Collectible cards have been around for well over 100 years.  Today they exist in a variety of forms and subjects.  When most people think of trading cards, baseball cards and Pokémon cards are likely the ones that most often come to mind. But trading cards have been printed for almost every subject imaginable: cartoon characters, country music stars, Star Wars, famous scientists and inventors, authors, Disney characters, classic music composers, film and TV stars, Rock and Roll icons, rappers, and every imaginable sport.  Most of these cards have little monetary value but there are many exceptions.  For example, on August 29, 2022, an anonymous buyer purchased a 1952 Topps baseball card for $12.6 million, the largest sum ever paid for a single piece of sports memorabilia.  It was a mint condition Mickey Mantle rookie card. When it was purchased in 1952 it would have been in a wax-wrapped package with several other cards and a piece of bubble gum and would have sold for either a penny or a nickel.  So are there trading cards for psychologists?  The answer is yes and no.

The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP) is the repository for a vast amount of material related to the science and practice of psychology.  It includes manuscript collections (personal papers) of hundreds of important psychologists; thousands of psychological tests; thousands of unique and rare photographs and films, including home movies of Sigmund Freud; more than 1,500 pieces of apparatus, some of them unique such as Stanley Milgram’s “shock box;” thousands of popular psychology magazines, some dating to the 1840s; a vast postcard collection that offers a pictorial view of the social history of the United States and other countries in the 20th century; and a fascinating collection of ephemera, that is, items that were not intended to be preserved forever but are as part of the CCHP collections.  And that is where you will find the psychologist trading cards.   

It is a small collection, a little more than 90 cards, representing 21 individuals.  The earliest card is from 1900 and the latest one from 2024.  In truth, few of the persons in this collection were actually psychologists, but they are included in the collection because their work was important to the science and/or practice of psychology.  Names that almost everyone would recognize include Charles Darwin, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Helmholtz, William James, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, and Roger Sperry.  To my knowledge, none of these cards was ever packaged with bubble gum.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) influenced psychology in so many ways, for example, paving the way for the field of comparative psychology, illustrating the value of studying individual differences, and leading psychologists to understand the evolutionary advantages of consciousness.  The cards for Darwin are an interesting mix.  The earliest cards were packaged with British cigarettes, as were American baseball cards.  Baseball cards appeared in American cigarette packs in 1888 and continued until World War II paper shortages ended the practice in 1940.  Pictured below are two Darwin cards that were in British cigarette packs.  The one on the left is from Ogden’s Guinea Gold Cigarettes and was issued in 1900.  The one on the right is from Nicolas Sarony Cigarettes and dated 1923. Darwin would have disapproved vehemently of the description of his theory on the Ogden’s card.  He did not, as the card states, “prove the descent of man from monkeys.”  Such misunderstandings of Darwin are commonplace still in the 21st century.

Sometimes the cardbacks were blank, but in most cases the backs were printed with information about the pictured individual.  Here is an example from Shelley Cigarettes from 1924.

You will notice that the Shelley Darwin card is No. 10 in a series of 25 labeled “Men of Genius.”  In fact most of these cards, like baseball cards, are part of a numbered set.  Note that the number 290 appears on the front of the Ogden’s Cigarette card.  It was part of a set of 300 cards.  Five years later a second set of 300 cards was issued and Darwin is included in that set as well (No. 283).

In the CCHP card collection, there are Darwin cards from nine different cigarette companies, eight of them English and one German.  The last of these cards was issued in 1951.  In 1934, Darwin appeared on a card placed in packages of tea sold by the Ty-phoo Tea Company.  The company issued 25 cards (of which Darwin is No. 6) in a series entitled “Homes of Famous Men.”  The drawing on the card shows the back of Darwin’s home in the village of Downe, now considered a part of the Greater London area.

Darwin cards were also issued as part of sets from another three English tea companies up to the 1970s.  And his card was also included in a set for a Belgian chocolatier in 1938.  The latest card in the collection to be packaged with some consumable product was issued by the Quaker Oats Company in 1974 in their cereal Sugar Puffs.

As an aside, the Quaker Oats Cereal Company was founded in Akron in 1872 and in the 20th century became the largest single employer in the city.

The French philosopher René Descartes’ (1596-1650) greatest contribution to psychology was his mind-body dualism that established mental activity as separate from physical activity and thus emphasized the study of mental processes. Pictured below are two of his cards.  The first is from Stollwerck, a German chocolatier and dated 1908.  The second, dated 1940, is from a French baker, Pelletier, and was included in packages of biscotti.

Evidently there are no old cards of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) whose contributions are principally to psychotherapy, although to the science of psychology as well, for example, emphasizing the importance of early experiences for personality and behavioral development, and describing defense mechanisms, such as repression, that can impact memory.  There are 11 Freud cards in the collection, the earliest one dated 1969.  Below is a 2009 card minted by the Topps Company that is the premiere minter of sports cards.

Whereas Freud’s contributions to psychology were largely on the clinical side, Ivan Pavlov’s (1949-1936) work on the conditioning of behavior was significant for the science of psychology, particularly the study of learning. He was the first Russian to win a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on the physiology of digestion.  His later work on conditioning was nominated for the Prize in four separate years but did not win. There are six Pavlov cards in the collection.  The earliest appeared in cigarette packs manufactured by Max Cigarettes, a South African company.  The text on the back of those cards is in both English and Afrikaans.  Below is Card No. 60 in a set of 250.  There is another Pavlov card in this set (No. 61) that shows Pavlov performing surgery in his lab.  The card set appeared in 1935.  Pavlov died the following year at age 86.

As indicated earlier in the description of the Darwin card contained in boxes of Sugar Puffs cereal, these kinds of combinations, that is, with cigarettes, tea, chocolate, etc., likely ended in the 1970s.  Yet the production of these cards of scientists and others continues today in several different forms. There are sets that are intended for collectors, sold in small packages that are bought in pursuit of a complete set, for example the Darwin card in a set of Garbage Pail Kids cards or the William James or Freud cards in the Gilded Age Series.  There are playing cards featuring individuals on different cards, e.g. Darwin, Freud, and John Stuart Mill.  There are cards that are part of games, e.g., a Freud card in the game of Cranium. There are sets of flash cards meant for learning, principally history, for example, American history, such as the Grolier “Story of America” cards. These cards were sold between 1994 and 2001 and contain a number of images related to psychology including cards on John Dewey, B. F. Skinner, and Roger Sperry.  All of the cards listed in this paragraph are in the CCHP collection, and a complete set of the Grolier cards can be found in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Note that the backs of the Grolier cards give considerable information about the contributions of the pictured individual.

It is disappointing that actual psychologists, such as Skinner above, have been mostly absent from these cards.  That was true in the days of cigarette, tea, and chocolate cards when such individuals as Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann Ebbinghaus, William James, Alfred Binet, and John Watson might have been included.  Yet it is also true of the cards published in the past 25 years that might have honored, for example, Frederic Bartlett, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers, Kurt Lewin, Noam Chomsky, and Herbert Simon.  Other important social scientists, for example in sociology and anthropology, are also scarce in these card sets, a bias that is mirrored in other treatments of the sciences, where the emphasis is on the physical and biological sciences.  The publication of collector cards continues to enjoy popularity.  Perhaps psychologists will fare better in the future.  In the meantime these cardboard mementos recognize the significant contributions of some of the philosophical and physiological precursors to the science and practice.

Note: all images contributed by the author.

As our world becomes increasingly digital, traditional paper documents such as correspondence, diaries, and notes are less commonly saved and filed away over the course of an academic life. Unfortunately for historians, digital files are more likely to be lost to history than their paper counterparts. Archives and collecting institutions must therefore work actively to find new ways to capture and save the historical record.  

The Cumming Center’s Archives of the History of American Psychology is doing just that. In 2024, we reignited an oral history project originally initiated by the founder of the Archives, Dr. John Popplestone, in the 1960s. This project captures the stories of psychologists who have shaped our science, our practice, and our social world. For our first interview, we had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Joseph E. Trimble, a trailblazer in cross-cultural psychology. We captured Dr. Trimble’s memories of his years as a graduate student, his first forays into cross-cultural research, and his sense of how his work has impacted psychology.   

Dr. Trimble earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Oklahoma in 1969 and has spent his career advocating for cultural sensitivity and competence in psychological research and practice, particularly with Native American communities. As a young scholar, he began to spend time in the Native American communities around the University of Oklahoma and began to get a sense of the importance of culture and spirituality in relation to a community’s worldview:  

 Dr. Trimble felt a strong disconnect between the courses he was taking in graduate school and the cultural and spiritual world that he was experiencing as he attended pow wows and tribal council meetings: 

Dr. Trimble came to believe that psychology often neglected culture and spirituality, but he kept on the path of incorporating culture: “I just continued to persist… there was a momentum that was building.”  

When we asked Dr. Trimble about what he saw as his contributions to the field of psychology, he shared a wonderful story of the impact of his co-edited book, Counseling Across Cultures, a pioneering text in multicultural psychology. This book remains a key resource for professionals working with individuals from diverse backgrounds. His chapter on counseling American Indian clients profoundly influenced many, including Grace Sage, a clinical psychologist. At a substance abuse conference, she shared with Dr. Trimble, “You, your chapter saved my career.” She recounted how, as the only Native American in her clinical psychology program, she felt disconnected: “There was this disconnect between what I was learning in the clinical program and what I was going to be faced with in tribal communities,” she said. Trimble’s writing gave her renewed hope and a sense of belonging in the field. She told him that and it touched him deeply. Reflecting on this moment, Dr. Trimble noted, “I don’t always know the impact my work has until someone like Grace tells me how it changed their life. That means more to me than anything else I’ve done professionally”​. 

Dr. Trimble continues to inspire psychologists and mental health professionals around the world. His life’s work has always focused on ensuring that psychology serves all communities, especially those who have been historically marginalized. His vision of culturally informed research and practice has reshaped the field, making it more inclusive and responsive to the needs of diverse populations. Through this oral history interview, we hope we have been able to capture the person behind this visionary work.

You can watch the whole interview here and watch our social media to be notified of the next one! 

The collections of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology are rich with treasures that tell the history of psychology over its roughly 150 years of existence as a science.  One part of the collection contains rare and sometimes unique artifacts and scientific instruments, more than 1,000 of them.  They span the history of psychology.  Some pieces in the collection are more recent such as a B. F. Skinner aircrib from the 1940s-1950s designed to improve infant care and Stanley Milgram’s faux shock box from his famous studies on obedience to authority in the 1960s.  These pieces of apparatus are quite large.  But some of the treasures in the Center’s collection can fit in your hand, and a few are meant to do just that. 

Consider the item below, which is one of the Cummings Center’s latest acquisitions. The ellipse, which is made of steel, measures 5 inches by 2 inches.  And in the middle of the ellipse is a brass plate that has been silvered, with two movable “hands” that are used to mark the numerical readings on the plate.  What is it?  A hint: it was meant to fit in your hand.

In fact, this instrument was one of the earliest to be used in psychological research in the late 1800s.  There were 40 psychology laboratories in existence in the United States by 1900 and most of them would have had this device or a similar one in their collection of apparatus. What purpose did it serve in psychological research?  We will answer that question in a moment.

This object is a hand dynamometer, a device engineered to measure the strength of one’s grip.  The dynamometer pictured above was the most popular instrument in its day, designed around 1867 by Anatole Collin (1831-1923), a French engineer known for the development of surgical instruments.  You can see his name on the brass plate.  The device above would be held in the palm with the long axis of the ellipse laid across the palm.  The hands of the device would be set at zero and then the person would be told to squeeze as hard as possible by making a fist and exerting as much pressure as possible on the two long sides of the ellipse.  Measures might be taken of grip strength in each hand.  And several measures might be taken of each hand to get a more reliable result. 

The dynamometer was invented by a French engineer, Edme Régnier (1751-1825) in 1798.  It was used to test muscular strength in both humans and other animals, particularly horses.  Régnier was an inventor working principally in the design of firearms.  One of the earliest uses of the dynamometer was to measure the pulling strength of horses used by the military in transporting artillery such as cannons (see figure below). Clearly the dynamometers used in these instances were not hand dynamometers.

But Régnier had invented that as well.  Among its earliest uses was the measurement of grip strength in different races by ethnologists.  Below is the Régnier hand dynamometer which measured grip strength in both hands simultaneously.

So why was this instrument of interest to the early psychologists?  Nineteenth-century physiologists and anthropologists believed that chief among human evolutionary achievements was the development of the hand and fingers, and that the control and utility of these movements was related to intelligence.  Sir Francis Galton, an English polymath and half cousin of Charles Darwin, was using the hand dynamometer in the late 1880s as part of a testing program of human cognitive, sensory, and motor abilities, a program of measurement he labeled anthropometry.  Below is an example of the individual records that Galton obtained from each subject who was tested in his Anthropometric Laboratory in London.  This record is dated August 11, 1888 and the subject was a 28-year old psychologist, James McKeen Cattell, who would later establish the psychology laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.  You can see that “Strength of squeeze” was greater in his right hand (89 pounds) than his left hand (82 pounds).

Cattell was strongly influenced by Galton’s work and included some of Galton’s measures in the mental testing program that he developed in the United States in 1890.  Cattell focused more on sensory and cognitive measures than Galton but one of the tests that he included among the ten comprising his test battery was a test of grip strength using the hand dynamometer. In fact, it was the first test listed in his battery.  Cattell described why this test was important: “The greatest possible squeeze of the hand may be thought by many to be a purely physiological quantity. It is, however, impossible to separate bodily from mental energy. The ‘sense of effort’ and the effects of volition on the body are among the questions most discussed in psychology and even in metaphysics.”

We do not know what dynamometer Cattell used in his work but a most likely candidate would be the Collin hand dynamometer pictured at the beginning of this blog.  In their excellent article on the history of the hand dynamometer, Serge Nicolas and Dalibor Voboril (2017, L’Année Psychologique, 117, 173-219) wrote:

…the instrument that was to become most firmly established was the one made by Collin and used, in particular, in the experimental work of [Alfred] Binet and other psychologists of renown. This instrument was to become an indispensable tool not only for psychologists but also for physicians, physiologists, anthropologists and medical doctors within the context of their work … The various lists of equipment available in the psychology laboratories [in the 1890s and early 1900s] … always have dynamometers close to the top, and in particular the Collin dynamometer. It enjoyed global success…

The hand dynamometer has continued to be used in a variety of fields since its inception and remains a popular scientific and medical instrument today.  Many modern versions resemble the model shown below, manufactured by the Charles Stoelting Company of Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s.  This instrument is also in the apparatus collections of the Cummings Center.

Today, one of the principal uses of this instrument is to understand the relationship between mental and physical processes in aging.  Pictured below are two current devices that can be purchased online or from medical suppliers.  The one on the left sells for about $20. The one on the right purports greater precision and is sold for psychological, physiological, and medical purposes.  It’s price is around $250.

But if you long for the ways things used to be, you can still purchase a brand new Collin Dynamometer in 2024    from GerMedUSA, a surgical instruments company in Garden City Park, NY.  They manufacture one for children and one for adults and they sell for around $240. Here is the image from their catalog. It is doubtful that Mr. Collin ever imagined that the device he developed in 1867 would still be manufactured in virtually identical form 157 years later!

There are multiple reasons why these devices continue to be used.  For example, they are used in rehabilitation programs for individuals suffering hand injuries to measure recovery of function.  Another very important use of the device is to study changes in grip strength in human aging.  There are more than 50 articles published in the last ten years that support the value of testing grip strength as a window into understanding cognitive decline in aging, especially forms of dementia. 

It isn’t just about horsepower anymore.

-The R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers included thousands of photographs taken during their research studies, which involved teaching American Sign Language (ASL) to chimpanzees. In this blog, CCHP student assistant Wesley Martin gives his perspective on making photographs from the second study (1972-1981) available to researchers. For an overview of the Gardner papers and processing, visit the blog, “An Inside Look at Processing a Collection“.

My role in making this collection accessible was to upload the photos and their corresponding information (metadata) to our digital repository. Interested researchers can now browse the R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner still images and access the digitized photographs through keyword searches. The process was sometimes challenging, but the great thing about looking through the Gardner photos is that any stress is quickly relieved when you see their cute little chimp faces! 

Another unique aspect of this collection is that the Gardners had a very consistent, standardized process for logging the major details of every photograph. Each photograph was given an identification number that was written on the back, and the description log data corresponds with these ID numbers. Their research content in general is massive; the archival boxes of materials take up just over 93 linear feet of shelf space, or 282 boxes.

Before my task began, a fellow student assistant Amelia Pier, transcribed the Gardners’ written photo descriptions into a digital spreadsheet. Another student assistant, Maggie Mahaney, scanned all the photographs and saved them into digital folders for me to pull from. The delegation of those specialized roles allowed me to focus on less tasks, streamlining the metadata creation process. An additional bonus is that I did not have to create my own original metadata descriptions for many of the photos, as the Gardners and/or research assistants wrote their own descriptions while observing the chimp behavior.

However, there were still hurdles to my task. I occasionally came across a folder where photos had no ID number written on them, and I had to flip through the Gardners’ log to match the descriptions with what was going on in the photos. This was time-consuming, especially if the chimps were signing. Another aspect that slowed the process was the few hundred photos that did not have descriptions, or had descriptions that were full of syntax errors or insufficient information. That is where I created most of my own original metadata.

Something that was difficult at first yet became easier was identifying the chimpanzees. At first I was always asking Assistant Processing Archivist Emily Gainer who was who. This was particularly an issue when they weren’t wearing any clothes. I learned that Dar had larger, folded ears; Tatu had white hair on her face; and Moja had darker skin around her face–although these traits were harder to observe in them during infancy (save for Dar’s ears).

Although these photographs give us a primary window into what the Gardners’ research looked like from their eyes, my greatest fascination has been seeing the pure joy on the faces of the human companions when interacting with these animals. It was more than just research: it was a series of close, emotional bonds between humans and our closest living relatives–an opportunity so rare that, as an anthropologist-in-training, it makes me envy.

I have included images in this blog that made me smile throughout the process.

To access materials in the R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers, contact our CCHP reference archivist at ahap@uakron.edu.

Through thorough record-keeping, the R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers document two studies relating to teaching American Sign Language (ASL) to five cross-fostered chimpanzees over 15 years. Yet, the papers also document the humans involved in the Gardners’ lives and research. One of these stories is that of Jane Goodall, primatologist and anthropologist, who is considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees.

Early correspondence between Jane van Lawick (Goodall) and the Gardners references their exchange of information, most notably the similarities and differences between wild chimpanzees and the cross-fostered chimpanzees in the Gardner studies. In a letter written by van Lawick in January 30, 1969, she thanks the Gardners for sending copies of their daily logs about the chimpanzee Washoe. She also writes, “So often during my years of acquaintance with the chimps here I have been certain, within myself, that they have a true sense of identity. Yet it is not possible to prove it in the wild. Your observations of Washoe’s reaction to her mirror image and responses to questions asked are particularly revealing.” The entire letter (below) is filled with observations of wild chimpanzees and demonstrates the sharing of information between these three researchers.

A few months later, Beatrix T. Gardner referenced Goodall’s work in her research notes. During Project Washoe (1966-1970), daily logs were kept to document Washoe’s activities, moods, diet, and ASL communication. The handwritten entry dated July 24, 1969, includes a drawing of a chimpanzee on the back of a crouching human. Beatrix wrote underneath this drawing, “W [Washoe] loves to jump up and down, stiff-legged on Dr. G [Gardner]’s back. Pulls him forward into appropriate position. This is like photos of attack in Goodall’s book yet W. does it with extreme merriment.”

The relationship continued in what would become an important experience for the Gardners. They travelled to Goodall’s field station, Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. The Gardners made this trip during August 1971, which was after Project Washoe ended in 1970 and before the second study began with the chimpanzee Moja in 1972.

August 7, 1971: “Here we are at Jane Goodall’s field station waiting for the chimps to come.”  When discussing traveling to the station by train: “It took us a lot longer to get here than planned…And no room left in 1^st class so we had to go 2^nd class (there remained still a 3^rd class below that). We did have one piece of luck in that Jane G. herself had come into Dar es Salaam (our starting point in Africa) on business so we had a most distinguished traveling companion. We left Dar es Salaam at 5:30am on Wednesday and got to the field station at 11:30am Thursday. But most of the trip was interesting and even exciting.”

R. Allen Gardner to his mother, May (Box M8013, Folder 2)

The Gardners not only took handwritten notes (below) identifying the wild chimpanzees and their behaviors, they also filmed parts of their Gombe experience on 8mm film (above). The clip includes their living environment, which Allen described to his mother in a letter dated August 13, 1971: “At night we sleep in a thatched cabin with a gorgeous view of Lake Tanganyika.”

After returning from Gombe, Beatrix wrote a thank you letter to Jane van Lawick Goodall. This letter, dated September 14, 1971, summarizes the Gardners’ experience but also includes reflections relating to Project Washoe. Beatrix writes, “we missed our Washoe tremendously…and we wished we could have been as nice as her own species about discipline and reassurance” (below).

Contact with Goodall continued after the Gardners completed their chimpanzee studies in 1981. Goodall visited the Gardner ranch in Reno, Nevada (see photographs above). The original photographs are not dated, but they appear to be taken in the early 1990s. Goodall also wrote to Allen in 1995 expressing her condolences after hearing of Trixie’s unexpected death while on a speaking tour in Italy.

In addition to Goodall, the Gardners corresponded and collaborated with a number of primate researchers, including Roger Fouts, Keith Hayes, Winthrop Kellogg, William Lemmon, Francine Penny Patterson, Duane M. Rumbaugh, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, and Herb Terrace. The Gardner papers also document the sometimes contentious relationships between them. As Sue Savage-Rumbaugh writes to Trixie Gardner in 1994, “I feel very badly that somehow all of us in the field of ape language got off on the wrong foot with each other and that we didn’t do as good a job as we could have as scientists of helping and sharing with one another.” She continues, “it’s really hard to work with apes and it’s really hard to know for sure everything that they can do.”

The story of Jane Goodall and the Gardners is one of the many gems found in the 282 boxes of archival materials of the Gardner papers. The R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers finding aid and over 3,400 still images are available through our online repository. To access materials in the R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers, contact our CCHP reference archivist at ahap@uakron.edu.

In 2022, the Archives of the History of American Psychology received nearly 500 boxes of papers, films, photographs, and computer hard drives and disks from the estate of R. Allen Gardner. These papers document the Gardners’ unique research on communication with cross-fostered chimpanzees. This is one of the largest collections we have received at the Archives and it provides an excellent opportunity to see how our whole team collaborates in the intake and processing of any given collection that arrives on our loading dock.

The R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers are now open for research. CCHP staff and student assistants have digitized and made over 3,400 still images from this collection available.

History

R. Allen (1930-2021) and Beatrix T. (1933-1995) Gardner started Project Washoe in 1966. During this study, the Gardners cross-fostered the chimpanzee Washoe and taught her to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL). Washoe was raised in a trailer in the Gardners’ backyard in Reno, Nevada. The study ended in 1970.

In 1972, the Gardners began a second study. The study is less well-publicized, but possibly of greater scientific significance. The Gardners began with days-old chimpanzees, carried out rigorous testing and documentation, and worked with human companions fluent in ASL. The second study involved a total of four chimpanzees over nine years. These cross-fostered chimps, raised at a ranch in Reno, included:

• Moja who lived with the Gardners from 1972-1979,
• Pili who lived with the Gardners from 1973 until his death in 1975,
• Tatu who lived with the Gardners from 1976-1981, and
• Dar who lived with the Gardners from 1976-1981.

Processing timeline:

Spring 2022: Donation of 496 boxes from the Gardner estate arrive at the CCHP.  Rhonda Rinehart and Emily Gainer appraise, sort, rebox, and move materials to storage.

September 2022: Emily begins archival processing, which involves organizing, preservation rehousing, and creating a finding aid to make these materials open to researchers.

Winter 2022: Emily identifies series and organizes 300 boxes into those categories. Further appraisal is performed with consultation from Cathy Faye.  Student assistants help with refoldering, labeling, and reboxing materials.

Spring 2023: Series identification and organization continues. Preservation rehousing continues. Jon Endres begins organizing and digitizing approximately 400 reels of film.

Summer 2023: Student assistants begin digitizing and creating metadata for 3,000 photographs and slides. Jon begins assessing electronic files stored on hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMS and other storage devices.

Fall 2023: Emily organizes the files within each series and arranges them chronologically and/or alphabetically. Emily begins writing the finding aid. Students continue metadata for photographs and slides.

October 2023: The finding aid is complete. Materials are made available and open to researchers.

Looking back on this project, it is clear that processing an archival collection of this size and scope is a time-intensive team effort. From accessioning to rehousing, digitizing, organizing, and describing, the entire Archives staff and many student assistants contribute to making the collections we receive every day available to researchers. To access materials in the R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner papers, contact our CCHP reference archivist at ahap@uakron.edu.

The first film in the Night at the Museum trilogy came out in 2006 and my family rented it from the local Family Video shortly after its DVD release in 2007. Six-year-old Katie watched that film and never let it leave her mind. She knew she would somehow be involved with museum and archival work and fifteen years later, she made this dream a reality.

Though the people in the pictures I looked through never came to life (I attribute that to lack of movie magic), I was given the opportunity to tell their stories and bring them to life through my capstone project.

This project has been an incredible experience. Not only was I given the opportunity to work in the Archives of the History of American Psychology, but I worked under the guidance and in the company of some of the most knowledgeable staff members here.

I spent this semester working as a true archivist would, using the finding aid, searching through boxes, and going down rabbit holes. Though the work often felt tedious, with lots to sort through and many searches leading me to dead ends, I was able to accomplish a lot. An accomplishment I am most proud of is the identification of Indian professors and researchers Pars Ram and H.P. Maiti. My first blog post goes more in depth to this process, but as I reflect upon my achievement, I start to understand how amazing this discovery was. I explained that I was unable to find any photos of these men on the internet, despite being able to find photographs of some of their colleagues. With my discovery people doing future research will be able to know what these men looked like thanks to what I found in the Murphys’ still image collection. This is almost unfathomable to me, a 22-year-old, who has always been able to google anything she wanted and find the answer. With this discovery I am contributing to the answers.

I am also extremely proud of the stories I was able to tell with these images, specifically the stories of the two refugee camps that were studied. To be given the opportunity to go through these photos and understand a fraction of what the Indians in these refugee camps were going through was an extremely heartfelt and gratifying experience. I was able to find photos of the Hindu gods and goddesses they were worshiping and told me about how they were feeling and for what they were praying. By going through these images, I was able to visualize the research they were gathering about social tensions.

This semester I was given the opportunity to learn about and become an expert in a topic using primary sources, something very few people get the chance to do. I am beyond grateful for the ability to tell the story of the Murphys and their trip to India using physical firsthand documentation.

When I was assigned this capstone project, there was an emphasis on storytelling. The still images related to the UNESCO study in India in the Gardner and Lois B. Murphy collection tell many stories about a country trying to piece itself back together, researchers and scholars banding together to fix social tensions and heal the trauma they collectively experienced, refugees trying to start again after being displaced, and many other tales of perseverance and community. My hope is that even though I am finished with this project, myself, or someone just as curious, will revisit and be able to capture all the stories I was unable to share. Until then, I hope the research I conducted is enough to help other researchers in their understanding of the Murphys, Indian Partition, or any other relevant topic I was able to address.

“America is Suffering from an Outbreak of Psychology.” Those words were written in 1924 by Stephen Leacock, Canada’s Mark Twain.  Leacock wrote in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine:

In the earlier days this science was kept strictly confined to the colleges … It had no particular connection with anything at all, and did no visible harm to those who studied it…All this changed. As part of the new researches, it was found that psychology can be used…for almost everything in life. There is now not only psychology in the academic or college sense, but also a Psychology of Business, Psychology of Education, Psychology of Salesmanship, Psychology of Religion… and a Psychology of Playing the Banjo…For almost every juncture of life we now call in the services of an expert psychologist as naturally as we send for an emergency plumber. In all our great cities there are already, or soon will be, signs that read “Psychologist – Open Day and Night.”

(Leacock, 1924, pp. 471-472)

Although we are not sure that there was a Psychology of Playing the Banjo, psychology was a very popular topic in 1920s America as evidenced by hundreds of books and magazines on the subject, as well as psychology clubs that were formed in most large cities and in many smaller ones.

There were at least 15 popular psychology magazines that began publication in the United States in the 1920s.  These included such titles as Herald of Psychology, Mind Power Plus, National Brain Power, Personality, Popular Psychology, Practical Psychology, Self-Realization, and Super-Psychology: The Mind Culture Magazine.

Brain Power, Sept. 1923; Herald of Psychology, April 1923; Golden Rule, Nov. 1927; Dawn, Feb. 1928

Many of these magazines were published for only a few years, and some even less than a year.  The most popular magazine began monthly publication in April, 1923, a little more than a century ago.  It was titled Psychology: Health  Happiness Success. Its founder and editor was Henry Knight Miller (1891-1950) a Methodist minister in Brooklyn, New York, who, after recognizing the popularity of his self-help sermons, decided to leave his pulpit and launch a new magazine. Miller, echoing the popular writers of his time, touted the value of scientific psychology for health, happiness, and success. He wrote:

In Psychology magazine we have been applying the principles of scientific psychology to the actual problems and needs of human life. We have sought to build up a sound synthetic psychology, taking what is valid from all schools of psychological thought, simplifying it in expression and applying it to the problems of personal life.

(Miller, 1923)

Miller believed that there was much value in the new scientific psychology of the universities but that psychology professors were not writing about their work in such a way that the public could find it useful.  So Miller vowed that he would take the most useful of this science and translate it into language that could be easily understood and prescriptions that could be followed to achieve the health, happiness, and success that his magazine promised. In actuality there was very little of scientific psychology that found its way into the pages of Miller’s magazine. Academic psychologists did not write for this magazine, nor did they write for the other popular psychology magazines of the time.  Very few of Miller’s authors had any higher education degrees in psychology.

Two issues of Miller’s magazine: August 1923 and October 1927

A July 1930 issue of Miller’s USA magazine and a February 1939 cover of a similar magazine that he helped found in Great Britain in 1937. Miller is shown on the cover.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, the public euphoria of the 1920s gave way to the Great Depression that had profoundly disastrous consequences both economically and psychologically. Psychology received some negative press in the 1930s from writers who were especially critical of the field, noting that psychologists had plenty of advice to offer during the heady times of the 1920s, but now in times of trouble, they were conspicuously silent. One might assume that the public lost faith in psychology as well, and that the psychology magazines would disappear. Yet the message of psychology’s value for self improvement, for the betterment of one’s life, was evidently well engrained in the public’s psyche. These were times when psychology was needed more than ever. And even though two or three dollars might not be an insignificant sum for many Americans down on their luck, it was a small price to pay for a year’s subscription to a magazine that might put them on the road to economic and psychological recovery. At least two dozen new American magazines began publication in the 1930s with “psychology” in the title, for example, Current Psychology and Successful Living, Practical Psychology Monthly, Psychology and Inspiration, and Self-Help Psychology.

Four American popular psychology magazines that began publication in the 1930s

One of the tactics used by the popular psychology magazines was designed to increase circulation of the magazines and often to sell other products, typically books and pamphlets that were associated with the magazine. In the 1920s, psychology clubs emerged in cities all over America. In fact, there were some in existence in the previous decade, but in the 1920s their numbers expanded considerably. The magazines sought to establish ties with the various clubs. If all members of a club agreed to purchase subscriptions to a particular magazine, then the magazine would be sold at a discount to all members. Further, the magazine included a regular section that reported “news” from the psychology clubs, which gave visibility and publicity to the activities of the clubs while cementing the magazine–club relationship. Miller’s magazine was particularly successful in building such relationships. Some of the larger clubs met in some kind of meeting hall, but most were small in membership and typically met at someone’s house. Programs usually featured a lecture (rarely from a psychologist) and discussion, or discussion of a book or article. Miller was a great organizer of the clubs in America and often traveled to larger cities speaking at joint meetings or conventions of the clubs. Based on the entries in magazines, these clubs may have been composed equally of males and females in the 1920s, but by the 1940s, membership was heavily female.

Below are portions of two entries from Iowa psychology clubs that were published in Miller’s magazine in the 1920s.  The nature of these clubs might be compared to modern book clubs where all members would read the same book or article and come together for a discussion, or hear a lecture on some psychological topic.

All of these images are taken from the magazines that comprise the Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection which is housed at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.  The collection contains more than 3,500 magazines from 150 different titles, ranging in date from 1844 to 2020.  On the Cummings Center website, you can find the covers and tables of contents for 3,375 magazines that have been entered into the online database. These magazines represent a broad and rich tapestry of how psychology has been presented to the public, and have proved to be an important resource for projects for students and research for scholars.  

Of course popular psychology magazines still exist today, most notably Psychology Today, which began publication in 1967, and Scientific American Mind, which started in 2004, a magazine that because of its affiliation with Scientific American, is predictably very scholarly.  And you can find these popular psychology magazines in most countries around the world.

In 1950, married pair of American psychologists Gardner and Lois B. Murphy went to India to help solve social tensions between Hindus and Muslims. Using funds allocated to them by UNESCO, they assembled six teams of researchers who were headed by Indian psychologists, professors, anthropologists, and more. Each team used informal interviews to gather research on the cause and effect of the tensions and Gardner Murphy used this research to write In the minds of men: The study of human behavior and social tensions in India.

In my previous blog post, I explained that the Murphy’s went to work in India for UNESCO following decolonization with the goal of rectifying social tensions between Hindus and Muslims. While that is technically true, it is a bit of an oversimplification of the state of India at that time. To better understand the work Gardner and his teams did, we must better understand India’s history of colonization of decolonization.

The Indian Partition is one of the most heartbreaking events in the country’s history. When Great Britain relinquished control of the subcontinent in 1947, the celebration of independence was quickly overshadowed by the horror of partition. Great Britain relied on the “divide rule” to cause conflict between the major religions in India in order to gain power. So concerns over a civil war post decolonization led the British government to haphazardly “solve” the problem before officially leaving. Knowing religious tensions would be the number one cause of war, they decided to divide the land into a Muslim majority country– Pakistan, and a Hindu majority country– India. Relying on outdated census maps, law lord Cyril Radcliffe carved out these borders. These borders were kept secret until Britain officially left the country leaving their former subjects to navigate these new borders. 

The Indian partition resulted in the uprooting, devastation, and death of many people. If you were of the wrong religion living in the wrong place, you were forced to flee. The road for both Muslims and Hindus on their way to the correct side of the border resulted in 1 to 2 million deaths from starvation, disease, or religious violence. It also resulted in tons of refugees who received little support from the government (TRT World, 2020).

The UNESCO study was about more than just social tensions between different religions; it was meant to examine and resolve the social and religious upheaval created by Great Britain. Gardner and his teams set out to understand not just the tensions between Muslims and Hindus, but also the trauma of being displaced and separated at the hands of a government that provided  no help to those forced to live under the new partition. 

When I began going through the still images in the Gardner and Lois B. Murphy papers I came across multiple folders with photographs labeled “India” and “UNESCO”, but initially decided they were not useful as they appeared to be random photos from random villages that did not include the names or pictures of researchers I decided to highlight. However, following my research on the Indian Partition, these photographs became exceedingly important. They were from the sixth UNESCO study, B.S. Guha’s anthropological and psychological look at the plight of refugees from Pakistan.

Guha, an anthropologist, was the first Indian to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard and established the anthropology department at the University of Calcutta (Sarkar, n.d.). During the Murphy’s research period in India, B.S. Guha was serving as the director of the first anthropological survey of India, so he was very interested in examining refugees and their camps. Guha wanted to understand how their existence factored into the tensions between Muslims and Hindus. 

The camps we have photos of are Jirat and Azadgarh and both refugee camps filled with Hindus from what became Pakistan. Jirat was a camp resettled by the government while Azadgarh was a camp of “self-settlers” or “squatters.” Though both camps were results of similar situations and both lacked help from the government, life and outlook there was very different according to Guha. Jirat refugees were completely destitute and had to build their town from scratch, excavating roads, building houses and more. Azadargah refugees settled where “well-to-do” Muslims had previously lived, moving into the houses and jobs that were left behind. Though the camps of people were both suffering from tension issues, Guha and his team labeled Azadgarh “high-morale” and Jirat “low-morale” (Chatterji, 2007). While both situations are unfortunate, I can understand based on images I found in the Murphy collection why you would label these camps based on morale.

In the Azadgarh folders you can see photos of quality standing structures and even a young girl playing an instrument and smiling.

In the Jirat photos, the camp looks crowded and refugees look exhausted from having to build their own homes, excavate their own roads, and more.

Partition impacted every aspect of life. Even Pars Ram, the star of my previous blog post’s archival mystery, was asked to leave his long-standing position at Lahore University that following decolonization became a part of Muslim majority Pakistan (Murphy, 1953). During a meeting with reference archivist Lizette Barton and executive director of Cummings Center Dr. Cathy Faye, they asked me to try and understand the personal motivations for involvement with this study. While I have yet to find any specifics, I think it is clear that the concern over not just social tensions but understanding and coping with the trauma of partition was of utmost importance to these Indian scholars. This was something they had to live through and then deal with the after effects of.  Maybe they were not directly impacted, maybe they were, but they saw what was happening to their country and recognized the urgency to identify and rectify these problems. 

References

Chatterji, J. (2007). “Dispersal” and the Failure of Rehabilitation: Refugee Camp-dwellers and Squatters in West Bengal. Modern Asian Studies, 41(5), 995–1032. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4499809

Murphy, G. (1953). Our UNESCO Mission to India. In G. Murphy, In the minds of men: The study of human behavior and social tensions in India (pp. 11–26). Basic Books/Hachette Book Group. https://doi.org/10.1037/11234-002

[TRT World]. (2020, August 14). India-Pakistan partition explained [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/OnTYLyNUPMc

Sarkar, J. (n.d.). Short Biography of Biraja Sankar Guha. Your Article Library. Retrieved May 2, 2023, from https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/short-biography-of-biraja-sankar-guha/41678

Next week, the Cummings Center will launch its newest exhibit, Sexology: Science & Sensationalism, which explores the 50-year run of Sexology magazine (1933-1983), a sex science publication sold to popular audiences as “The Door to Sex Enlightenment.” I’ve had the pleasure of helping to supervise our current cohort of Museums & Archives Studies Certificate students in researching, curating, and designing this exhibit, and along the way I’ve been fascinated by Sexology’s contents—a unique blend of science, opinion, advice columns, and tabloid fodder. 

Sexology’s contributors came from a wide variety of backgrounds and included some genuine icons in the history of sex science – folks like Harry Benjamin, a pioneer in gender-affirming care for transgender people, and Wardell B. Pomeroy, who co-authored the famous “Kinsey Reports” with Alfred Kinsey and Clyde Martin. But for every recognizable author, there are numerous others whose contributions have attracted little historical attention. This blog is the first in a series spotlighting Sexology’s lesser known (but equally interesting) contributors.

Grace Verne Silver (1889-1972) was among Sexology’s earliest authors, writing numerous articles for the magazine throughout the late 1930s. Since its inception, the magazine had placed a focus on the issue of sex education, generally arguing in favor of honest, open discourse about sex and sexuality. Through her contributions, Silver helped to bolster this argument. Take, for example, her 1937 piece, “Sex Ignorance Is Criminal.”

“Knowledge gives happiness as well as power; nothing but misery ever grows out of ignorance. This is as true of marital relations as in any other human affairs. Women need knowledge even more than do men. In the first place, men get knowledge—of sorts; in the second place, women pay higher for their mistakes and suffer more from their own ignorance than do men. As to what women have suffered because of man’s ignorance—in addition to their own—that is beyond any computation!” – Grace Verne Silver, Sexology 5(1), September 1937.

In the above article, Silver emphasized the importance of sex education for young women, writing that “much suffering could be prevented if women were told a few simple things before their marriage.” This interest in the wellbeing of women (and the harms inflicted upon them by men) was a hallmark of Silver’s writing for Sexology.

“Marriage is not the proof of man’s love, but the proof of his desire for exclusive ownership, and may or may not have anything to do with love. Usually it also proves he wants a housekeeper and nurse. Women know that the ‘security’ offered by marriage has been much overestimated.” – Grace Verne Silver, Sexology 4(9), May 1937

Silver’s contributions to Sexology were only a minor piece of her overall legacy, however. In addition to advocating for sex education and feminist causes, Silver was a prominent socialist and labor activist who lectured around the United States. According to her daughter, she opened the first socialist bookstore in Los Angeles, which was raided three times by members of the American Legion. She was once arrested on charges of assault and battery after a fight broke out during one of her speeches. Her occupation—openly listed as “Socialist Lecturer” on her daughter’s birth certificate—was a dangerous line of work during the Red Scare of the late 1910s.

Despite her contentious views, Silver established a positive working relationship with Sexology’s first editor, David H. Keller. Keller edited several magazines at this time, and Silver’s contributions were featured regularly throughout his publications. In 1937, Silver’s writing appeared in all 12 monthly issues of Sexology.

“There is a theory that a girl’s husband should be her instructor. How shall he teach what he does not know? Men, as a class, know even less about the intimate life of women than women know. Men have learned much that is not true, much they need to forget when they marry.” – Grace Verne Silver, Sexology 5(2), October 1937

Silver’s views occasionally contradicted those of her editor. Her 1938 article “Normalcy of Petting” was prefaced by a note from Keller, which cautioned readers that “the Editor must express disagreement with many of the writer’s opinions, although full approval of the concluding paragraph.” In this article, Silver defended the practice of “petting” between young men and women, once again adopting a feminist perspective on the subject. “Personally,” she wrote, “I’d rather see a girl discover a man to be a cad before she married him, than have her wait to learn it later.” 

“When young people indulge in experimental petting, one of two things must happen sooner or later: they will find they have made a mistake, that they do not care enough for each other to risk marriage, and ‘call it off’; or they will find their love intensified, their longing to be together will overwhelm them, and they will want to marry.” – Grace Verne Silver, Sexology 5(8), April 1938

Though Silver’s contributions to Sexology appear to have ceased in the early 1940s, her writings undoubtedly helped the magazine to establish a voice in its early years. Sexology, at its founding, was a fairly radical publication, inciting controversy as it brought taboo subjects to popular audiences. It’s not surprising that a lifelong activist well-versed in political censorship would be among the magazine’s earliest contributors.

Silver’s legacy has lived on partly due to her daughter, Queen Silver. Queen followed in her mother’s footsteps and began lecturing publicly at just eight years old. She was a vocal atheist, socialist, and feminist whose young activism reportedly inspired Cecille B. DeMille’s 1928 feature film The Godless Girl. Queen’s free-spirited nature likely owes a lot to her mother, whose Sexology articles consistently defended women’s rights and the bold new ideas of the “modern youth.”

“Twenty-seven years ago, I elected to become a free and single mother. Neither I, nor my now fairly successful grown daughter, have ever had reason to regret the step. Starvation at times; hard work at other times; some minor criticisms in the early years, when there were fewer ‘moderns’ than nowadays. Under similar conditions, I would repeat the venture; I hope my daughter would have courage to do likewise.” – Grace Verne Silver, Sexology 5(4), December 1937.

The papers of both Grace Verne Silver and Queen Silver are held by the Duke University Libraries in Durham, North Carolina and are open for research. But if you’d like to explore Grace Verne Silver’s contributions to Sexology magazine right here in Akron, Ohio, drop by the Sexology: Science & Sensationalism exhibit, opening May 2. We’ll be featuring three of her articles among the 80+ issues of Sexology magazine on display.

And keep an eye on our blog in the coming months for more posts about the little-known writers of Sexology magazine!

References

Kirsch, J. (2000, November 1). This Hometown Girl Radical Fought Many a Battle on the Soapbox. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-nov-01-cl-44988-story.html

McElroy, W. (2011). Queen Silver: The Godless Girl. Prometheus Books.

Silver, G. V. (1937, May). Woman’s New Sex Freedom. Sexology, 4(9), 4-7. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection, Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, OH.

Silver, G. V. (1937, September). Sex Ignorance is Criminal. Sexology, 5(1), 4-7. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection, Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, OH.

Silver, G. V. (1937, October). Sex Ignorance is Criminal (Part Two). Sexology, 5(2), 4-7. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection, Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, OH.

Silver, G. V. (1937, December). Motherhood Without Marriage? (Part Two). Sexology, 5(4), 4-7. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection, Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, OH.

Silver, G. V. (1938, April). Normalcy of Petting. Sexology, 5(8), 496-500. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Popular Psychology Magazine Collection, Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, OH