FREE ESSAY ON PROMINENT WOMEN IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY

PROMINENT WOMEN IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY

Prominent Women in American Psychology
"The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man's
attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman (Darwin)."
Darwin's professional assumption of the intelligence of women greatly exemplified the
defining opinion of the day when psychology was in its developmental stages. However,
many women went to great lengths to disprove and banish this thought. 
One such woman was Mary Whiton Calkins. Calkins is perhaps best known for becoming the
first woman president of the American Psychological Association, a feat unheard of in her
time. Unfortunately, the road to achieving this feat was paved with many obstacles and
discriminating persons.
Mary Whiton Calkins was born on March 30, 1863. She was born in Buffalo, New York, to
Wolcott Calkins, a Presbyterian minister, and was the eldest of five children. The family
moved to Newton, Massachusetts, when Mary was seventeen and built a home there that she
would live in until her death. Her father was fundamental to Mary's education, designing
and supervising her schooling, well aware of the sparse opportunities available to women.
In 1882, she was allowed to enter into Smith College with advance standing as a
sophomore. Unfortunately, her sister's death in 1883 permanently influenced her thinking
and the following year she stayed at home and received private lessons. She reentered
Smith in the fall of 1884 as a senior and graduated with a concentration in classics and
philosophy.
In 1886, her family moved to Europe for sixteen months. Here, she was able to broaden her
knowledge of the classics. After returning to Massachusetts, her father arranged for an
interview for her with the president of Wellesley College. There, she was a tutor in
Greek beginning in the fall of 1887 and remained in that department for three years.
Fortunately, a professor in the Philosophy department noted her talent for teaching and
convinced her to consider the new field of Psychology. In order for Calkins to be able to
teach Psychology, she had to study for at least one year in a Psychology program.
However, she faced many problems reaching this goal. First, there were few Psychology
departments in existence in 1890. Second, by being a woman, she was highly unlikely to be
admitted to one of these programs. She was advised that the best chance she had to
succeed was to study abroad. She promptly dismissed this idea and began to look for other
options. She seriously considered the University of Michigan, where she would be studying
under John Dewey, and Yale, where she would be studying under G.T. Ladd. However, these
too were dismissed. She finally settled on Harvard, one of the few universities that
boasted a laboratory.
Calkins' first introduction was a promising one. She had received a letter from William
James and Josiah Royce stating that she could "sit-in" on their lectures on a strictly
informal basis. She contacted the president of Harvard expressing her desire to sit in on
these lectures but was rejected on the grounds that "her presence at these lectures would
receive an angry reaction from the governing body at Harvard." In response, Mary's father
petitioned Harvard requesting that his daughter be granted admission to these lectures.
The president of Wellesley College also wrote a letter on her behalf stating that she was
a member of their faculty and this program was suited to her needs. 
Harvard finally approved the petition on October 1, 1890. However, it was noted that Miss
Calkins was being afforded this privilege and was not entitled to registration and was
not a student of the college. Ironically, when she arrived for her first lecture with
James in the fall, she was the only person in the class. This fortunate turn allowed her
somewhat of a private tutoring session with one of America's most prominent
Psychologists. In addition to her lectures with James and Royce, she began studying
experimental psychology under Dr. Edmund Sanford of Clark University.
Mary Calkins returned to Wellesley College in the fall of 1891 as an Instructor of
Psychology under the department of Philosophy. Her first year back, she established a
psychological laboratory at the college.
In 1892, Calkins was once again allowed to "sit-in" on classes at Harvard, this time
under Hugo Munsterberg in his laboratory while he was visiting the college. She conducted
several experiments while under Munsterberg and invented the paired-associate technique.
This was a suggested classification of cases of associations dealing with studying
memory. Her technique was later refined by G.E. Muller and included in Titchner's Student
Manual, taking full credit for it himself. Calkins continued her research under Professor
Munsterberg until October of 1894, at which time Munsterberg wrote to the president of
Harvard requesting that Mary be admitted as a candidate for the Ph.D. On October 29,
1894, Harvard refused. The following year, she presented her thesis, An experimental
research on the association of ideas to Professors Palmer, James, Royce, Munsterberg,
Harris, and Dr. Santayana. All agreed that she satisfied the requirements for her degree,
but alas, it was denied.
In 1895, Calkins returned to Wellesley College and was named an Associate Professor of
Psychology and Philosophy. She was promoted to Professor in 1898. She continued to do
research and completed hundreds of papers that were published in both journals of
psychology and philosophy. In addition, she wrote four books and essays concerning the
religiousness of children and the philosophical treatment of time as related to causality
and to space. 
Perhaps her most profound contribution to psychology was her system of "self-psychology;"
as she called it, a reconciliation between structural and functional psychology. This
field dealt with space and time consciousness, emotion, association, color theory, and
dreams. She held that the conscious self was the central fact of psychology (Bumb1). Her
first basic definition of her psychology is as follows:
"All sciences deal with facts, and there are two great classes of facts-Selves and
Facts-for-the-Selves. But the second of these groups, the Facts-for-the-Selves, is again
capable of an important division into internal and external facts. To the first class
belong percepts, images, memories, thoughts, emotions, and violations, inner events as we
may call them; to the second class belong the things and the events of the outside world,
the physical facts, as we may name them...The physical sciences study these common and
apparently independent or external facts; psychology as distinguished from them is the
science of consciousness, the study of selves and the innerfacts-for-selves."
Mary Whiton Calkins when on to become president of the American Psychological Association
in 1905 and president of the American Philosophical Association in 1918 (Harrington). In
a 1908 list of the leading psychologists in the United States, she was ranked twelfth. In
1909, Columbia University bestowed a Doctor of Letters degree upon her and Smith College
followed with a Doctor of Law degree in 1910. In 1928, she was made an honorary member of
the British Psychological Association. However, she rejected an honorary Ph.D. from
Radcliffe in 1902 based solely upon the sexist attitude that was still prevalent at
Harvard. Harvard still has not issued any degree in honor of Calkins and holds that if
feels there is "no reason" to award the degree.
Another notable pioneer in the area of women in psychology was Margaret Floy Washburn.
Although not much is known of her earlier years, we do know that she was admitted into
Columbia University as a "hearer" in 1891 (monadock). While at Columbia, she was a
student of James Cattell. In 1892, Washburn went to Cornell where she majored in
psychology under E.B. Titchener. She began her advanced study in psychology after
graduating college and received her Ph.D. in 1894. 
In 1912, she became a member of the council of the American Psychology Association. This
was quite an honor considering that only three women were allowed to hold that position
during the first forty years of the American Psychological Association's existence. In
1921, Washburn was named President of the American Psychological Association. She was
also elected to the International Committee on Psychology and to the Society of
Experimental Psychologists in 1929. She also became only the second woman up until that
time to be admitted into perhaps the most prominent scientific society in the United
States, the National Academy of Sciences, in 1931.
She was considered by some as the most prominent woman in academic psychology. She taught
philosophy and psychology at Wells College and published two books including one major
textbook. She was active in organizational psychology's activities on regional, national,
and international levels. She was highly motivated, had a strong positive self image, and
had the important ability to fraternize with her colleagues.
Washburn was confronted with a problem that many women still face today: to pursue a
career or to devote her life to marriage. She chose the former and established herself as
a prominent member within the psychological community. She contributed such things as
problems of social consciousness, problems of revived and ideated emotions, the role of
movement in the development of mental life and work on animal behavior. She showed us
that humans react to the conceived mental acts much like animals respond to the behavior
of other animals. She also translated Wundt's Ethical Systems (Harrington).
Another prominent woman in American psychology that holds a place in history because of
her 'first' is Christine Ladd-Franklin. She was foremost a psychologist, a logician, a
mathematician, and at times an aspiring physicist and astronomer. However, unlike the
previous two psychologists mentioned, 
Ladd-Franklin was surrounded by powerful and intelligent women. 
She was born on December 1, 1847 in Windsor, Connecticut, the oldest of three children to
Eliphalet and Augusta (Niles) Ladd, who were both from colonial New England. Kitty, as
she was sometimes known, also had two half-siblings from her father's second marriage. As
a toddler, Christine accompanied her mother and aunt to women's rights lectures, one of
which was given by Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Kitty's mother died when she was only twelve
years old of pneumonia, at which time she moved to Portsmount, New Hampshire. There, she
spent her adolescent years with her father's mother. 
Ladd-Franklin received two years of her schooling from Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham,
Massachusetts. While there, she followed the same course track as the boys who were
preparing to go to Harvard and in 1865, she graduated as valedictorian of her class. Upon
graduation, she entered Vassar College, against the wisdom of her family. However, she
did convince her grandmother that an education was her best opportunity because of her
"slim chances at marriage." She believed that women were of an overabundance in New
England and her commonplace looks rendered her unlikely to marry. Her grandmother
agreed.
She entered into the second year at Vassar College in 1866, financially supported by her
aunt. After only one year, she withdrew and took a teaching position in Utica, New York.
During her year off from school, it is presumably said that she "practiced piano, read in
three or four languages, worked problems in trigonometry, and collected 150 botanical
specimens." After one year of teaching, she returned to Vassar and completed her degree.
During the next nine years, she was an instructor of science and mathematics in secondary
schools in several states. However, she wrote, "Teaching I hate with a perfect hatred...I
shall not be able to endure it another year."
She promptly applied to Johns Hopkins University as a graduate student. Unfortunately,
Johns Hopkins was not traditionally open to women. However, James J. Sylvester, a
contributor to Educational Times was familiar with her work and urged the university to
admit her. In 1878, she was admitted with the understanding that she would only attend
his lectures. This was lifted one year later when acknowledgment of her work was shown
and she was given the stipend of a fellow. However, the formal title "fellow" was
withheld from her. She was also denied regular admission, having her name recorded by a
special note rather than being on the traditional list of students.
Ladd-Franklin is perhaps best known for her theory of color vision (Ragsdale). "She
assumed a photochemical model of vision and postulated three stages of molecular
differentiation, presumably associated with three stages of evolutionary development
(Harrington)."The paper resulting from this study appeared in the first ever volume of
the American Journal of Psychology in 1887. During the academic year of 1891-92, her
husband, Fabian Franklin took a sabbatical and she accompanied him to Europe. Here, she
was able to continue her vision research in the Gottingen laboratory of G.E. Muller. This
feat, however, was not without obstacles. Women were not allowed to enroll at German
universities and she was only accepted after her persistent requests for admission.
Luckily for her, Muller was an accommodating man and repeated lectures for her
individually for her that she was not allowed to attend.
After leaving her husband to care for their daughter in Gottingen, she traveled to Berlin
and was admitted into the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz and the lectures of
Professor Arthur Konig. It was rumored that she was admitted into these institutions only
because the sense that "foreign women were far less of a threat, since they would return
home and not expect to teach in Germany." Ironically, after working with the three above
mentioned men, 
Ladd-Franklin rejected both the three-color theory of color vision supported by Helmholtz
and Konig, and the three opponent-color pairs theory supported by Muller.
After completion of the equivalent of her Ph.D., she requested a position at Johns
Hopkins in 1893. Only the year before, she had presented her color vision theory to the
International Congress of Psychology in London. However, she was denied a lecturing
position at Johns Hopkins and continued her independent work. From 1901 to 1905 she was
an associate editor for logic and philosophy in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and
Psychology. Finally, in 1904, Christine was allowed to lecture one course per year at
Johns Hopkins. She retained this position for five years on a year-to-year basis. In
1910, her husband attained the position of associate editor of the New York Evening Post
(he had given up his teaching position in 1895) and they left for New York. While in New
York, she continued to lecture part-time at Columbia University from 1912-1913. She also
lectured at Clark University, Harvard University, and in 1914, at the University of
Chicago. Despite the opportunity to teach one or two positions at these prominent
universities, these appointments were a struggle to obtain and she often lectured without
pay.
In her mid-sixties, Ladd-Franklin began writing to E.B. Tichener, who was twenty years
her junior, concerning his insistence on banning women from the meetings of his
Experimentalists group. Naturally, she did not gain acceptance (Ragsdale).
In 1926, Christine Ladd-Franklin finally received the Ph.D. that she deserved from
Vassar. At eighty-two years of age, on March 5, 1930, she died at her Riverside Drive,
New York City home.
Perhaps one of the best known names in American psychology is that of Karen Horney. Born
Karen Clementina Theodora Danielson just outside of Hamburg on September 16, 1885, she
was the daughter of a sea captain. As one might expect, this left open the possibilities
of many roads of development. Karen's father was a deeply religious, zealous, uptight
Lutheran that prompted his children to call him "the Bible thrower" because, according to
Horney, he often did. Her mother was from an aristocratic family and was reportedly
interested in fortune telling and secular heroes. Understandably, her parents had an
unhappy marriage that was only compounded when her father's four children from his
previous marriage were around. Remarkably, her parents did manage to stay together for
twenty years. 
Horney's childhood is somewhat questionable. Although Horney claims that her father much
preferred her older brother, Berndt, over her, her father managed to bring her gifts from
all over the world and even took her on three long sea voyages, something quite unusual
for sea captains to do in those days. Because of the deprivation of her father's
affections, she became quite attached to her mother and became as she put it, "her little
lamb."
At the age of nine, Karen changed her entire outlook on life. In her own words, "If I
couldn't be pretty, I decided I would be smart." She became ambitious and at times, even
rebellious, not adhering very well to compromise. Also during this time, she developed
somewhat of a crush on her brother. Embarrassed by her obvious attentions, he pushed her
away. This rejection led to her first bout with depression-a problem that would plague
her for the rest of her life. 
In 1904, her mother (who was 19 years her husband's junior) divorced Karen's father and
left with her two children in tow. Two years later, she entered into medical school at
the Universities of Frieburg and Gottingen, and Berlin, against the wishes of her parents
and the opinion of 'polite' society. While in school, she met Oscar (sometimes spelled
Oskar) Horney and in 1909, the two married. Later, this marriage was thought of as a
marriage of security. After all, not many men who had a Ph.D. in political science and
money were interested in marrying women who had the ambition that she did. Much like
Freud predicted, she married a man that was quite like her father.
In 1910, Karen gave birth to Brigitte, the first of three daughters. Following that, in
1911, her mother died. These two events put great strain on Karen as she prepared to
enter into psychoanalysis.
Worried that her daughters would rob her of "her golden freedom" and would not allow her
true potential to surface, she left many of the parenting duties to her husband and Oscar
spent much more time with the children (Sonoma). Because of the likeness in personality
that Oscar had with her father, Karen did not intervene when her husband disciplined her
children. Rather, she considered it a good atmosphere for her children to encourage their
independence. She also put all of her daughters in psychoanalytic treatment to advance
their growth. The analyst often spoke of penis envy, which the girls did not comprehend.
Years later, she changed her perspective on childrearing (Boeree).
In 1923, Oscar's business collapsed and he developed meningitis. That same year, her
beloved brother died of pulmonary infection at the age of 40. At this period in her life,
she became so depressed that she swam out to a sea piling during a vacation with thoughts
of committing suicide. 
In 1926, at the age of 41, Karen moved out of Oscar's house. Four years later, she and
her daughters moved to the United States, eventually settling in Brooklyn. At this time,
Brooklyn was considered an intellectual capital due to the influx of Jewish refugees from
Germany. It was in Brooklyn that she was introduced and became friends with Erich Fromm
and Harry Stack Sullivan. After the demise of her marriage, she had affairs with Hans
Liberman, Erich Fromm (from 1931-early 40s), and had numerous affairs with students and
clients that were much younger than her (Sonoma).
Despite her many defeats in her personal life, she was quite successful in her
professional life. In 1910, she entered into analysis with Karl Abraham, an experience
that changed her life forever. However, at the end of analysis, she was still afflicted
with chronic fatigue and depression. She later commented that the biggest failure of her
analysis with Abraham was the failure to "deal with her compulsion to move in and out of
relationships with men." She emerged in 1917 as a Freudian.
Horney became a founding member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in 1920. Her
approach to treatment at this time was quite unusual: she had a sliding scale. She
believed that a person should receive some treatment regardless of income and payment.
After emigrating to the United States, she was invited to become the associate director
of the newly founded Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute in 1932, by Franz Alexander. She
later became a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and in 1941, organized the
American Institute for Psychoanalysis. She served as dean for this organization until her
death in 1952. She was also the founding editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis
(Paris).
Horney is also well known for her associations with other psychologists, most notably,
the Zodiac Five: Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Clara Thompson, Abraham Kardiner, and
herself. Very little is know about this group other than many theorists in the area of
psychology brought their ideas to this club to 'critique' their theories.
Horney was one of the biggest proponents of Freud's theory, but also one of its
opponents. She tried to modify orthodox ideas about feminine psychology while still
staying within the framework of Freudian theory. In addition, she tried to redefine
psychoanalysis by replacing Freud's biological orientation with an emphasis on culture
and interpersonal relationships. She disagreed violently with Freud about penis envy,
female masochism, and feminine development in her many essays. However controversial
these ideas were when they first appeared, the soon were ignored until they were
republished in 1967.
Karen strove to show that women have their own biological constitutions and patterns of
development separate of those of their male counterparts. She argued that psychoanalysis
regarded women as defective men because it is "the product of a male genius (Freud) and a
male-dominated culture." To counteract Freud's penis envy, Horney developed "womb-envy"
in which men are envious of pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, the breasts, and suckling,
which gives arise to an unconscious tendency to devalue women (Paris).
Theories Horney Freud
Neurosis Feelings and attitudes Instinctual drives or object
determined by culture relationships
Deal with problems Deny problems
Driven by emotional Ego concept without initiative
forces or executive powers
Compulsive drives but Compulsive drives but not
are neurotic driven to neurosis
Psychoanalysis Seeking self-realization Avoids self-realization
Help from analysis to Love for the analysist
cope with life 
Inner Conflicts Abilities to be a decent Repressed or repressing
person 
Man can change Disbelief in human goodness
and growth
*Chart adapted from http://muskingum.edu/~psychology/psychweb/history/horney.htm 
Horney also believed that parental influences and other socializing forces contribute
substantially to how a child's personality evolves (1w). Horney did agree with Freud that
children would hold in hostility toward their parents for fear of pushing their parents
away (geocities). In addition, she developed her mature theory in which individuals cope
with anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and unvalued, by disowning their
spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defense. 
According to Horney, people try to gain safety, love, and esteem through dependency,
humility, and self-sacrificing "goodness." This can take one of three forms: the
narcissistic, who is full of self-admiration and believes in their own greatness; the
perfectionist, who strives for excellence in every detail; and the arrogant-vindictive,
who have a need to retaliate for injuries received in childhood (Paris).
She is perhaps best known for her neurosis theory. She saw neurosis as an attempt to make
life bearable, as a way of "interpersonal control an coping." Horney stated the neurotic
needs as follows:
1. need for affection, approval, to please others and be liked by them
2. need for a partner; idea that love will solve all of one's problems
3. need to restrict one's life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with
little, to be inconspicuous
4. need for power, control over others
5. need to exploit others
6. need for social recognition or prestige
7. need for personal admiration
8. need for personal achievement
9. need for self-sufficiency and independence
10. need for perfection and unassailability
Horney also identified three coping strategies:
1. compliance: includes needs one, two, and three
2. aggression: includes needs four through eight
3. withdrawal: includes needs nine, ten, and three
Horney cited many other reasons a person might develop neurosis including parental
indifference, called the "basic evil" by Horney. This indifference is characterized by a
lack of warmth and affection in childhood. According to Horney, even abuse, physical or
sexual, can be overcome if the child feels wanted and loved. The key to understanding
parental indifference is that it is a matter of the child's perception and not the
parent's intentions (Boeree). 
The greatest difference between Karen Horney and Sigmund Freud might be her belief that
everyone is redeemable. She also stressed self-analysis, a theory that received little
respect from the psychological community. In fact, she wrote one of the first "self-help"
books.
It is easy to see the influence that Karen Horney had on many later psychologists, both
men and women. Perhaps her beliefs can be best described by her quote, "The perfect
normal person is rare in our civilization (bemo)."
Another member of the Zodiac Five, Clara Thompson, was also quite influential in her
time. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1893, she became a progressive figure in
American psychoanalysis in the 1940s. She attended Pembroke, the women's college
affiliated with Brown University, from 1912 to 1916. Thompson received her M.D. from
Johns Hopkins University in 1920 and taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute from
1933 to 1941.
Thompson also expanded the theory of penis envy to include cultural influences by
pointing at "the general competitive tendencies in our culture, which stimulate envy and
the tendency to place an inferior evaluation on women." Much like her colleague, Karen
Horney, she was highly criticized for making comments against the great Freud.
She was influenced by the likes of Harry Stack Sullivan, Sandor Ferenczi, William Alanson
White, Karen Horney, and other neo-Freudians. In the famous schism in the American
psychoanalytic community, she helped establish the William Alanson White Institute in
1943 and served as its director from 1946 to 1958. She made more of an influence on
psychology through her students and colleagues than through any of her theories. Her best
known book, Psychoanalysis: Evolution and Development focused on women and sexuality
(bio).
Also influenced greatly by Freud was Margaret Schoenberger Mahler. She was born in
Sopron, Germany and studied medicine at the German universities of Munich and Heidelberg.
She received her M.D. in 1922 from the university of Jena. Mahler founded the first
psychoanalytic guidance clinic devoted specifically to children in Vienna. She married
Paul Mahler in 1925 and they settled in New York City in 1938.
She was best known for her pioneering work on childhood schizophrenia, the individuation
process, and her theory of development (search). Mahler determined that there are four
basic stages of pre-Oepidal development: normal infantile autism (birth to two months),
symbiosis (two months to five months), separation-individuation (five months to ten
months), and rapproachement (fifteen to twenty-one months). In addition to these four
stages, there are also many substages (Emmanuel).
Margaret Mead was born December 16, 1901, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of five
children (gwu). Her mother was a pioneer in child psychology and her father taught
economics at the Wharton School but she had to beg her father to send her to college. She
enrolled at DePauw University but after one year, entered Barnard College, Columbia
University. She received her B.A. degree in 1923 and completed her M.A. degree, in
psychology, in 1924, from Columbia. She completed her doctoral thesis in 1925 but did not
receive her Ph.D. from Columbia until 1929. In latter years, she received honorary
degrees from Wilson College, Elmira College, and Rutgers University (Mead).
Although Mead is best know for her pioneering work as an anthropologist, her
understanding of other cultures has given us a new outlook on such issues as adolescence
and sexuality. She argued that adolescence is not inevitably a time of stress and
conflict. She also was quite critical of American society for shrouding sexuality in
secrecy (great). 
All total, Margaret Mead wrote forty-four books and over 1,000 articles that have been
translated into virtually all languages. She wrote on subjects as vast as mental and
spiritual health, ethics, and overpopulation. She was also the first to conduct
psychologically-oriented field work (Tribute). In her own words: "I have spent most of my
life studying the lives of other peoples---faraway peoples---so that Americans might
better understand themselves (amnh)." Margaret Mead died in 1978 (2001).
Leta Stetter Hollingworth was born on May 25, 1886. Her father was, among other things, a
peddler, a teamster, a rancher, a trader, and a bar owner. She was the first-born and her
mother died soon after the birth of her third child. She inherited a journal that her
mother had recorded the first year of Leta's life in and she continued this tradition
well into her life. When she was twelve years old, her father remarried and took the
children from the home of their grandparents where they had been stationed to the home of
the new stepmother. This proved to be a horrible experience. 
When Leta was sixteen, she enrolled in the University of Nebraska and comprised an
impressive four-year academic record. She also became engaged to Henry Hollingworth
during this time. In 1906, she received her B.A. degree along with a State Teacher's
Certificate. After moving to New York to marry Hollingworth in 1908, she specialized in
education and sociology and received her Masters in Education at Columbia University in
1913. Leta completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University under Edward L. Thorndike in 1916.
She was then offered a position at Columbia Teacher's College and remained in that
position for the remainder of her life.
Hollingworth's greatest contribution to psychology was her study of women's issues. She
wrote on topics such as male domination of social order, suffrage, and the female
menstrual cycle, the last of which was the subject of her Doctoral thesis, which was
supervised by Thorndike. She also did much work with mentally deficient and mentally
gifted children (Hochman).
Dorthea Lynde Dix was born on April 4, 1802, in Hampden, Maine. She was the first child
of Joseph and Mary Dix. Her father was a Methodist preacher and her family life could be
described as abusive. Her mother was not in good mental health and her father was an
alcoholic. She once commented, "I never knew childhood." During the War of 1812, the
family was forced to take refuge in Vermont. Her father taught her how to read and write;
this developed a passion for reading and teaching. She later taught her brothers how to
read as well.
She was sent to live with her grandmother, along with her two children, at the age of
twelve. Her grandmother was quite wealthy and demanded that Dorthea acquire the interests
of a wealthy girl. During one episode, she was punished severely for giving food and her
new clothes to the beggar children who were standing at their front gate. From there, she
was sent to live with a great aunt and stayed with her for nearly four years. It was with
her aunt that she met her second cousin, Edward Bangs, an attorney and fourteen years her
senior. He convinced her to start what he called a "little dame school." At the age of
fifteen, she taught her first twenty pupils.
When Dorthea was eighteen, Edward told her that he had fallen in love with her. She
immediately closed down her school and returned to her grandmother's. However, Edward
followed her to Boston and proposed marriage. Dix accepted his proposal would not agree
to a definite date of marriage. After her father's death in 1821, she returned the
engagement ring and devoted the rest of her life to teaching. 
Upon entering a jail in 1841, she noted the horrible treatment of the mentally ill. When
asked why these conditions existed, her answer was "the insane do not feel heat or cold."
She immediately took these matters to the courts and eventually won. She traveled
throughout every state on the east side of the Mississippi River and over half of Europe
inspecting jails. In all, she played a major role in founding thirty-two mental
hospitals, fifteen schools for the feeble minded, a school for the blind, and numerous
training facilities for nurses (Dix).
Another woman who claimed many 'firsts' in psychology was Helen Bradford Thompson
Woolley. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to David and Isabella Thompson on November 6,
1874. Her father was a shoe manufacturer and her mother was a homemaker. Both her, and
her two sisters, all attended college. After graduating from college, she enrolled at the
University of Chicago. She completed her undergraduate degree in 1897 and her Ph.D. in
1900.
At the University of Chicago, she conducted the first major research concerned with the
differences between men and women. She also conducted research on University of Chicago
students in areas including: motor ability, taste and smell, skin and muscle senses,
vision, hearing, affective processes, and intellectual faculties. She published her
doctoral dissertation under the supervision of James Angell. Woolley influenced other
female psychologists, including Leta Stetter Hollingworth.
After leaving Chicago, she studied in Paris and Berlin. Upon returning to the United
States, she began teaching at Mount Holyoke College. She became director of the
psychological laboratory and professor of psychology in 1902. She became engaged in 1905
to Dr. Paul Woolley and moved with him to the Philippines. In 1908, she and her husband
moved back to Nebraska, perhaps because of the birth of their first child. Helen became
involved in child welfare reforms, African American rights, and suffrage issues. 
In the mid-1920s, she accepted a position in New York as a professor of education at
Columbia University's teacher's college, while her husband was in California. This move
apparently solidified their separation. In 1926, after a series of stressful events, she
"became emotionally incapacitated" and in 1930, was asked to resign from teaching
(Woolley).
Psyche Cattell is perhaps more well known for being the daughter of James McKeen Cattell
rather than her own psychological career. She was born on August 2, 1893. Her mother was
Josephine Owen Cattell and while book after book as been written about hr father, almost
nothing has been written about her mother. It is quite easy to say that her father had a
great influence on her. Psyche and her five siblings lived in a huge house overlooking
the Hudson River. Their father insisted that they be home-schooled and hired only the
best teachers. Psyche suffered from dyslexia and when she expressed her desire to attend
college, her father would not support her. He felt that she would not be able to perform
at the college level. Despite this lack of emotional and financial support, she forged
ahead and got a job as a research assistant in order to pay her own tuition. She began
her undergraduate work at Sargent School of Physical Education and received her M.A.
degree from Cornell University in 1925. Following that, she went to Harvard University
and received a Master's of Education degree followed by a Doctorate of Education degree
in 1927.
Psyche Cattell was a research assistant both during and after her graduate studies at
Harvard's Graduate School of Education. She took a similar position at Stanford from 1925
to 1926. In 1931, she adopted a son, Hudson. Despite the difficulties for a single woman
in obtaining an adopted child, she adopted a daughter, Jowain, in 1940.
In addition to her research assistant jobs, Psyche was also an instructor in mental
testing. She realized that the tests of her time needed and improvement and did just
that. Her infant intelligence test is still in use today (Psyche).
Grace Helen Kent was born on June 6, 1875, in Michigan City, Indiana. She was born to a
minister who followed in the steps of three generations of clergymen. Kent's father was
quite liberal for the time and was one of the first white pastors for a Negro church.
After attending high school, she attended Grinnell College for two years. She then
transferred to the University of Iowa and received her bachelor's degree in 1902. In
1904, she received her master's degree from the University of Iowa under Carl Seashore.
In 1905, Kent moved to the East coast to work on her graduate work with Hugo Munsterberg
at Harvard for about two years.
Her major work was done on associationism at King's Park State Hospital on Long Island.
There, she worked on the famous Kent-Rosanoff Association Test in conjunction with Dr.
A.J. Rosanoff in 1910. She later worked with 
Dr. Shepard Ivory Franz at George Washington University. In 1911, she received her Ph.D.
from the same university in psychology. 
One contemporary psychologist is Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem. She was born on June 22, 1944,
to Peter, a postal clerk, and Lillian, a secretary, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sandra
was one of three girls in a class of twelve at Hillel Academy, a Jewish school in
Pittsburgh. It was during this time that her future became evident, when she began to
show concern for gender differences. One such incident has her being expelled for wearing
pants to school. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Carnegie-Mellon
University in 1965. She found that she preferred hypothesis testing rather than
experimental testing here. She also found her future husband, Darly Bem, and married him
after a few months. She decided to study child psychology and attended the University of
Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the tender age of
twenty-three.
Her teaching career began at Carnegie-Mellon as an assistant professor where she remained
until 1971. Later that year, Stanford University offered a one-year position to both her
and her husband. Sandra remained at Stanford until 1978, when she did not receive tenure.
Once again, both the Bems accepted positions at Cornell University.
In 1971, she created a measurement that she called the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI).
This instrument allows a person to rate both masculine and feminine traits. At the age of
thirty-one, Sandra received the American Psychological Association Distinguished
Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology for "her studies of sex
roles, androgyny, and the ontogeny of psychosexual identity and maturity (Bettis)."
Contemporary psychology cannot be talked about without giving a quick mention to Joyce
Brothers. She was born in 1927, to parents who believed that nothing was more important
than hard work, achievement, and family. She demonstrated a photographic memory early in
life. She received her bachelor's degree, with honors, from Cornell in 1947. She then
received her Master's degree from Columbia in 1949. A week later, she married. She gave
birth to her daughter, Lisa, the following summer. 
Because of the meager income being brought in by her husband, Joyce decided to appear on
the $64,000 Question TV quiz show. She was introduced on the show as a psychologist who
was an expert on boxing. She memorized a boxing encyclopedia for the show and appeared on
air for five weeks straight, answering every question. She became one of the biggest
winners in quiz show history, winning $130,000. She gained instant celebrity status and
went on to host a television show on sex, love, marriage, and child rearing that ran for
twenty-one years. She also has a daily newspaper column, a monthly column in Good
Housekeeping, and a daily call-in program. She has also published seven books, two of
which became best sellers (Brothers).
When a person speaks of sex today, only one name comes to mind---
Dr. Ruth. Karola Ruth Siegel was born on June 4, 1928, in Frankfort, Germany. She was the
only child of a privileged Orthodox Jewish family. Her father was a prosperous notions
wholesaler and her mother was the daughter of cattle rancher. Ruth often crept into her
father's library to read his books. It was this experience that first piqued her interest
in human sexuality. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, the SS came to take her
father. Ruth was sent to a Swiss school that evolved into an orphanage for Jewish refugee
girls. She never saw her family again. She now believes that they perished in the
Auschwitz concentration camp. Ruth suffered immensely and was forced to act as maid for
the Swiss Jewish girls. She also often found herself in trouble by sharing her knowledge
on taboo subjects, such as menstruation, with other girls. 
After the war, she moved to Israel, then Palestine and became a Zionist. It was here that
she changed her first name to Ruth and joined the Haganah, the Jewish underground
movement that was fighting for creation of a Jewish homeland. On June 4, her birthday,
she was wounded when a bomb exploded outside of the home where she lived, taking off the
top of her foot.
Ruth frequently worried that she would never marry. She wrote in her diary, "Nobody is
going to want me because I'm short and ugly." However, in 1950, an Israeli soldier
proposed and she immediately accepted. They moved to Paris where she studied psychology
at the Sorbonne. The marriage ended after five years.
Ruth later sailed to New York using the 5,000 marks (about $1,500) she received as
restitution from the West German Government with a French boyfriend. She received a
scholarship to the New School of Social Research and gave birth to a baby girl, Miriam,
after arriving in New York. She later divorced the Frenchman, whom she had married to
legalize the pregnancy, and worked as a housemaid to support her daughter while attending
English lessons and evening classes. In 1959, she graduated with a Master's degree in
sociology and received a position as a research assistant at Columbia University.
She fell in love with her current husband, Manfred Westheimer, while on a skiing vacation
with her boyfriend. Nine months later, they were wed. Ruth gave birth to a son, Joel, and
became an American citizen soon after.
Ruth took a job at Planned Parenthood in Harlem, New York City, in the late 1960s and in
1967, she was appointed project director. She worked toward her doctorate degree in
family and sex counseling through Columbia University evening classes and became an
associate professor of sex counseling at Lehman College in the Bronx early in the 1970s.
She then moved on to Brooklyn College and was promptly fired. 
Her career took a fortunate turn when she lectured to New York broadcasters about the
need for sex education programming. She reasoned that such programs would dispel the
silence around such issues as contraception and unwanted pregnancies. Ruth was offered
twenty-five dollars a week to do Sexually Speaking, a fifteen-minute show every Sunday
that would air just after midnight. The show was an immediate success and so was Dr.
Ruth. Producers soon expanded the time-slot to one hour and opened up the phone lines to
allow live callers. By the summer of 1983, Sexually Speaking was attracting a
quarter-million listeners weekly. 
It was clear that fans adored her frank and non-judgmental approach to their sexual
queries. She was criticized by many but insisted that she was providing a much-needed
educational service to her listeners. She has now expanded her services to include
newspaper columns, a column in Playgirl magazine, The Dr. Ruth Show, and several books
including Sex for Dummies. In 1996, she launched a web site featuring daily sex tips and
advice. She continues her private practice in New York (Ruth).
It is very obvious that many women have made significant contributions to the area of
American Psychology, both directly and indirectly. Their accomplishments have been great
and deserving. The obstacles they were forced to overcome may not be the same today, but
they are certainly still present. As the field of psychology widens and develops, we are
sure to be shown many more prominent women in American Psychology.
Bibliography
Prominent Women in American Psychology
1w: What is Karen Horney's approach to psychoanalysis?: 
http://www.1w.net/karen/hapt.html
2001: Margaret Mead:An Anthropology of Human Freedom:
http://www.mead2001.org/Biograhpy.htm
ahnm: http://www.amnh.org/Exhibition/Treasures/Margaret_Mead/mead.html
bemo: http://www.bemorecreative.com/one/1156.htm
Bettis: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/sandrabem.html
bio: http://search.biography.com/print_record.pi?iu-200//
Boeree: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/horney.html
Brothers: http://www.biography.com/watch/listings/jbrothers.html
Bumb1: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html
Codak: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gracekent.html
Darwin: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/titlepage2.html
Dix: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dortheadix.html
Emmanuel: A developmental model of girls and women:
http://www.pgi.edu/progress/prog1/emmanuel.htm
geocities: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/6245/Horney.html
great: http://www.greatwomen.org/mead.htm
gwu: http://www.gwu.edu/~asc/biographies/Mead/
Harrington: Where Have All the Women Gone?:
http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/CouseNotes/PSYC331/StudyTools/StudentC...harrington.htm
Hochman: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/letahollingsworth.html
Mead: http://www.gwu.edu/~asc/biographies/Mead/bio.html
monadock: http://monadnock.keene.edu/~clr1/Washburn.html
Paris: http://www.1w.net/karen/encyc.html
Psyche: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/cattell.html
Ragsdale: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/christineladd.html
Ruth: http://search.biography.com/print_record.pi?id-22991
search: http://search.biography.com/print_record.pi?id-1/26/
sonoma: http://www.sonoma.edu/people/daniels/Horneylect.html
Tribute: http://www.wic.org/bio/mmead.htm
Wooley: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/wooley.html