Who Was The First African American To Receive A Phd In Psychology?

Who Was The First African American To Receive A Phd In Psychology
Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD – Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, was the first African American woman to receive her doctoral degree in psychology. Prosser was born in Texas in 1895. After graduating from high school, she completed a teaching certification and taught in the Texas segregated school systems.

  1. She received her bachelor of arts in education in 1924 and her master’s in educational psychology from the University of Colorado.
  2. Prosser accepted faculty and administrative positions before deciding to pursue her doctorate.
  3. In 1933, she graduated from the University of Cincinnati with her PhD in educational psychology.

Her dissertation, “The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools,” received much acknowledgment. Her findings revealed that black students benefited more in segregated schools because they were more likely to receive affection, support and a balanced curriculum versus an integrated school where they were likely to have problems adjusting academically, socially and in accepting their identity.

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Who was the first African American woman to receive a PhD in psychology in 1934?

America’s first black female psychologist Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, had a most improbable life. Born into a family of 11 children at the end of the 19th century in south central Texas and educated in its “colored schools,” she taught for 18 years, earning a PhD in psychology in 1933, the first such degree earned by a woman of her race.

A year later, family, friends and students gathered in San Antonio to mourn her death. She was approximately 38 years old (her birth year is unknown). Prosser had a lifelong passion for education and an understanding of the power it offered for changing lives. Her family planned to send her older brother, Leon, to college, believing that they could afford it for only one of their children.

But Prosser’s desire was clearly greater, and Leon convinced his parents to pay for her instead. It proved to be a good investment: Her eventual success as an educator enabled her to contribute advice and money that helped five of her siblings graduate from college.

  1. Prosser began her college work at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college northwest of Houston.
  2. With a two-year certificate, she began teaching in Austin, Texas, in 1913, first at a black elementary school and then a high school.
  3. She finished her bachelor’s degree at Samuel Huston College in Austin in 1926.

Because of segregated schools, Prosser was forced to leave Texas for graduate work. She completed her master’s degree at the University of Colorado and then her doctorate in psychology at the University of Cincinnati in 1933. Her dissertation research examined self-esteem and personality variables in matched pairs of African-American middle-school children, with half the children having attended segregated schools and the other half attending integrated schools in the Cincinnati area.

She concluded that black children fared better in segregated schools with black classmates and black teachers. Specifically, she found that black children from integrated schools experienced more social maladjustment, felt less secure in their social relations and had less satisfactory relationships with their families.

They were also more likely to feel inferior at school, had less satisfactory relationships with their teachers and were more eager to leave school early. Her conclusions were controversial in the decades leading to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954, although supported by some prominent African-Americans such as Carter Woodson and W.E.B.

DuBois, who reluctantly endorsed segregated schools until such time that prejudicial attitudes of white teachers would sufficiently change to offer a positive experience for black children. Prosser spent the last seven years of her life teaching in black colleges, first at Tillotson College in Austin, and then at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss.

She took a one-year leave of absence from Tougaloo to complete her PhD. She taught just one more year. In September, 1934, on her way to Mississippi after visiting family in Texas, she was killed in a car wreck near Shreveport, La. Although her life was short, Prosser was instrumental in assisting many black students in obtaining funds for college and for graduate study.

The magnitude of her accomplishment in obtaining her PhD was recognized by her appearance on the cover of the magazine The Crisis in August 1933, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This year marks the 75th anniversary of that degree. In April, a special memorial symposium was held at the University of Cincinnati, organized by Shawn Bediako, PhD, Kathy Burlew, PhD, Steven Howe, PhD, and others.

Eleven members of the Beverly and Prosser families attended, including Bernice Beverly Arbor, the youngest of the 11 Beverly children. The family has arranged to donate memorabilia and documents of Inez Beverly Prosser to the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron.

Who was the first black woman and man to receive PhD in psychology?

Black Forerunners Paving the Way in Psychology During Black History Month, we are highlighting some of the top Black professionals in the mental health field that many have not heard of. Today we are highlighting the first Black male and female to receive their PhD in psychology.

  1. Francis Cecil Sumner, PhD, and Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD.
  2. America’s first black female psychologist, Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, was born around 1897 to Samuel Andrew and Veola Hamilton Beverly in the small town of Yoakum, Texas.
  3. Not much is known about her early years besides the fact she was the oldest daughter of 11 children.

A bright student, she graduated valedictorian from Yoakum Colored High School in 1912 and then went on to receive a degree in teacher training from Prairie View Normal College where she was also valedictorian. Though common today, in her time, education beyond high school was not common, especially for a woman. Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD. Source: uwgb.org After receiving her degree, she went back to Yoakum and taught for a short time at their segregated schools, before accepting a teaching position in Austin, where she took up classes at Samuel Huston College.

In around 1924, she graduated with distinction from Samuel Huston with a major in education. Shortly after her graduation she married Rufus A. Prosser. Unable to stay away from academia, Inez decided to continue her education obtained a Master of Arts degree in educational psychology from the University of Colorado.

She then accepted a position at Tillotson College teaching education, where she was recognized as an excellent teacher and leader. Then from 1921 to 1930 Inez served as dean and registrar at Tillotson College. In 1931 Inez was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation General Education Board Fellowship because of her excellent and well-known work as a teacher.

In 1933 she received a PhD, one of the first African American women to accomplish this in the United States, in educational psychology from the University of Cincinnati. Her dissertation, which received a huge amount of recognition, was on The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools.

It was also one of the earliest treatises on the social domain of elementary school children. Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD. Source: savannahtribune.com During Inez’s lifetime she established a fund, while completing her own education, that enabled her sisters and brothers to obtain a college education. Of the eleven brothers and sisters, all completed high school and six further completed a college education.

Then in 1934, tragedy struck as Inez Beverly Prosser was killed in an automobile accident near Shreveport, Louisiana. Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, was a strong-willed individual who beat the odds, and if not for a terrible accident, would have been able to make even more contributions to psychology as we know it.

Francis Cecil Sumner is called “the Father of Black Psychology,” because he was the first Black man to earn his PhD in psychology. Francis Cecil Sumner, PhD. Source: earlham.edu Francis Cecil Sumner was born in Arkansas in 1895. As a teenager without a high school education, Francis was self-taught after his elementary school years and was able to pass an entrance exam to Lincoln University, at the age of 15, and graduate magna cum laude with honors.

He later enrolled at Clark University to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1916. Although he was approved as a PhD candidate, he could not begin his doctoral dissertation because he was drafted into the army during World War I. Upon returning from the war, he reenrolled in the doctoral program and in 1920, his dissertation titled “Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler” was accepted.

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Francis’ focus in psychology was on “race psychology” where he was interested in understanding racial bias and supporting educational justice. Besides “race psychology,” he also studied color and vision, as well as the psychology of religion. He was one of the first people in academia to contribute to the fields of psychology, religion and the administration of justice together.

  • Francis became a professor at various universities and managed to publish several articles despite the refusal of research agencies to provide funding for him because of his color.
  • He worked with the Journal of Social Psychology and the Psychological Bulletin, writing abstracts.
  • His students described him as motivating and encouraging.

Francis Sumner is credited as one of the founders of the psychology department at Howard University, which he chaired from 1928 until his death in 1954. Under the leadership of Francis and his colleagues, Howard University became a major force in the education of African American psychology students.

Though the psychology department at Howard did not offer the PhD degree in psychology until 1972, nevertheless, by 1972, 300 African Americans had earned PhDs in psychology from U.S. colleges and universities.60 of which had previously received a bachelor’s or master’s degree from the Department of Psychology at Howard.

One of Francis’ students, Kenneth Bancroft Clark, would emerge as the most successful and influential African American psychologist of the 20th century. If you would like to speak to someone about better managing your stress and anxiety, or to make an appointment, please call for more information.

Who was the 1920 first African American doctorate in psychology?

Francis Cecil Sumner is known as the ‘Father of Black Psychology.’ In 1920, he became the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in Psychology. In 1928, he helped found the psychology department at Howard University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

Who was the 1st African American female to receive a PhD in psychology from the University of Cincinnati?

Education and career – She returned to Yoakum and taught for a short time at their segregated schools. Then, Prosser became an assistant principal at Clayton Industrial School in Manor, Texas, before accepting a more long-term position at Anderson High School,

  1. Throughout her time at Anderson, she taught English and coached for the spelling competitions of the Interscholastic League, an organization that sponsored events for Black high school students in athletic and academic contests throughout the state.
  2. During this period, Prosser met and married Allen Rufus Prosser, who worked as an elevator operator at a department store in Austin, and the two were married in 1916.

While working at Anderson in 1921, Prosser also began to work towards her bachelor’s degree at Samuel Huston College, She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926, minoring in English and Psychology and graduating with distinction. Prosser received several awards and embraced the opportunity to continue her education.

She went on to receive a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado. Prosser began this work in the summer of 1924, taking four undergraduate courses (two in English, one in Abnormal Psychology, and a Physical Education class) to make up for what Colorado thought she lacked in her record at Samuel Huston College.

At Colorado, Prosser took several courses that were particularly relevant to her Master’s thesis whose subject areas include mental tests, tests and measurement, and research methods. Her thesis, “The Comparative Reliability of Objective Tests in English Grammar”, examined four kinds of English grammar tests (using the standards proposed by the National Education Association ). Photo of Inez Beverly Prosser in her Graduation cap and gown Upon receiving her Master’s degree, Prosser left Anderson High School in 1927 to accept a position as a faculty member at Tillotson College, a Black college in Austin. Tillotson had been coeducational, but in 1926, a year before Prosser arrived, it had become a women’s college.

  1. At Tillotson, she not only displayed her teaching and leadership skills but truly dedicated herself to the educational and psychological development of Black students.
  2. At Tillotson, she was given the opportunity to organize a series of lectures from 1929 to 1930, which even featured a lecture by George Washington Carver,

Overall, Prosser was at Tillotson College from 1921 to 1930, serving as “Dean, Registrar and Professor of Education. Aside from the president, Prosser was second in terms of administrative authority at Tillotson. Her influences extended well beyond the classroom walls or administrative offices.

Prosser was eventually transferred to another dual teaching and administrative position at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi, Even as Dean and Registrar of Tougaloo College, Prosser accepted the position as Principal of Tougaloo High School. Her career took an important turn when she applied for and was awarded aid from the General Education Board (established by John D.

Rockefeller in 1902). In her application, she noted, “I am interested in that type of research which will lead to better teaching in elementary and high schools”. She received $1,000 to apply towards another year of graduate studies. Prosser spent the 1931-1932 academic year at the University of Cincinnati in residence.

  1. Finally in 1933, she became one of the first Black women to earn a PhD in Psychology, graduating from the University of Cincinnati.
  2. Warren states that, “Prosser was mentored closely by her Doctoral adviser and developed a close friendship with them.” She held positions at many schools, and not only taught, but also became assistant principal.

Although racial discrimination was rampant, Prosser continued to accept minimal wages for work that rivaled or exceeded that of her white colleagues. In Prosser’s case, according to Warren, “Although her dissertation research was in psychology, her doctoral mentor and other members of her committee were psychologists, and much of her coursework was in psychology, she is often denied her well-deserved title of psychologist.” Prosser returned to Tougaloo College for the 1932-1933 academic year while still working on her dissertation to work as a faculty member.

  • Her dissertation was approved in June 1933.
  • Dean Louis Augustus Pechstein who was the head of Prosser’s Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of Cincinnati wrote to William Holmes, the president of Tougaloo College stating, “Mrs.
  • Prosser was accepted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ed.

last week, Mrs. Prosser developed into a first-rate graduate student, a very keen and penetrating thinker, and will in our judgment, be a fine leader in the educational work with Negro college students. I am glad to give her my special commendation for it is never an easy task for a member of her race to pursue successfully the arduous course attending se- curing the doctorate degree.

Who was the first African American PhD?

The society was established with the commitment by Yale University and Howard University to recognize the life and academic contributions of Edward Alexander Bouchet. Bouchet was the first African American to earn a doctoraal degree from an American university; he earned his doctorate in Physics from Yale University in 1876.

  • Edward Bouchet was born in New Haven, Connecticut on September 15, 1852.
  • He was the son of William Frances and Susan (Cooley) Bouchet.
  • William Bouchet migrated to New Haven from South Charleston, South Carolina in 1824 as the valet of the father of Judge A.
  • Heaton Robinson of New Haven.
  • The senior Bouchet was said to have been prominent in New Haven’s black community, serving as deacon of the Temple Street Church, the oldest black church in the city.
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Edward Bouchet attended the New Haven High School (1866 to 1868) and graduated from Hopkins Grammar School (1870) as valedictorian of his class. Bouchet entered Yale College in 1870 and was the first African American to graduate Yale College in 1874. On the basis of his academic record he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

  • Although Bouchet was elected to Phi Beta Kappa along with other members of the Yale class of 1874, the election did not take place until 1884, when the Yale chapter was reorganized after thirteen years of inactivity.
  • Because of the circumstances, Bouchet was not the first African American elected to Phi Beta Kappa as many historical accounts state, that honor belongs to George Washington Henderson (University of Vermont) who was elected in 1877.

Bouchet continued the study of physics as a graduate student at Yale, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in Physics in 1876. Bouchet was the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from an American university. Upon graduation from Yale, Dr. Bouchet taught chemistry and physics for twenty-six years at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, PA.

The Institute was a Quaker institution that had earned a reputation for high academic standards since its founding in 1837. Dr. Bouchet resigned in 1902 when the Institute’s college preparatory program was discontinued “at the height of the DuBois-Washington controversy over industrial vs. collegiate education.” The school moved to Cheney, PA as a vocational and teacher-training school; the name was changed in later years to Cheney State College.

From 1902 to 1903, Bouchet served as a science teacher at Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri in their college preparatory program. From 1903 to 1904 he served as business manager of the Provident Hospital, St. Louis and U.S. Inspector of Customs at the Louisiana Purchase Expedition (1904 to 1905).

  • Between 1905 and 1908, Bouchet was director of academics at St.
  • Paul’s Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia (later renamed, St.
  • Paul’s College).
  • In 1908 he was appointed principal of the Lincoln High School, Galipolis, Ohio, until 1913, when he joined the faculty of Bishop College in Marshall, Texas.

Dr. Bouchet retired from college teaching in 1916 due to illness, when he returned to New Haven.

Who was the first PhD in psychology?

History The study of psychology, as something other than a branch of philosophy (albeit still under the wing of the Philosophy Department), began at Harvard in the late 1800’s. The “new” psychology was pioneered by William James, who offered his first formal course in physiological psychology in 1875-76, the same year in which he established a laboratory devoted to that subject.

  • The first doctoral degree including “psychology” in its title (i.e., philosophy and psychology), was awarded to G.
  • Stanley Hall in 1878.
  • By 1892, Hugo Munsterberg had been appointed professor of experimental psychology and director of the psychological laboratory.
  • The discipline remained linked to Philosophy throughout the early years of the century, during which its range expanded, as indicated by the formation in 1927 of the Psychological Clinic, under the direction of Morton Prince.

(He was succeeded by Henry A. Murray in 1928.) The vigorous leadership of E.G. Boring brought status as a separate department in 1934, though Psychology remained linked to Philosophy through a divisional structure until 1936 when it finally was allowed to stand alone.Gordon Allport then assumed the chairmanship, holding it until 1946 when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences acceded to a new organization that left experimental alone in the Department of Psychology while social, developmental and personality (including clinical) combined with sociology and social anthropology to form the Department of Social Relations.

  • That division persisted for twenty-five years, during which time (1967) the training program in clinical psychology was abandoned.
  • The demise of Social Relations as a separate entity was heralded by the decision of the sociologists to withdraw into their own Department of Sociology in 1970.
  • Shortly thereafter (1972) the branches of psychology recombined as the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, soon after which the social anthropologists retreated to their (never abandoned) association with the Anthropology Department.

The circle was completed in the spring of 1986 when, just fifty years after an independent department under that name first appeared at Harvard, the name was shortened and the present Department of Psychology emerged. by E.L. Pattullo, former Associate Chair of this Department : History

Who was the first female PhD in psychology?

1921 APA President – Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in American psychology (1894) and the second woman, after Mary Whiton Calkins, to serve as APA President. Ironically, Calkins earned her doctorate at Harvard in 1894, but the university trustees refused to grant her the degree.

It was the general policy of the era that married women could not serve as teachers or professors in co-educational settings. Thus, Washburn never married and served as a professor at Vassar College for 36 years. She was a skilled researcher and prolific writer. As was the custom, Washburn brought many of her undergraduate students, all women, into her laboratory and included them as authors on many of her publications.

Her principal research interests were animal behavior and the basic psychological processes of sensation and perception. The book she is best known for was ” The Animal Mind ” (1908), which was the first book based on experimental work in animal cognition.

The book went through many editions and was for a number of years the most widely used book in comparative psychology. Following her interest in basic processes, Washburn developed a motor theory of consciousness. The theory was most fully developed in her book, “Movement and Mental Imagery” (1916). There, she integrated the experimental method of introspection with an emphasis on motor processes.

The basic premise of her work was that thinking was based in movement. Thus, consciousness is linked to motor activity. Beyond serving as APA President, Washburn received many honors. Perhaps her highest honor was being named a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

She was only the second woman to ever receive that honor. A full account of her career can be found in Robert S. Woodworth (1948), Margaret Floy Washburn. “Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, I 25, 275-295,” A more intimate portrait of her life and work that also sets her story in the context of her times can be found in Elizabeth Scarborough and Laurel Furumoto, “Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists” (1989).

Date created: 2012

Who was the first African American to earn a PhD in psychology and went on to chair the psychology department at Howard University for decades?

Highlighting Black figures in the behavioral sciences (updated daily throughout February): – Dr. Phyllis Ann Wallace Economist, professor, author, civil rights activist Dr. Phyllis Ann Wallace studied workplace economics and discrimination in the workplace.

She was the Chief of Technical Studies at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and she was a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management–the first woman to gain tenure there. Read more here. Dr. Albert Sidney Beckham Psychologist, researcher, professor Dr. Albert Sidney Beckham was a psychologist who focused much of his research on education.

In a 1933 study, he showed that intelligence test scores and social-economic status were significantly correlated. As a professor at Howard University, Dr. Beckham founded a lab that conducted research on and refuted claims made in mainstream psychology about the intellectual inferiority of Black children.

Read more here. Dr. Anna J. Cooper Sociologist, author, educator, civil rights activist Dr. Anna Julia Cooper received her PhD in History in 1924 and made contributions to sociology and other social science fields. Her first book, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, is widely acknowledged as one of the first articulations of Black feminism.

As such, Dr. Cooper was often known by the title, “the Mother of Black Feminism.” Read more here. Dr. Herman George Canady Psychologist, educator, author Dr. Herman George Canady worked to increase educational opportunities for Black students. One of his most significant contributions was his study on the role of an IQ test examiner’s race on test results: He found that rapport between the examiner and test-taker could impact test scores.

  1. He was chair of the psychology department at West Virginia State University for forty years.
  2. Read more here. Dr.
  3. Carolyn R.
  4. Payton Psychologist, professor Dr.
  5. Carolyn R.
  6. Payton was a professor of psychology and was very active in the American Psychological Association, serving on several committees.
  7. She received the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology for her “dedication to using psychology to promote better cross-cultural understanding and to end social injustice by influencing political process” She was also appointed Director of the Peace Corps in 1977.

Read more here. Dr. Samuel L. Myers Sr. Economist, educator, civil rights advocate Dr. Samuel L. Myers Sr. was among the first Black Americans to receive a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Myers served as president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) for 18 years.

  1. Under his leadership, NAFEO lobbied President Jimmy Carter and Congress to pass Title III of the Higher Education Act, which secured billions of dollars in funding for historically Black colleges and universities.
  2. Read more here, Dr.
  3. Francis Sumner Psychologist, author, and professor Known as the “Father of Black Psychology,” Dr.

Francis Sumner was the first Black American to receive a PhD in psychology. His work focused on understanding racial bias and supporting educational justice. Dr. Sumner was also chair of the psychology department at Howard University for more than 25 years.

  • Read more here, Dr.
  • Mamie Phipps Clark Psychologist, researcher, and civil rights activist Dr.
  • Mamie Phipps Clark was a psychologist who conducted her master’s thesis on self-identification in Black children.
  • She and her husband Kenneth Bancroft Clark then continued this work together, using dolls to study the effects of segregation on Black children.

They testified as expert witnesses in Brown vs. Board of Education and other school desegregation cases, Read more here, Dr. Kenneth Bancroft Clark Psychologist, educator, professor, and civil rights activist Dr. Kenneth Bancroft Clark was a psychologist and the first Black president of the American Psychological Association.

He and his wife Mamie Phipps Clark opened an agency called the Northside Center for Child Development, the first full-time child guidance center offering psychological and casework services to families in the Harlem area. The Clarks made significant contributions both in their field of psychology and in the Civil Rights movement.

Read more here. Dr. Linda Datcher Loury Economist, author, professor Dr. Linda Datcher Loury was a Professor of Economics at Tufts University and was a pioneer in social economics. Dr. Loury conducted influential research on areas such as how grandparents’ educational achievements impacted their grandchildren, the relationship between job tenure and hiring networks, and the impact of mothers’ labor market participation on children’s academic achievements.

Read more here. Dr. John Gibbs St. Clair Drake Anthropologist, sociologist, author, professor Dr. John Gibbs St. Clair Drake was a devoted academic and anthropologist. Drake spent more than two decades conducting research as a professor at Roosevelt University and later founded the African and African American Studies program at Stanford University, among the first such programs in the U.S.

One of his most celebrated works is his co-authored book, Black Metropolis, which studied the urban experience of Black Americans living in Chicago in the early 20th century. Read more here, Dr. Charles S. Johnson Sociologist, author, professor Dr. Charles S.

  • Johnson dedicated his career to the study of race relations and served as the first black president of Fisk University.
  • Johnson was integral to the implementation of the Brown v.
  • Board of Education (1954) decision in the South and contributed to the effort to pass federal civil rights legislation.
  • Read more here,

Dr.W.E.B. Du Bois Sociologist, author, historian, civil rights activist Dr.W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the foremost voices of the Civil Rights Movement. In his first major academic work, a book called The Philadelphia Negro, Dr. Du Bois undermined stereotypes about Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia using empirical evidence.

It was the first case study of a Black community in the U.S. and a major contribution to the field of sociology. Much of his work also examined the U.S. government’s failures during Reconstruction, which ultimately led to the greater structural racism that prevailed throughout the 20th century. Read more here.

Dr. Robert Williams Psychologist, author, professor Dr. Robert Williams published more than 60 works in his career and was a founding member of the National Association of Black Psychologists, serving as the organization’s second president. Williams criticized racial and cultural biases in IQ testing.

His work refuted racist assumptions of Black Americans in mainstream psychology. Read more here, Dr. Katherine W. Phillips Business theorist, author, professor Dr. Katherine W. Phillips was a business theorist whose research focused on diversity, the workplace, and the value of racially and ethnically diverse groups.

Phillips became the first Black woman to receive tenure at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and later served as senior vice dean and the Reuben Mark Professor of Organizational Character at Columbia Business School. Read more here,

  1. Dr. Robert V.
  2. Guthrie Psychologist, author, professor The American Psychological Association (APA) described Dr. Robert V.
  3. Guthrie as “one of the most influential and multifaceted African American scholars of the century.” In his book, Even the Rat was White: A Historical View of Psychology, Guthrie recognized the significant and often overlooked contributions made by Black psychologists.

The book also disproved prior biased research that drew racist conclusions about Black people. Read more here, Dr. Reginald L. Jones Psychologist, author, professor Dr. Reginald L. Jones was a founding member of the National Association of Black Psychologists.

  • His book, Black Psychology, chronicled the work of prominent Black psychologists and rejected flawed mainstream psychological norms for studying Black people.
  • Read more here, Dr.J.
  • Frank Yates Psychologist, author, professor Dr.J.
  • Frank Yates was a devoted researcher whose work evaluated cognitive processes in judgments and decision-making across several contexts.

Yates helped establish the National Association of Black Psychologists, produced more than 100 publications, and served as a professor at the University of Michigan for more than 50 years. Read more here,

Who was the first female PhD?

Helen Magill White, née Helen Magill, (born November 28, 1853, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.—died October 28, 1944, Kittery Point, Maine), educator who was the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. degree, Helen Magill grew up in a Quaker family that valued education for both women and men.

  1. In 1859 the family moved to Boston, where Helen enrolled as the only female student in the Boston Public Latin School, of which her father was a submaster.
  2. In 1873 she was a member of the first class to graduate from Swarthmore College, of which her father was then president.
  3. She continued studies in the classics at Swarthmore and then at Boston University, where her dissertation on Greek drama in 1877 earned her a Ph.D.

From 1877 to 1881 she studied in England at the University of Cambridge, placing third in her tripos (honours examinations) at Newnham College in the latter year. After a year as principal of a private school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Magill was selected in 1883 to organize Howard Collegiate Institute in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

She remained director of Howard until 1887, when she resigned in a dispute with the trustees. She then taught briefly at Evelyn College, a short-lived women’s annex to Princeton University, Illness clouded the next few years, during which she taught high school for a time. In September 1890 she married Andrew D.

White, the retired president of Cornell University and a college classmate of her father’s, whom she had first met in 1887. White accompanied her husband to his diplomatic posts in St. Petersburg (1892–94) and Berlin (1897–1903). She took no part in public or educational affairs thereafter except, in 1913, to publicly oppose woman suffrage,

Who are the African Americans in the history of psychology?

African-centered psychologists and philosophers –

  • Na’im Akbar : A clinical psychologist known for his Afro-centric approach to psychology. He is a strong critic of the Eurocentric approach of psychopathology.
  • Molefi Kete Asante : An African-American professor and philosopher, who is a leading figure in the field of African studies.
  • Kwame Gyekye : Ghanaian philosopher and an important figure in the development of African Psychology.
  • John Samuel Mbiti : A Kenyan-born Christian philosopher who researched African cosmologies.
  • Niara Sudarkasa : An Africanist and anthropologist who was the first African American woman to teach at Columbia.

Who was the first black PhD sociology?

First African-American PhD in Sociology This guest post was contributed by Carl Teichman, Director of Government and Community Relations, IWU President’s Office, and member of the Class of 1980. Teichman created this biographical summary through information found in Randall K. Burkett’s book Black Redemption: Churchmen Speak for the Garvey Movement (Temple University Press, 1978). James Robert Lincoln Diggs, Ph.D., 1906 James Robert Lincoln Diggs was awarded a Ph.D. in Sociology from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1906, thereby becoming the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in that discipline and the ninth to earn a Ph.D. in any field in the United States.

  • Diggs, whose Ph.D.
  • Thesis was titled “The Dynamics of Social Progress,” graduated from Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., in 1866, and went on to earn the A.B. and A.M.
  • Degrees from Bucknell University in 1898 and 1899.
  • After completing his academic training, Diggs was the head of several small black Baptist colleges in the south, including State University in Louisville, Ky., Virginia Theological Seminary and College in Lynchburg, Va., and Selma University in Selma, Ala.
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In 1914, he was named president of Clayton-Williams University in Baltimore. A year later he was called to the pastorate of Trinity Baptist Church in Baltimore, and he served as the minister there until his death in 1923. Diggs was a colleague of W.E.B.

DuBois and was one of the few black educators to participate in the Niagara Movement. Diggs was among the group of 29 prominent African-Americans who met secretly in Niagara Falls, Ont., in 1905 and drew up a manifesto that called for full civil liberties, abolition of racial discrimination, and recognition of human brotherhood.

The Niagara Movement was the forerunner of the NAACP. At the Niagara Movement’s Harper’s Ferry Convention in 1906, the year he received the Ph.D. from Illinois Wesleyan, Diggs lectured alongside Du Bois and Reverd D. Ransom. He was also a principal financial backer of the Niagara Movement’s journal, the Horizon,

  1. An early member of the NAACP, Diggs was president of the Baltimore division.
  2. He was also a member of the national Equal Rights League and served as its national vice president.
  3. Diggs was regarded for his scholarly sermons, including an eloquent defense of Marcus Garvey during the third International Convention of Garvey Universal Negro Improvement Association in August 1922.

: First African-American PhD in Sociology

When was Black Psychology founded?

1968 The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) is established at the APA convention in San Francisco, with Charles L. Thomas, PhD, and Robert L.

Who was the first black woman to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University?

Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark – By Emma Rothberg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Predoctoral Fellow in Gender Studies, 2020-2022 Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark was a pathbreaking psychologist whose research helped desegregate schools in the United States. Over a three-decade career, Dr. Clark researched child development and racial prejudice in ways that not only benefitted generations of children but changed the field of psychology.

  1. Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark was born on April 18, 1917, in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
  2. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Clark went to segregated elementary schools and witnessed the violence of racism firsthand.
  3. She recalled that she knew she was African American from childhood since “you had to have a certain kind of protective armor about you, all the time You learned the things not to doso as to protect yourself.” Yet Clark felt she had a “privileged” childhood compared to other African American children due to her parents.

Her father, Harold H. Phipps, was a well-respected physician—a rare occupation for an African American person to hold at the time. Due to her father’s financial success, her mother, Kate Florence Phipps, was able to stay home with Clark and her younger brother.

  1. Ate’s ability to stay home was also rare for African American women at the time, since many had to take on labor or service jobs to make ends meet.
  2. Clark credited this warm, supportive, and protective childhood environment for her later success.
  3. In 1934, Clark graduated high school and received multiple scholarship offers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Despite the expense of sending a child to college, a burden made worse by the Great Depression and the limited college options for African Americans, Clark’s parents were determined she get a degree. Clark went to Howard University in Washington, D.C.

  • On a merit scholarship.
  • She knew she wanted to help children.
  • Originally studying math and physics to become a teacher, Clark felt the professors in those departments were unsupportive and cold.
  • Then she met Kenneth Clark, a psychology student at Howard; the meeting was, Clark later described, “prophetic.” Kenneth introduced Clark to professors in the Psychology Department and encouraged her to pursue psychology.

Despite knowing she would have difficulty finding a job as an African American woman in the field, she studied it and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Psychology in 1938. This was also the beginning of a collaboration and relationship with Kenneth that would last the rest of Clark’s life.

  • The summer between graduation and beginning a master’s in psychology at Howard, Clark worked as a secretary for Charles Hamilton Houston, an NAACP lawyer whose office served as the planning ground to legally challenge racial segregation across the country.
  • When she began her Masters, Clark was influenced by the law office’s work and the work she did at an all-African American nursery school.

Her Master’s Thesis, “The Development of Consciousness in Negro Pre-School Children,” surveyed 150 African American pre-school aged boys and girls from a Washington, D.C. nursery to explore issues of race and child development. Specifically, she wanted to understand at what age African American children became aware that they were African American.

  • From 1939 to 1940, Clark and Kenneth—who had begun a Ph.D.
  • In Psychology at Columbia University in 1937—published three major articles featuring her thesis work.
  • In 1940, Clark began a Ph.D.
  • In Psychology at Columbia University.
  • Joining Kenneth, with whom she had eloped during her senior year at Howard, the two became the only African Americans in the department.

Clark specifically went to Columbia to work with Professor Henry Garrett, a scientific racist and eugenicist; Clark wanted to challenge him and his thinking personally. When Clark started her graduate studies, the field of psychology was still characterized by scientific racism—a pseudoscientific theory supporting white supremacy.

While Clark pursued her Ph.D., she also raised her and Kenneth’s daughter, Kate, while Kenneth took research trips. The two continued collaborating together, receiving prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowships (established to fund, support, and advance the achievements of African Americans) in 1940, 1941, and 1942 to study racial identity in children.

Clark became the first African American woman to graduate Columbia with a Ph.D. in 1943. The couple’s second child, Hilton, was born the same year. After graduation, Clark was unable to find an academic job despite her accomplishments. Clark first took a job as an analyst at the American Public Health Association and then as a research psychologist at the U.S.

Armed Forces Institute. In both jobs, she felt she was in a “holding pattern.” She then became the testing psychologist at the Riverdale Home for Children, a refuge for homeless girls. That work made her realize there was a lack of services for African American children in Harlem. She advocated for more services and resources but was met with silence from the city government and others.

Taking matters into her own hands, the Clarks started the Northside Center for Child Development in 1946; it was the first and only organization in the city that provided mental health services to African American children. Northside offered psychological testing, psychiatric services, social services, and academic services and became a center of activism and advocacy for Harlem and its residents.

  • Clark ran Northside until her retirement in 1979; the center continues today.
  • Based on her graduate research, Clark conceived of and implemented “The Doll Test” in the 1940s.
  • In it, the Clarks looked at 253 African American children aged three to seven: 134 attended segregated nursery schools in Arkansas and 119 attended integrated schools in Massachusetts.

Shown four dolls (two with white skin and blonde hair, two with brown skin and black hair), the children were asked to identify the race of the doll and which they wanted to play with. Overwhelmingly, the children wanted to play with the white doll and assigned it positive traits.

  • The Clarks concluded that African American children formed a racial identity by age three and attached negative traits to their own identity, which were then perpetuated by segregation and prejudice.
  • It was a pathbreaking study.
  • Due to this work, Clark served as an expert witness, testifying in many school desegregation cases.

In one, she testified against her Ph.D. advisor, Henry Garrett, who argued in favor of segregation. In the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which ended school segregation in the United States, NAACP lawyers used Clark’s research and expert testimony in their successful arguments.

  1. While history books credit Kenneth with “The Doll Test,” he even said “the record should show was Mamie’s primary project that I crashed.
  2. I sort of piggybacked on it.” Dr.
  3. Mamie Phipps Clark died of lung cancer on August 11, 1983, at age 66.
  4. She was survived by her husband Kenneth, who passed away in 2005.

“Mamie Phipps Clak, PhD, and Kenneth Clark, PhD,” American Psychosocial Association, 2012, https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/clark Leila McNeill, “How a Psychologist’s Work on Race Identity Helped Overturn School Segregation in 1950s America,” Smithsonian Magazine, October 26, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/psychologist-work-racial-identity-helped-overturn-school-segregation-180966934/ Marie Koesterer, “Dr.

Mamie Phipps Clark, Segregation & Self-esteem,” Webster University, http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/mamiephippsclark.htm Ronald Smothers, “Mamie Clark Dies; Psychologist Aided Blacks,” The New York Times, August 12, 1983, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/08/12/096551.html?pageNumber=79 Black History Month, “Fulfilling Black Children’s Lives—Dr.

Mamie Phipps Clark,” The British Psychological Society, October 16, 2020, https://www.bps.org.uk/blogs/black-history-month/mamie-phipps-clark “A Revealing Experiment: Brown v. Board and ‘The Doll Test,'” NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, https://www.naacpldf.org/ldf-celebrates-60th-anniversary-brown-v-board-education/significance-doll-test/ “Kenneth and Mamie Clark Doll,” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/clarkdoll.htm “Kenneth Clark,” Notable New Yorkers, Columbia University Libraries Oral History Research Office, 2006, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/clarkk/profile.html Stephan N.

Who received the first PhD in psychology from Harvard?

(1842-1910) (1872-1907) at Harvard Estabished Harvard’s Psychology Department William James, philosopher and psychologist, was instrumental in establishing Harvard’s psychology department, which at its inception was tied to the department of philosophy.

James himself remained unconvinced that psychology was in fact a distinct discipline, writing in his 1892 survey of the field, Psychology: Briefer Course, “This is no science; it is only the hope of a science” (p.335). Despite James’s skepticism, in the ensuing century this hope was fully realized in the department he helped to found.

Initially trained in painting, James abandoned the arts and enrolled in Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry and anatomy. During an extended stay in Germany after graduating, James developed an interest in studying the mind, as well as the body. In 1872 James was recruited by Harvard’s new, reformer president, Charles Eliot, to teach vertebrate physiology.

In 1875 James taught one of the university’s first courses in psychology, “The Relations between Physiology and Psychology,” for which he established the first experimental psychology demonstration laboratory. James oversaw Harvard’s first doctorate in psychology, earned by G. Stanley Hall in 1878. Hall noted that James’s course was, “up to the present time the only course in the country where students can be made familiar with the methods and results of recent German researches in physiological psychology” (Hall, 1879).

James’s laboratory research on sensation and perception was conducted in the first half of his career. His belief in the connection between mind and body led him to develop what has become known as the James-Lange Theory of emotion, which posits that human experience of emotion arises from physiological changes in response to external events.

Inspired by evolutionary theory, James’s theoretical perspective on psychology came to be known as functionalism, which sought causal relationships between internal states and external behaviors. In 1890 James published a highly influential, two-volume synthesis and summary of psychology, Principles of Psychology,

The books were widely read in North America and Europe, gaining attention and praise from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in Vienna. James then moved away from experimental psychology to produce more philosophical works (he is credited as one of the founders of the school of American Pragmatism), although he continued to teach psychology until he retired from Harvard in 1907.

Who was the first black woman to earn a PhD in chemistry?

Key facts – Full name: Marie Maynard Daly Born: 16 April 1921, Queens, New York Died: 28 October 2003, New York Marie Maynard Daly was a US biochemist and the first African-American woman to gain a PhD in chemistry. She is famous for helping to discover the link between cholesterol and clogged arteries.

Who created the first PhD in African American Studies at Temple University?

More than 50 years ago, Temple students flooded the North Philadelphia roads of Broad Street for hours to demand that the university be more responsive to African American issues. Their voices were heard. In 1971, Temple University established what eventually would become known as the Department of Africology and African American Studies, one of the first Black studies programs in the country and the first to offer a doctoral program.

President Liacouras told me that Philadelphia is a great city, and it’s majority African American, so there is no reason why Temple University should not have the best African American studies program in the nation. – Molefi Kete Asante The historic program has since produced world-class scholars and has more graduate students in African American studies than any other university in the Northeast.

Following the department’s evolution over the last five decades has also provided a reflection of the social evolution of our country. Molefi Kete Asante, the author of over 100 books and founder of the department’s doctoral program, said that those initial student protestors wanted more Black studies and professors within the university to combat racism, discrimination and oppression in the late 1960s.

Temple first responded by creating the Afro-Asian Institute, the university’s first Black studies department in 1971. The department took this name because some Black Americans identified as Asiatic Black. The term “Asiatic” was also fitting because many Blacks in the movement identified with the struggle of the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War.

The following year the department was renamed the Pan-African Studies Department and created a community education program called the Pan-African Studies Community Education Program, founded by Annie D. Hyman in 1975. Asante explained that internally, many had doubts about keeping a space for the Black studies department at Temple. Who Was The First African American To Receive A Phd In Psychology Odeyo Ayaga, a Kenyan professor, was chair of the Pan-African Studies Department at Temple University. (Photo credit: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia) In 1984, Peter Liacouras, Temple’s former president, hired Asante to revitalize Black studies into a world-class department.

“President Liacouras told me that Philadelphia is a great city, and it’s majority African American, so there is no reason why Temple University should not have the best African American studies program in the nation,” Asante said. From there, one of the department’s main goals became strengthening bonds with the local, national and international African and African American communities.

In 2016, Asante convinced the Board of Trustees to rename the department to the Department of Africology and African American Studies. He explained the name change represented an effort to have African American studies become more recognized as a discipline in higher education.

“We evolved our focus to the Afrocentric study of African and African American phenomena transgenerationally and transcontinentally, using an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach.,” Asante said. “Transgenerational could be researching Africans dating back to 4000 B.C. And transcontinental could be learning about Africans throughout the world’s continents, like in Asia, South America, North America and Europe.

Our department encompasses as much as we can,” he added. Who Was The First African American To Receive A Phd In Psychology Molefi Kete Asante presenting an award for exemplary leadership to congressperson Lucien Blackwell from the Department of African American Studies at Temple University in 1993. Asante was chair of the department for 27 years. (Photo credit: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia) Asante’s leadership and national reputation attracted more faculty members and world-class scholars to the department.

He said that Temple has the best Afrofuturist in the world, Reynaldo Anderson, and that Kimani Nehusi is the leading Egyptologist in African American studies in the country. He added that Professor Nah Dove is also one of the top women in the nation to teach African womanism and feminism, and that Aaron Smith is one of the most popular professors in the department, bringing in 250 students to a class on Tupac.

Two years ago, Asante had the vision for creating Temple’s Center for Anti-Racism, a hub for anti-racism research dedicated to understanding racism and solving problems of racial inequity and injustice. On Nov.14, 2022, Temple held a grand opening for the center, one of the only centers of its kind in the country.

Pennsylvania State Senator Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) and Pa. State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta (D-181), KLN ’12, helped secure $1.3 million in state funding for the center’s construction. Timothy Welbeck, a professor in the Department of Africology and African American Studies, is the center’s director.

Asante explained that after years of hard work, the department reached success on a national level. Since its inception, the department’s doctoral program has graduated over 200 students. Its prominent alumni include Ibram X. Kendi, CLA ’07, ’10, the author of the New York Times No.1 bestseller How to Be an Antiracist and the director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University; Eddie Glaude, CLA ’91, the James S.

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McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University; and Christel N. Temple, CLA ’99, editor of the Journal of Black Studies and former chair of the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The department’s accomplishments don’t end with its long list of notable alumni.

Through the department’s study abroad program, students can now study Afrocentric programs with an international community of like-minded peers. Students can also pursue a master’s degree at the department and be eligible for department awards and scholarships.

The department is also home to the Journal of Black Studies, a leading publication for research on the Black experience. Students who take classes in the department can work with the journal under the guidance of faculty. Both Asante and Ama Mazama, a professor and chair of the department, edited the Encyclopedia of Black Studies, which includes an analysis of the economic, political, sociological, historical, literary and philosophical issues related to African Americans.

The department is accredited by the National Council on Black Studies (NCBS), a world-leading organization of Black studies professionals. “We are very proud that C. Tsehloane Keto, a former professor in our department, is one of the only scholars to have a scholarship named after him in the NCBS,” Asante said.

  • Recently, Carm Regan Almonor, a doctoral student, received the SAGE Asante Award, awarded to the top doctoral student in the department based on grades, scholarship and professional commitment.
  • Hope Dove, a doctoral student, received the Molefi Kete Asante Founders Award, granted to the doctoral student who displays a dedication to the field of Africology and African American studies through publications.

In addition, many of the department’s students research at Temple’s Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, The collection includes more than 500,000 unique items relating to Black history and culture. Located in Sullivan Hall, the catalog spans more than 400 years, from 1581 to the present.

Who was the first African American to receive a PhD from Howard University?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Georgiana Rose Simpson
Simpson in 1921, wearing academic dress for her graduation from the University of Chicago
Born 1865
Died 1944 (aged 78–79)
Nationality American
Occupation Professor
Years active 1915–1944
Academic background
Alma mater University of Chicago
Thesis ‘ Herder’s Conception of “Das Volk”‘ (1921)
Academic work
Discipline Philologist
Sub-discipline German language
Institutions Howard University

Georgiana Rose Simpson (1865–1944) was a philologist and the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in the United States. Simpson received her doctoral degree in German from the University of Chicago in 1921.

Who earned the first American PhD?

A Word From Verywell – G. Stanley Hall was instrumental in the development of early psychology in the United States. He is known for his many firsts, including being the first American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology, the first to open a psychology lab in the U.S., and the first president of the APA. By Kendra Cherry Kendra Cherry, MS, is the author of the “Everything Psychology Book (2nd Edition)” and has written thousands of articles on diverse psychology topics. Kendra holds a Master of Science degree in education from Boise State University with a primary research interest in educational psychology and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Idaho State University with additional coursework in substance use and case management.

Who is the first PhD scholar in the world?

History in the United States – Until the mid-19th century, advanced degrees were not a criterion for professorships at most colleges. That began to change as the more ambitious scholars at major schools went to Germany for 1 to 3 years to obtain a PhD in the sciences or humanities.

  1. Graduate schools slowly emerged in the United States.
  2. In 1861, Yale awarded the first three earned PhDs in North America to Eugene Schuyler, Arthur Williams Wright, and James Morris Whiton, although honorary PhDs had been awarded in the US for almost a decade, with Bucknell University awarding the first to Ebenezer Newton Elliott in 1852.

In the next two decades, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Princeton also began granting the degree. Major shifts toward graduate education were foretold by the opening of Clark University in 1887 which offered only graduate programs and the Johns Hopkins University which focused on its PhD program.

By the 1890s, Harvard, Columbia, Michigan and Wisconsin were building major graduate programs, whose alumni were hired by new research universities. By 1900, 300 PhDs were awarded annually, most of them by six universities. It was no longer necessary to study in Germany. However, half of the institutions awarding earned PhDs in 1899 were undergraduate institutions that granted the degree for work done away from campus.

Degrees awarded by universities without legitimate PhD programs accounted for about a third of the 382 doctorates recorded by the US Department of Education in 1900, of which another 8–10% were honorary. At the start of the 20th century, US universities were held in low regard internationally and many American students were still traveling to Europe for PhDs.

  • The lack of centralised authority meant anyone could start a university and award PhDs.
  • This led to the formation of the Association of American Universities by 14 leading research universities (producing nearly 90% of the approximately 250 legitimate research doctorates awarded in 1900), with one of the main goals being to “raise the opinion entertained abroad of our own Doctor’s Degree.” In Germany, the national government funded the universities and the research programs of the leading professors.

It was impossible for professors who were not approved by Berlin to train graduate students, In the United States, by contrast, private universities and state universities alike were independent of the federal government. Independence was high, but funding was low.

The breakthrough came from private foundations, which began regularly supporting research in science and history; large corporations sometimes supported engineering programs. The postdoctoral fellowship was established by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1919. Meanwhile, the leading universities, in cooperation with the learned societies, set up a network of scholarly journals.

” Publish or perish ” became the formula for faculty advancement in the research universities. After World War II, state universities across the country expanded greatly in undergraduate enrollment, and eagerly added research programs leading to masters or doctorate degrees.

What year was the first PhD in psychology awarded in the US?

G. Stanley Hall: Psychologist and Early Gerontologist G. STANLEY HALL WAS instrumental in founding psychology as a science and in its development as a profession. He is best known for his work on child development, especially adolescence, yet he also wrote a powerful treatise on the economic, social, and intellectual isolation of the elderly.

  1. Senescence, excerpted here, was the first major analysis by an American social scientist of the changing experience of aging.
  2. Granville Stanley Hall was born on his parents’ farm in Ashfield, Mass, on February 1, 1844.
  3. His father, Granville Bascom Hall, served in the Massachusetts legislature, and his mother, Abigail Beals, studied at the Albany Female Seminary and taught school.

They passed on to their son their love of learning as well as a strong sense of religious piety, and Hall grew up determined to make a contribution to the world. He initially planned to become a minister. Hall graduated from Williams College in 1867 and enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in New York City the same year.

  1. He completed his training in 1870, although after 10 weeks as a church pastor he decided to leave the ministry.
  2. From 1872 to 1876, Hall taught literature and philosophy at Antioch College.
  3. He then undertook research with H.P.
  4. Bowditch at Harvard Medical School and in 1878 was awarded the first PhD in psychology in the United States.

After failing to secure a professorship, Hall went to Germany, where he studied physiological psychology at laboratories in Berlin and Leipzig. He also spent time investigating the possibilities of applying psychology to education. He returned to the United States in 1880 and was invited by Harvard to give a series of public lectures on education.

  • The lectures were so successful that he repeated the series the following year and was invited to deliver a similar series at Johns Hopkins University in 1881.
  • In 1882 Hall was appointed a lecturer in psychology and pedagogy at Johns Hopkins University, becoming a professor in 1884.
  • This professorship was the first chair in the new field of psychology in the country.

Hall was a major force in organizing the field, focusing on scientific approaches and in 1883 establishing a psychology laboratory at the university. In 1887 he launched the American Journal of Psychology, and in 1892 he convened the American Psychological Association and served as its first president.

In 1888, Hall became the first president of Clark University, in Worcester, Mass. He envisioned Clark as a major graduate school and invited a number of leading scholars to join the faculty, including anthropologist Franz Boas and biologist C.O. Whitman. The accidental asphyxiation of Hall’s wife and daughter in 1890 left him raising his young son alone, yet over the course of the next decade he made some of his most significant contributions to the new science of psychology.

He developed his influential concept of “genetic psychology,” based on evolutionary theory, and solidified his reputation as a leading educational reformer. In 1904, Hall published Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relation to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education,

In this 2-volume study, based on the idea that child development recapitulates human evolution, Hall took on a variety of issues and synthesized scholarship from a wide range of disciplines. After his retirement in 1920, Hall wrote a companion volume on aging. This important account has been labeled “prophetic” in its recognition of an emerging “crisis of aging” in the 20th century, in which longer lifespan, narrowing family roles, and expulsion from the workforce combined to dramatically isolate the elderly and restrict their active participation in public life.

Hall railed against this process, arguing that the wisdom conferred by old age meant that the elderly had valuable and creative contributions to make to society. Yet, the stigma of aging meant that, instead, many were engaged in the foolish pursuit of youth, trying to avoid being excluded from full participation in their communities.

  1. In the conclusion of the book, Hall expressed a tangible sense of personal anger against this form of discrimination.
  2. His stirring call for a better understanding of the aging process anticipated the development of gerontology, and his critique of the marginalization of the elderly still resonates today.1.

Cole TR. The prophecy of Senescence : G. Stanley Hall and the reconstruction of old age in America. Gerontologist,1984; 24 :360–366.2. Hulse SH, Green BF Jr. One Hundred Years of Psychological Research in America: G. Stanley Hall and the Johns Hopkins Tradition.

  • Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1986:4.3. Ross D.
  • Granville Stanley Hall.
  • In: Garraty JA, Carnes MC, eds.
  • American National Biography. Vol 9.
  • New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1999:857–858.4. Ross D.G.
  • Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet.
  • Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press; 1972:208.5.

Woodward K. Against wisdom: the social politics of anger and aging. J Aging Stud,2003; 17 :55–67. : G. Stanley Hall: Psychologist and Early Gerontologist

Who was the first PhD ever awarded?

Yale Awards First Ph.D in United States – At Commencement in 1861, Yale University awarded three Ph.D. degrees, not only the first ever awarded at Yale, but also the first in the United States. The University of Pennsylvania followed in 1870; Harvard, in 1872; and Princeton, in 1879. The Yale graduate programs continued to grow, although they would not be named a separate graduate school until 1892.

Who was the first woman with a PhD in psychology?

1921 APA President – Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in American psychology (1894) and the second woman, after Mary Whiton Calkins, to serve as APA President. Ironically, Calkins earned her doctorate at Harvard in 1894, but the university trustees refused to grant her the degree.

It was the general policy of the era that married women could not serve as teachers or professors in co-educational settings. Thus, Washburn never married and served as a professor at Vassar College for 36 years. She was a skilled researcher and prolific writer. As was the custom, Washburn brought many of her undergraduate students, all women, into her laboratory and included them as authors on many of her publications.

Her principal research interests were animal behavior and the basic psychological processes of sensation and perception. The book she is best known for was ” The Animal Mind ” (1908), which was the first book based on experimental work in animal cognition.

  • The book went through many editions and was for a number of years the most widely used book in comparative psychology.
  • Following her interest in basic processes, Washburn developed a motor theory of consciousness.
  • The theory was most fully developed in her book, “Movement and Mental Imagery” (1916).
  • There, she integrated the experimental method of introspection with an emphasis on motor processes.

The basic premise of her work was that thinking was based in movement. Thus, consciousness is linked to motor activity. Beyond serving as APA President, Washburn received many honors. Perhaps her highest honor was being named a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

She was only the second woman to ever receive that honor. A full account of her career can be found in Robert S. Woodworth (1948), Margaret Floy Washburn. “Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, I 25, 275-295,” A more intimate portrait of her life and work that also sets her story in the context of her times can be found in Elizabeth Scarborough and Laurel Furumoto, “Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists” (1989).

Date created: 2012

Who was the first female PhD?

Helen Magill White, née Helen Magill, (born November 28, 1853, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.—died October 28, 1944, Kittery Point, Maine), educator who was the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. degree, Helen Magill grew up in a Quaker family that valued education for both women and men.

In 1859 the family moved to Boston, where Helen enrolled as the only female student in the Boston Public Latin School, of which her father was a submaster. In 1873 she was a member of the first class to graduate from Swarthmore College, of which her father was then president. She continued studies in the classics at Swarthmore and then at Boston University, where her dissertation on Greek drama in 1877 earned her a Ph.D.

From 1877 to 1881 she studied in England at the University of Cambridge, placing third in her tripos (honours examinations) at Newnham College in the latter year. After a year as principal of a private school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Magill was selected in 1883 to organize Howard Collegiate Institute in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

  • She remained director of Howard until 1887, when she resigned in a dispute with the trustees.
  • She then taught briefly at Evelyn College, a short-lived women’s annex to Princeton University,
  • Illness clouded the next few years, during which she taught high school for a time.
  • In September 1890 she married Andrew D.

White, the retired president of Cornell University and a college classmate of her father’s, whom she had first met in 1887. White accompanied her husband to his diplomatic posts in St. Petersburg (1892–94) and Berlin (1897–1903). She took no part in public or educational affairs thereafter except, in 1913, to publicly oppose woman suffrage,

Who was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in science?

Cholesterol and hypertension – Daly and her colleagues did some of the earliest work relating diet to the health of the cardiac and circulatory systems. They investigated the impact of cholesterol, sugar, and other nutrients. She was the first to establish that hypertension was a precursor to atherosclerosis, and the first to identify a relationship between cholesterol and clogged arteries, an important discovery in understanding how heart attacks occur.

  • She was especially interested in how hypertension affects the circulatory system.
  • She showed that high cholesterol intake in diet led to clogged arteries, and that hypertension accelerated this effect.
  • She studied the effects of diet on hypertension, and found that both cholesterol and sugar were related to hypertension.

Investigating aging, she suggested that smooth muscle hypertrophy due to aging might have a causative role in hypertension and atherosclerosis. Daly was also an early investigator into the effects of cigarette smoke on the lungs and on hypertension.

Who was the first American woman to get a PhD?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Helen Magill White
Born November 28, 1853 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Died October 28, 1944 (aged 90) Kittery Point, Maine, U.S.
Education Swarthmore College ( BA ) Boston University ( MA, PhD ) Newnham College, Cambridge
Known for Classics, First American female Ph.D.
Spouse Andrew D. White
Children 3

Dr. Helen Magill White (November 28, 1853 – October 28, 1944) was an American academic and instructor. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in the United States.