Women in Psychology

Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939

Margaret Floy Washburn is one of the most remembered psychologists . She served psychology with a desire and purpose that saw her become the first woman to receive a Ph .D in the subject and also the president of the American Psychological Association . By any measure , she served and achieved far more than most other people like her

Born on July 25 , 1871 in New York to Rev . Francis and Elizabeth Floy Washburn was the only child to her parents and spent the first eight years of her life

in her ancestral house amid grown ups , flowers and gardens . In her autobiography `History of Psychology in Autobiography Washburn reminisces her childhood days at her ancestral home . She does not mention any of her childhood companions in any of her writings , but takes pride in being the only child . She says that , being the only child had given her the privilege of being undisturbed during leisure time Although she did not go to school until she became seven , she had learnt to read and write well before that . Washburn attended public school when she was eleven years old and graduated high school at fifteen

Washburn took up chemistry and French while attending Vassar College but while graduating in 1891 , she was already interested in philosophy and science . As the two areas were combined as experimental psychology which was then an emerging new field of science , she wanted to study in the newly formed Columbia University psychological laboratory . Although...