July 12th: Stephanie Azzarello and Jennifer Gumbulevich

Margaret Floy Washburn graduated from Cornell University in 1894 with a PhD in psychology, and as the first American woman to do so, paved the way for women all over America to pursue their doctorates in psychology as well.  She received the honor of having her thesis published in Wilhelm Wundt’s journal, Philosophical Studies, a notable accomplishment since she was not one of his students.  She would later go on to translate the second volume of Wundt’s book series titled Ethics.  After accepting a position at Vassar Women’s College in 1903, she established an experimental psychology program, published countless articles, and wrote the book The Animal Mind, published in 1908, which sought to examine animal cognition through a method known as introspection by analogy.  In 1921, she was elected president of the American Psychological Association, a position that would not be held by a woman again until over 50 years later (Benjamin, 2014).  These accomplishments were impressive in general, but especially at the time because Washburn was a woman and had to combat the sexism and stereotypes that plagued American women in the 19^th century.  To put this into perspective, most of Washburn’s accomplishments occurred before women had the right to vote! 

Famous female psychologists like Margaret Floy Washburn and Mary Whiton Calkins were not only dealing with the pressure of publishing new research in a field such as psychology which at the time wasn’t even taken seriously, but they were also facing blatant sexism from their male colleagues. There have been times where other male students would drop the class because a female was taking it, or universities would not allow women to attend lectures for credit as students, but rather audit them as guests. Women had to research all different universities and talk to several people to find out if they would be admitted as students (Cattell told Washburn to apply to Cornell rather than Columbia because Columbia would not have admitted her).  Sexism still exists today in all areas of employment and education; it is just subtler. Even in the textbook, these female psychologists weren’t given nearly as much detail as their male counterparts. Their names were not bolded in big font on the page; rather they were a side note, and only mentioned because they studied under a male psychologist (Benjamin introduces Washburn as Titchener’s first doctoral student).

Even with psychology presently being a female-dominated field, there are still deeply embedded sexist influences, such as the difference between careers in men and women with Psychology degrees, with more women in more nurturing counseling and clinical branches and more men in research focused psychology. This is obviously influenced by the History of Psychology because women weren’t given the same opportunities as men at the start of the development of the field, thus altering the way psychology and all of its different branches were formed.

The London Eye illuminated at night.  Photo taken from within one of the bubbles.
Click here for a tasty restaurant we found near Euston Station!

Timeline: 1908 -- Margarget Floy Washburn's book The Animal Mind is published.

References

Benjamin, L. (2014). The Early Schools of American Psychology. In A Brief History of Modern Psychology (2nd ed., pp. 87-88). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.