Ruth Dyk

Ruth Dyk (; March 25, 1901 – November 18, 2000) was an American suffragist, psychologist, and author. As a young woman, she and her mother marched together in Boston for women's suffrage, and late in life she was featured in Ken Burns' documentary on the subject, Not for Ourselves Alone. Dyk also worked as a researcher at the State University of New York, publishing findings that challenged contemporary notions that motherhood necessarily brought women happiness.

Early life and education Dyk was born Ruth Belcher on March 25, 1901, in Portland, Maine. Her parents were Arthur Fuller Belcher, a lawyer who died when Ruth was three, and Annie Manson Belcher, who was one of the first women to attend Tufts Medical School, though the school forced her out when she married. and Simmons College, earning an M.A. in economics. Career Dyk worked with delinquent girls as a psychiatric social worker in upstate New York.

Dyk also co-wrote Psychological Differentiation (Wiley, 1962), and Left Handed (Columbia University Press, 1980), an anthropological study of Navajo Indians continuing work begun by her husband.

Personal life and death She married Walter Dyk, an anthropologist, who died in 1972. They had two children: Timothy Dyk, a judge, and Penelope Carter. She was 99.