Tag Archives: Hall

Cenetennial of Freud’s Clark U. Lectures

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Freud, Hall, and Jung at Clark U, 1909“AFTER FREUD LEFT: Centennial Reflections on His 1909 Visit to the United States.”

An international symposium, October 3-4, 2009, at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Leading scholars in the history of psychoanalysis and American intellectual history will reflect on what happened to Sigmund Freud’s ideas in the United States in the century after he left New York following his only visit to the New World, a visit that became an iconic event in American history. Continue reading Cenetennial of Freud’s Clark U. Lectures →

W.R. Harper’s vision for the University of Chicago

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Harper with John D. Rockefeller in 1901In a recent issue of History of Education Quarterly, 48(4), Michael Lee discusses William Rainey Harper’s role in the founding of — the second — University of Chicago in 1891 and what the recognition of his explicitly religious approach means for the standard secular histories of higher education.

Harper’s conception of the relationship between scholarly research and Christianity challenges and complicates the dominant history of the development of universities in America. Whereas most mid- and late nineteenth-century university presidents in America gently reassured a nervous public that the Christian religion had nothing to fear from research and scholarly freedom, Harper trumpeted a different message: the research university would save Christianity. (pp. 510-511)

Harper’s approach distinguished him from the other visionary administrators of his time, while at the same time connecting him to an earlier tradition.

American colleges, like Harvard and Yale, were originally little more than boarding schools for young boys training for the ministry. Professors strove to instill godly character and knowledge of the Bible by recitation, rhetoric, and simple mathematics. They were seldom expected to research or discover new knowledge. In the mid- and late nineteenth century, educational leaders such as Henry Phillip Tappan of the University of Michigan, Noah Porter of Yale, Daniel Coit Gilman of Johns Hopkins University, G. Stanley Hall of Clark University, and Seth Low of Columbia College hoped to elevate the level of scholarship in the United States, and the German universities served as their ideal. In this regard, Harper was like many of the first generation of university presidents. However, this article argues that Harper’s vision of a university made him unique among his peers. (p. 510)

The results of this difference shaped the specific character of the early University of Chicago—and the institutional context that greeted John Dewey upon his arrival from the University of Michigan in 1894. Continue reading W.R. Harper’s vision for the University of Chicago →

Amy Tanner: more than G. Stanley Hall’s assistant

Journals,

Mike PettitIn a recent issue of History of Psychology, 11(3), Michael Pettit (pictured right) contributed a new chapter to the history of women in psychology.

Amy E. Tanner pursued a series of ventures on the margins of the discipline of psychology from 1895 through the 1910s. As a midwesterner and a woman, she found herself denied opportunities at both research universities and elite women’s colleges, spending the most visible phase of her career as G. Stanley Hall’s assistant at Clark University. A narrative of Tanner’s life furnishes more than a glimpse at the challenges faced by women scholars in the past. As an investigator engaged with the debate over the mental variability of the sexes, an active class passer in the name of social reform, and a spiritualist debunker, her broad interests illuminate how broadly the proper scope of the new psychology could be constituted. Throughout her writing, Tanner offered an embedded, situated account of knowledge production.

AHP has previously posted several notes about the history of women in psychology.  For those interested in this topic specifically, we have created a “tag” that organizes like stories into a single thread: “women.”  (This will automatically update every time a new article is posted with that tag.)  We have also recently added the Division 35 history page, Society for the Psychology of Women Heritage Site, to our links (see the sidebar under “Resources”).

If you have suggestions for additional resources that other readers may find useful, please contribute these thoughts below as a comment. (Click here to do so now.)

Anniversary of James McKeen Cattell’s PhD

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James McKeen CattellIt was on this day in 1886 James McKeen Cattell passed his doctoral examinations at the University of Leipzig. Cattell was the first American to graduate under Wilhelm Wundt’s supervision. G. Stanley Hall, however, had earlier spent time learning and working in the famed experimental psychology research laboratory — the first of its kind in the world — after earning a PhD at Harvard under William James. Ironically, Cattell had begun his graduate work under Hall’s supervision at Johns Hopkins, but left Baltimore for Leipzig after a dispute with Hall over his fellowship, which had been withdrawn and given to another Johns Hopkins student, John Dewey. Continue reading Anniversary of James McKeen Cattell’s PhD →

Happy 164th Stanley!

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G. Stanley HallToday is the birthday of Granville Stanley Hall: student of William James, “post-doc” of Wilhelm Wundt, founder of the “child study” movement in the US, founder of the first psychology research laboratory in the US (at Johns Hopkins), founder of the American Journal of Psychology, president of Clark University, founder of the American Psychological Association, popularizer of the term “adolescence,” host of Sigmund Freud on his only trip to the US (in 1909), and all-around good guy (well, maybe not so much).

Here is a “Mass Moments” item on Hall and his career (tip o’ the hat to Karin Wetmore for alerting me to this). Continue reading Happy 164th Stanley! →