Mary Whiton Calkins

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Lore & Background

Mary Whiton Calkins was born on March 30, 1863, in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest of Wolcott and Charlotte Whiton Calkins's five children. In 1880, when she was 17 her family moved to Newton, Massachusetts. In 1882, Calkins entered Smith College as a sophomore. Following the death of her sister in 1883, she took a year off from college and travelled to Greece where she received private tutoring. She returned to Smith College in 1884 and graduated that same year with a degree in classics and philosophy. After graduation, Calkins and her family took an eighteen-month trip to Europe. When she returned to Massachusetts, her father set up an interview with the President of Wellesley College for a tutoring job in the classics department. She worked at Wellesley as a tutor and eventually as a teacher for three years. A professor in the philosophy department offered her a position to teach psychology, which she accepted on the contingency that she would be able to study psychology for one year. She sought admission to Harvard, which did not permit women to study at their institution, but it allowed her to sit in on lectures after her father and Wellesley's president had sent letters asking for her admittance. Calkins decided to take classes at Harvard Annex, taught by Josiah Royce. Royce influenced Calkins to take classes taught by William James in Harvard, with men as her peers. Harvard president Charles William Eliot opposed this idea, but with pressure from James and Royce, along with a petition from Calkins' father, Eliot allowed her to study in the classes, with the stipulation that she was a guest, and not a registered student. Calkins began her serious study of psychology under William James, shortly after his textbook The Principles of Psychology was printed in 1890. Calkins worked alongside Edmund Sanford of Clark University, who later assisted her in setting up the first psychology laboratory run by women at Wellesley College. Sanford trained Calkins on experimental laboratory procedures, as well as helped in the creation and assembly of numerous laboratory instruments for Wellesley's psychological laboratory. When Calkins was tutored by Sanford, she was allowed to conduct a research project that involved studying the contents of Sanford and her dreams recorded throughout a seven-week period. She recorded 205 dreams and Sanford 170. They woke themselves by using alarm clocks at different hours of the night and recorded their dreams at the instant of waking. Their dream study involved a systematic self-recording method, making it one of the earliest structured investigations of dream content and its relationship to waking experiences. Calkins' research was cited by Sigmund Freud when he created his conception of the dream. In 1891, Calkins returned to Wellesley as an instructor of psychology in the philosophy department. Calkins established the first psychology lab to be founded by a woman in 1891, and the first lab to be established at a women's college.

Reader's Guide

Calkins published four books and over one hundred papers in her career, in both the fields of psychology and philosophy. She is best known for her accomplishments within the field of psychology and her struggles to achieve. She was the first woman to serve as president of the American Psychological Association, marking a significant milestone for women in psychology. After being rejected for a degree from Harvard, Calkins continued to work and strive for equality. In 1903, Calkins ranked twelfth in a listing of fifty top-ranked psychologists, an achievement that happened after James McKeen Cattell asked ten psychologists to rank their American colleagues in order of merit. Calkins' experience at Harvard reflected the limited status of women in graduate education at the time, as they were often permitted to attend lectures informally but were excluded from official enrollment and degree recognition. She was given honorary membership of the British Psychology Association in 1928. She taught psychology and philosophy at Wellesley College for four decades. At Wellesley College, Calkins established the first psychological laboratory for women. She later became president of the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association, and was the first woman to be president of both. Her paired-associate learning technique and theory of self-psychology are key contributions. Her dream research with Edmund Sanford involved recording 205 dreams (Calkins) and 170 (Sanford) over a seven-week period, using alarm clocks to wake at different hours and recording dreams immediately. Their findings suggested that dreams were closely related to recent waking experiences and reflected elements of everyday life. Calkins' research was cited by Sigmund Freud when he created his conception of the dream.

Did You Know?

• In 1895, Calkins was refused a Ph.D. by Harvard University because of her gender even though she completed all the requirements.
• She recorded 205 dreams and Edmund Sanford recorded 170 during a seven-week dream study, using alarm clocks to wake at different hours.
• Calkins' dream research was cited by Sigmund Freud when he created his conception of the dream.
• She established the first psychological laboratory for women at Wellesley College in 1891.
• In 1903, Calkins was ranked twelfth in a listing of fifty top-ranked psychologists chosen by her peers.