Margaret Floy Washburn
American psychologist, first woman to earn a psychology PhD in the United States
American psychologist who received a Cornell PhD under Titchener in 1894, described as the first awarded to a woman in psychology, and wrote The Animal Mind (1908), a comparative psychology textbook.
Why this person matters
Washburn's The Animal Mind was among the earliest and most successful textbooks of comparative psychology. Her career also shows what was open and closed to women: she audited classes at Columbia, and she was among the first women officially admitted to Titchener's Experimentalists after his death.
Main contributions
The Animal Mind
Published in 1908, this comparative psychology textbook went through later editions in 1917, 1926 and 1936.
Motor theory of consciousness
She held that motor movements are central to psychological processes, especially learning, attention and emotion. Movement and Mental Imagery is dated 1916 or 1917 in different sources.
Cornell, Columbia and Vassar
After her Vassar bachelor's degree in 1891 she audited classes at Columbia under James McKeen Cattell, then took her PhD at Cornell. She spent most of her career at Vassar, retiring in 1937.
Context and limits
The 'first woman' claim is stated for psychology specifically, by Psychology's Feminist Voices and the National Women's History Museum. Mary Whiton Calkins had met Harvard's requirements in 1895 but was refused the degree, so Washburn's was the first conferred. Sources differ on the year of her presidency of the American Psychological Association (1921 or 1922) and on when she joined Vassar (1902 or 1903).
In your introductory course
Learning.Appears in the history chapter among early women psychologists and in learning units on animal cognition.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1894
Received her PhD under Titchener at Cornell, described as the first PhD in psychology awarded to a woman.
- 1908
Published The Animal Mind.
- 1937
Retired from Vassar College after illness.
Sources
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Margaret Floy WashburnSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- National Women's History Museum, Margaret Floy WashburnArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Margaret Floy WashburnReference work. Reference article inspected.