Woolley, Helen (1874–1947)

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Woolley, Helen (1874–1947)

American psychologist who was one of the first to study child development . Born Helen Bradford Thompson on November 6, 1874, in Chicago, Illinois; died of an aortic aneurysm on December 24, 1947, in Havertown, Pennsylvania; daughter of David Wallace Thompson and Isabella Perkins (Faxon) Thompson; graduated from Englewood High School; University of Chicago, Ph.B., 1897, Ph.D., 1900; studied in Paris and Berlin; married Paul Gerhardt Woolley (a physician), in 1905 (separated 1924); children: Eleanor Faxon Woolley; Charlotte Gerhardt Woolley.

Born in 1874 in Chicago, Illinois, Helen Woolley was the daughter of David Wallace Thompson, a shoe manufacturer, and Isabella Faxon Thompson . She attended public schools before entering the University of Chicago, where she majored in psychology and philosophy. She earned a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1897, and in 1900 completed her doctorate in psychology. This was followed by a year of study in Paris and Berlin through a fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (later the American Association of University Women), after which she became an instructor at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1902, she became director of the psychological lab and professor of psychology there. Her dissertation appeared in print in 1903 under two titles, Psychological Norms in Men and Women and Mental Traits of Sex.

In 1905 she resigned from Mt. Holyoke and traveled to Yokohama, Japan, where she married Paul Gerhardt Woolley, a physician whom she had known at the University of Chicago. Settling in Manila in the Philippines, they would have two daughters, Eleanor Faxon Woolley (b. 1907) and Charlotte Gerhardt Woolley (b. 1914). In Manila, Woolley worked as an experimental psychologist in the Philippines Bureau of Education, while her husband served as director of the Serum Laboratory.

In April 1906, the family moved to Bangkok, Thailand, where Paul Woolley had been appointed director of a new laboratory; in 1907 he was promoted to chief inspector of health. The family eventually returned to the U.S. to settle in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Paul and Helen both taught at the University of Cincinnati. In 1911 Helen was named director of the new Bureau for the Investigation of Working Children. In that capacity, she developed the Cincinnati Vocation Bureau in 1914 as a part of the public school system, and conducted studies of the impaired physical and mental development of working children compared to nonworking children. Her findings were published in parts between 1914 and 1923, and in 1926 as the comprehensive work An Experimental Study of Children at Work and in School between the Ages of Fourteen and Eighteen Years. Throughout the years of her research at the Bureau, Woolley used her studies to advocate compulsory school attendance and a new child labor law in Ohio. The result, the Bing Law of 1921, would become a model bill for other states.

In addition, during World War I Woolley served on the Council of National Defense and worked to set up a scholarship fund, which became part of the Cincinnati War Chest. She was elected president of the National Vocational Guidance Association in 1921, and participated on the boards of the Cincinnati Community Chest and the Woman's City Club. A longtime activist on behalf of women's suffrage, she was chair of the Ohio Women's Suffrage Committee of Greater Cincinnati until the 19th Amendment securing women's suffrage was ratified. Woolley also showed courage in fighting for the progressive causes she believed in, for example when in 1921 she led a walkout from a professional meeting when a black colleague was mistreated by the staff of the hotel hosting the event.

In 1921, the Woolley family moved to Detroit, where Helen was appointed the staff psychologist at the Merrill-Palmer School, established by Lizzie Merrill Palmer ; the next year, she was named associate director of the school. In this capacity Woolley organized one of the first nursery schools in the nation and researched children's personality and mental development patterns. Her findings led to several publications in professional journals, as well as to a teaching position at the University of Michigan. She worked with Elizabeth Cleveland , a graduate student at the University of Michigan, to investigate the effectiveness of Maria Montessori 's pedagogical work.

A frequent public speaker, Woolley was active in women's groups, educational organizations, and scientific societies. Other articles appeared in popular journals, such as Mother and Child, Child Study, and New Republic, and did much to spread the scientific understanding of child psychology to parents. As vice-president of the American Association of University Women (1923–25) and chair of its committee on educational policy, Woolley began a program for studying preschool children, designed to promote interest in education and child welfare studies among women college graduates. The program was funded by a grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.

By 1924, Woolley's marriage had failed, and she separated from her husband, who moved to California. In 1925, at age 50, she became professor of education and director of the new Institute of Child Welfare Research at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York. In 1926, depression over the end of her marriage, loneliness, and ill health led her to take a two-year leave from Columbia, during which she traveled in Europe to visit psychological research institutes. She returned in 1928, but the decline in her effectiveness as a teacher and interest in research caused the college to request her resignation in 1930.

She moved in with her daughter Eleanor in Havertown, Pennsylvania. Despite her long career of scientific achievement in the field of child psychology and her social activism, Woolley's final years passed in obscurity. Her last publication was a chapter in A Handbook of Child Psychology (1931) titled "Eating, Sleeping, and Elimination." Helen Thompson Woolley died in December 1947 of heart disease, age 73.