Margaret Floy Washburn

Margaret Floy Washburn is known for being a particularly influential early American psychologist, who is celebrated both for her contributions to the advancement of the field of psychology and her effects on the societal/gender norms of the time. Throughout her career, she overcame many barriers in pursuit of achieving her goals for herself. I was inspired to choose Washburn for my paper after learning about her in lecture, as she was significant in regard to two topics close to my heart: Animal behavior/consciousness and women’s matters.

Washburn was born in New York City in July 1871. There, she attended grade school and graduated from high school in 1886 at the age of 15. In the fall of that same year, Washburn enrolled at Vassar College, where she discovered her interest in psychology. Following her graduation at Vassar in 1891, Washburn transferred to Columbia University to study under James McKeen Cattell (Cherry). Cattell had recently established a psychology laboratory at the university, one of the first of its kind (Rodkey). Unfortunately, this is where Washburn encountered some of her first true adversity in the form of gender barriers. At the time, Columbia only allowed women, including Washburn, to audit or “hear” courses (Cherry). Despite this, Washburn persisted in fighting to take classes taught by Cattell (Rodkey). It was not until Washburn took Cattell’s advice and applied to study at Cornell University, however, that she was finally able to begin truly working towards her Ph.D. In 1894, Washburn achieved her first “huge” accomplishment when she became the first woman to earn her Ph.D. in Psychology (APA; Rodkey).

With a professional life placed in a time where women faced immense discrimination in many fields, but especially academia, Washburn served as an exception to the norm with her accomplishments and made it one of her goals to help other women do the same. She initially served as a professor of psychology at Wells University, but later on transferred to a similar role at Vassar College, where she completed her undergraduate studies before (Cherry). Out of dedication to her post and her work, Washburn made many sacrifices to preserve her position and advance her students, including never marrying and putting in extra effort to maintain connections that allowed her to become the prolific character she is known as today (APA; Rodkey). In her time, she was respected for her teaching and research, which focused on animal behavior and links between physiological processes and consciousness.

Throughout the sixty-nine experimental studies released from her laboratory at Vassar College, Washburn tried to incorporate many of her undergraduate students, all of them women, into her research and publications (APA). Focuses of the studies included topics primarily related to movement and consciousness in animals. One of Washburn’s most well-known works is her book The Animal Mind (1908), which is widely regarded as having a crucial influence on the then developing field of comparative psychology. Her main theory was that movement shared a close tie with an animal’s consciousness/thinking, and therefore stimuli response and higher mental processes were linked (APA, Rodkey). This theory was further developed in her later book Movement and Mental Imagery (1916).

In her lifetime, Washburn had a significant effect on the field of psychology, opening the field to women and expanding it for comparative psychology. She served as the second female president of the APA and will forever live in history as an influential figure. Unfortunately, Washburn suffered from illness and eventually a stroke that she never fully recovered from, and which eventually led to her death, putting an end to her striking career (Cherry; Rodkey).

Works Cited

American Psychological Association. “Margaret Floy Washburn, PhD.” American Psychological Association, APA, 2012, https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/bio-margaret-washburn.

Cherry, Kendra. “Margaret Floy Washburn: A Biography of Her Life.” Explore Psychology, Explore Psychology, February 27, 2018, https://www.explorepsychology.com/margaret-floy-washburn/#google_vignette. Accessed 21 Sept. 2023.

Rodkey, Elissa. "Margaret Floy Washburn." Psychology's Feminist Voices, Psychology's Feminist Voices, 2010, feministvoices.com/profiles/margaret-floy-washburn.