The June issue of the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology includes a piece on the 75th anniversary of SPSSI. SPSSI, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, is division 9 of the APA. As Alexandra Rutherford describes,

SPSSI was born on Sept. 1, 1936, at New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College. It was conceived and delivered by a dynamic group of concerned social scientists who felt that organized psychology was not acting on the pressing social and economic problems of the 1930s. As one founder, Walter Lurie, put it, “we believed the study of psychology must have some relevance to economic and political problems, if it had any human worth at all.”

In its first year, SPSSI welcomed 17 percent of APA’s members into its ranks.

In the article, Rutherford also describes Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech as part of SPSSI’s 1967 APA convention programming. The full piece on SPSSI’s history can be read online here.

AHP’s readers may also want to check out SPSSI’s 75th anniversary gala August 3rd, during the APA convention in Washington, DC.