Helen Thompson Woolley

Helen Bradford Thompson Woolley (November 6, 1874 – December 24, 1947) was an American psychologist, known for her contributions to the educational sector, research on sex differences and research methods. Woolley's interest in scientific inquiry was prompted by the work of her father, Paul Thompson, who was an inventor. Woolley's academic achievement and resultant scholarship allowed her to pursue studies in psychology at the University of Chicago.

Woolley's university studies marked the beginning of her career in experimental and applied psychology. Her controversial dissertation, titled The Psychological Norms in Men and Women, attracted the interest and the scrutiny of the scientific world as it was the first major piece of psychological research explicitly examining the similarities and differences of the mental traits of women and men.

Woolley's husband, Paul Woolley, was a determining force in the course of her career, as the constant relocations required by his profession as a physician limited her academic opportunities. Following their wedding, Woolley followed Paul to Japan and subsequently the Philippines, where she started working as a researcher for the Bureau of Education, marking her first endeavour in developmental psychology. Woolley's work in education continued with her involvement in the Vocation Bureau, the Merrill-Palmer School and the Institute for Child Welfare Research at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Woolley's late life was plagued by her deteriorating mental health, which impacted her interpersonal relationships as well as occupational status. At the age of 73, she died of an aortic aneurysm at her daughter's home in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Early life

Helen Bradford Thompson was born on November 6, 1874, in Englewood, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Her father was David Wallace Thompson, a shoe salesman and an inventor, producing implements such as burglar alarms, a heat regulating thermostat for a coal furnace, and a letter sorting device, and her mother was Isabella Perkins Faxon Thompson, an active missionary during a time when it was unusual for women to take on interests outside the home. She was the second of three daughters and although her parents supported their education, her elder sister Jane had been forced to leave the University of Michigan after one year due to the financial burden.

Woolley graduated first in her class from Englewood High School in 1893, delivering a valedictorian speech titled "The Advance Towards Individual Freedom by the Aid of Invention", which reflected her inclination towards scientific contributions in social development. Originally intending to be a teacher, she received a scholarship to the University of Chicago and was able to attend by living at home. Morse speculates that the family was likely affected by The Panic of 1893 and that Woolley might not have been able to complete her degree without the scholarship.

Education Woolley joined the Department of Philosophy, Psychology, and Pedagogy. Although her major was in philosophy, she took courses in neurology and psychology with a particular interest in empirical psychology. She took courses with James Rowland Angell, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Henry Herbert Donaldson and James Hayden Tuft while at the university. In her junior year, she was offered scholarships in both physics and psychology by the university, and accepted the psychology scholarship. Upon completion of her undergraduate degree in 1897, Woolley was granted a fellowship for graduate work in psychology, supervised by Angell. She published papers in psychology, philosophy, and neurology during her graduate studies at Angell's encouragement. Woolley graduated summa cum laude with her PhD in 1900 and her performance was lauded two years later to fellow University of Chicago graduate John B. Watson by Dewey and Angell.

Women who completed PhDs in 20th century were proportionate to men in receiving acceptance into professional organizations such as APA, yet their occupational status was incomparable. Women's contributions in academics were significantly under-represented, and academic positions were difficult to be obtained, especially for married women. Woolley adopted the approach of comparing distributions of scores on each test between sexes instead of reporting average performance of all participants. The results supported that men presented higher average performance on motor skills tests, whereas women were better at finer sensory discrimination; women were more skilled in memory and association tasks within intellectual faculties, whereas men had advantage in tests of ingenuity. Woolley accounted the differences between sexes as the characteristics which were most beneficial evolutionarily for sexual reproduction.

Woolley aimed to establish intelligence tests appropriate for adolescents and the statistical norms to accompany such tests, as well as examine the potential relationship between test and job performance. Woolley did not find support for her cognitive tests; however, her project increased awareness of the utility of experimental psychology in the advancement of the public-school sector and educational policies. Moreover, she expressed concerns with the validity of cognitive testing in young children and emphasized the importance of environmental factors in the development of IQ in such ages.

Teachers College (1925–1930)

In May 1925, Helen Woolley received an offer to become a director for the Institute for Child Welfare Research at Teachers College, Columbia University. |author=|title=|source=

In late May, it was discovered that Woolley had developed an abdominal tumour for which she had to undergo an appendectomy and hysterectomy. Despite her health issues, Woolley officially moved to New York in September 1926, and subsequently developed two nursery schools within Teachers College for the purpose of studying early childhood education. She hired about fifteen female graduates to work under her, who developed innovative work on early childhood education and collectively advocated for nursery schools.

The death of her close friend, Bess Cleveland, and her divorce from Paul, were only two of many factors in Woolley's life that caused emotional instability. Woolley took a leave of absence for a year and traveled to various nursery schools in England, Brussels, Vienna, and Geneva in order to gain knowledge on early childhood education in European countries. She resumed her duties in August 1928 and presented two papers at the International Congress of Psychology Conference in Fall 1929.

Woolley was shocked when she was asked to resign in February 1930 by Dean William Russell, son of the previous Dean Russell, who accused her of being a poor teacher and an incompetent administrator. Woolley's accomplishments during her time at Teachers' College included becoming an internationally known researcher and scholar, having multiple publications, and being considered as one of America's top child psychologists by the age of 55. She felt strongly that Dean Russell's statements were untrue. He cited difficulties with her teaching, but Woolley received excellent student evaluations, was an internationally known scholar and researcher, and it was her work and ideas that had made Teachers' College renowned for early childhood education. Woolley harboured resentment towards Dean Russell, and went on to write an 11-paged typescript called, "The Experience of Helen T. Woolley in being employed in Teachers College, Columbia University, and in being dismissed from Teachers College." In May, Dean Russell replied to her claims by identifying multiple errors within her typescript which highlighted Woolley's impaired recollection. Woolley spent the next decade attempting to find work in academia but found no success due to few jobs being available during the Depression and even fewer available for women in academe.

Emotional and cognitive difficulties

Woolley's mental illness was a major factor that led to the end of her career and a lack of recognition on her accomplishments. Woolley's mental breakdown could be dated back to 1927, when her husband divorced her. In addition to the divorce, several incidents happened around the same period which affected the basis of Woolley's life: the hysterectomy and appendectomy for the abdominal tumor, a year of commuting between Merrill-Palmer and Teacher's College, the new job at Teacher's College, the death of her friend, Bess Cleveland, and the separation from her daughters. Subsequently, Woolley took a year off work to recover from her breakdown. By February 1927, she was transferred to the Four Winds Sanitarium in Katonah, New York, due to her severe depression and suicide attempt. Woolley's doctor, Charles I. Lambert, described that Woolley's illness progressed as a normal depression, with some opposite symptoms such as being overactive, over self-assertive and dominant. Lambert did not think that Woolley should continue her job as a teacher because she was emotionally unstable and lack of self-control, had memory impairment, and liked to do things on her own way. However, Woolley thought that she was fully recovered and resumed work in the fall of 1928. Unexpectedly, Woolley was being asked to resign from Teacher's College by Dean William Russell in February 1930 because of her poor teaching and incompetent administration, although she denied having any problem with her duties. After her resignation, she wrote to her old friend Angell and asked for his help in finding a new job. Angell, however, thought that Woolley was not suitable to work due to her serious condition of mental disturbance.

Woolley started writing argumentative letters regarding Dean William Russell's treatment to her in Teacher's College in May 1930. She even went further to write a lengthy typescript to express her anger and dissatisfaction towards Russell. However, the statement contained a lot of errors on the dates and false claims regarding her resignation, reflecting her impaired recollection. In January 1933, Adolf Meyer, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, reported that Woolley had an "obsession of vindication" in regard to her resignation in Teacher's College rather than having depression. According to Woolley's daughter, Eleanor Faxon Woolley, Woolley was increasingly getting more paranoid, and further accused William Russell and Edna White of persuading the others not to assist her. Woolley's obsession continued to grow with her mental illness and could not be resolved.

Woolley could not find a job after being dismissed from Teacher's College, which brought her to the end of her career. In Woolley's last years, she became dependent on her daughter, Eleanor. On December 24, 1947, Woolley died of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 73 at Eleanor's home in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Publications

During the course of her career, Woolley wrote and published three books and around fifty articles. These published works ranged in topic, and although the vast majority of her works were psychology related, she did publish some philosophy and neurology related articles as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. A list of some of her more well-known published works, particularly those published early in her career, can be found below.

Woolley, Helen Thompson (1907). "Sensory affection and emotion". Psychological Review, 14 (5): 329–344. doi:10.1037/h0074333. ISSN 0033-295X. A review of Carl Stumpf's discussions on affective processes, who insists that sensory affections should be classified a specific class of sensations. Wooley discusses “(1) pain sensations and the pleasure sensations arising in the skin and vegetative organs; (2) the affective tone of higher senses, and (3) applications.” (Woolley, 1907) Woolley, Helen Thompson (1910). "The development of right-handedness in a normal infant". Psychological Review, 17 (1): 37–41. doi:10.1037/h0074110. ISSN 0033-295X. Woolley conducted an empirical study on colour vision in a seven-month-old, normal infant. She provides evidence for the theory that identifies the speech centre and right-handedness in the left hemisphere being developed around the same time in an infant. Woolley, Helen Thompson (1914). "The psychology of sex". Psychological Bulletin, 11 (10): 353–379. doi:10.1037/h0070064. ISSN 0033-2909. A literature review was conducted on 88 studies regarding the psychology of sex. Various aspects within the study of sex differences have been identified, including heredity, motor ability, memory, attention, and general intelligence, along with the impact of social influences. Woolley, Helen Thompson (1915). "A new scale of mental and physical measurements for adolescents and some of its uses". Journal of Educational Psychology, 6 (9): 521–550. doi:10.1037/h0075644. ISSN 0022-0663. Woolley developed a scale that measures the mental and physical capabilities of adolescents, which was tested on 1430 students between the ages of 14 and 15. The scale is successful at comparing different groups and finding a relationship between manual and mental capabilities.