he established departments of sociology and public welfare, started a social-science research institute, and founded the journal Social Forces.

One of Odum's books on African Americans, Rainbow Round My Shoulder: The Blue Trail of Black Ulysses (1928), was praised for its literary quality. Among his other works are Southern Regions of the United States (1936), Understanding Society (1947), and American Sociology (1951). At President Herbert Hoover's request, Odum and William Fielding Ogburn (Ogburn, William Fielding) edited the report Recent Social Trends in the United States, 2 vol. (1933), for the President's Research Committee on Social Trends.