Kicking, Crying, Sleeping: More Adventures in the CHP Film Collection

-Contributed by Arlie Belliveau.

The CHP is happy to welcome Arlie Belliveau back for a month-long practicum!  Last summer, Arlie came on board as a temporary intern, helping to digitize and organize parts of the CHP Moving Image Collection. 

Sitting in the basement at the Center for the History of Psychology, I quietly watch the 1960s child development films of Stanford University neonatal psychologist Dr. Anneliese Korner. The projector is running smoothly today, and I’ve found a good setup for the digital camera. Sitting silently on its tripod, the camera captures the clicking projector but more importantly the images of the children on the screen. I wind the film onto an archival core and seal it away in the stacks. It is my job to record an access copy that will be available to future researchers and to create robust metadata that patrons will be able to access online. This is the task ahead of me as I sit and watch the tiny infants on the screen.

The research films I am working with this spring document the first few hours of the lives of 32 full-term infants. Made as observational aids for Dr. Korner and her collaborators (Bernadine Chuck, Soula Dontchos, and later Dr. Evelyn Thoman), they were used to corroborate notes taken on the innate behavior of infants, before they’d had a chance to learn actions or responses from their mothers. The child currently projected upon the screen is crying. Soon it will be sleeping, or thumb-sucking, or kicking and crying again. There are 69 of these 16mm polyester films for me to go through during my month-long research practicum. I look forward to blogging about the experience as it unfolds.

Arlie R. Belliveau is a doctoral student in York University’s History & Theory of Psychology program. She studies the earliest uses of motion picture film technology by psychologists in their research. You can read about Arlie’s previous adventures in the CHP film collection here, here, and here.

CHP Collections go Digital

-Contributed by Jodi Kearns and Cathy Faye

Ever wish you could search all of the CHP collections at once? Wish you had better remote access to our collections? Now you do! We’re happy to announce the launch of CHP Digital Collections, a new repository for descriptive metadata and digital objects from the CHP holdings. The goal of this new project is to allow you to search all of our collections and materials from the comfort of your own computer or smartphone.

This searchable, online repository will eventually allow users to access descriptive data for all of the items in our collections. The repository also provides open access to many digitized copies of our paper-based materials, including books, grey literature, and psychological tests. Interested in seeing what we have in our Artifacts Collection? Users can zoom in on photographs and read descriptions of the instruments, apparatus, and other objects in that collection. The digital repository also provides a link to all of the available finding aids for the CHP Manuscript Collection.

Users can search across collections from the repository homepage:

Or, they can search within a certain collection by using the search box on that collection’s home page:

To date, there are just over 33,000 records available in this system with about 7,000 images and PDFs available for viewing. Three collections contain lists of complete holdings: Books, Manuscripts, and Tests. Three collections are still works in progress: Artifacts, Moving Images, and Special Interest. Still to come: Sounds Recordings and Still Images. Other academic units across The University of Akron campus have been invited to post their collections, including the Jim and Vanita Oelschlager Native American Ethnographic Collection that is currently on display in CHP galleries.

Head over to CHP Digital Collections today to browse or search our holdings! We continue to add new items daily, so check back often. If the search results indicate that the file is restricted, simply contact us at ahap@uakron.edu to request access. Stay tuned here on the blog for future tips of searching and using this new tool!

The CHP Welcomes a New Staff Member!

-Contributed by Emily Gainer.

On May 1, Emily Gainer joined the CHP as the Special Collections Librarian/Assistant Processing Archivist. We’re very glad to have Emily as part of the CHP and we’re happy to introduce her to our patrons!

I am thrilled to be a new member of the CHP staff.  As I said in my interview, “I love archives”!  At the CHP, I will organize and preserve archival collections and create descriptive finding aids to help researchers locate materials.  I will also catalog books and other materials.  My main interest in archival work is providing access to collections.  I believe archival material is collected and preserved to be used, not to sit in a storage room.

 

I have worked in the archival field for 12 years.   Before coming to CHP, I worked in Archival Services at The University of Akron for over three years.  I also worked at Oberlin College Archives and Youngstown State University Archives & Special Collections.   I have a Master of Library and Information Science degree and a Master of Arts degree in public history from Kent State University, as well as an undergraduate degree from Heidelberg University.

I live in Akron with my husband, Jay, and a two-year-old dachshund named Duke.

New Exhibit! Native American Cultural Objects at the CHP

-Contributed by Francisca Ugalde and Cathy Faye.

On May 6^th, a new exhibition will be installed at the CHP. The exhibit, Connecting Objects to their People: From the Arctic to Arizona, highlights Native American ethnographic objects from the Jim and Vanita Oelschlager Collection. The exhibit will consist of more than 100 ethnographic items from four different regions, featuring cultural objects that are both artistic representations and objects for everyday living. Four traditional cultural regions will be represented: the Arctic/subarctic, the Northwest Coast, the Great Basin, and the Southwest. The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and Classical Studies, the Myers School of Art, and the Center for the History of Psychology.

 Check out the photos and captions below to see UA students, faculty, and staff cataloging and storing the objects and preparing them for exhibition! Then come see it in person! (For more information, see our website).

Rachel unpacks objects from boxes. Upon the arrival of the objects from the donors home, we had to open all boxes and account for every single object, double-checking that they all had arrived safe and sound.

Rachel carefully places objects into the research storage cabinets. At this stage of the project we are taking objects out of their permanent storage and placing them in our research space for easy access.

All objects have been tagged, photographed, measured and researched. And the information is saved on our inventory.

Objects are displayed for one of the various research visits. The research team invited a number of scholars to come take a look at our objects and offer us information. This became a great tool in the research process.

Lynn and Fran working on the exhibition groupings. Once the initial research was established, we had to make a decision as to which objects would be in the exhibition.

One of many work meetings inthe Center for the History of Psychology's Reading Room...with Chuck Ayers, Erica Thompson, Rod Bengston, Rachel Fox, and Lynn Metzger (Francisca Ugalde is behind the camera). These meetings were a confluence of all the departments and individuals involved in this project.

Rod Bengston shows the exhibition space mock-up to CHP Coordinator, Dorothy Gruich. The mock-up is an essential tool in the exhibition planning process.

Timeline-proofing session with Peg Bobel and Lynn Metzger. This was round three of proofing these before they went into production. Sounds easier said than done, but we did it!

Come check out the finished product in person at the Center for the History of Psychology! The opening reception is May 6th from 1-4 and the exhibit will be open until October 14th, 2012. Admission is free. Read more about the exhibit here.

Reminiscences of a Wartime Psychologist

-Contributed by Cathy Faye

In the 1940s, Robert Waldrop was in the middle of his graduate work in psychology at the University of Chicago. There, he worked with L.L. Thurstone and was fascinated by the work of a new assistant professor in the department, William Sheldon. However, as the war in Europe progressed, he signed up to serve as chaplain on the USS Benevolence, a Navy hospital ship (pictured below) that  departed for the Pacific in 1945. The crew of the Benevolence would eventually experience the Japanese surrender and the liberation of prisoners of war.

The USS Benevolence, (image donated to the CHP by Robert Waldrop)

After serving three tours of duty with the United State Navy, Waldrop completed his graduate education in psychol­ogy and went on to become a central figure in the development of counseling psychology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1948. Dr. Waldrop went to work for the Veterans Admin­istration where he developed the counseling service in the Department of Medicine and Surgery. His work was funda­mental to the creation of counseling psychology doctoral training programs across the United States.

Recently, CHP director Dr. David Baker sat down with Waldrop and asked him to recall his experiences on the USS Benevolence during the Second World War. The recording of that conversation is available here.

From Tracking Down a Great Uncle to Verifying Maslow’s Writings: Tales from the CHP Reference Desk

-Contributed by Lizette Royer Barton and Andrew Tannehill

The Center for the History of Psychology receives hundreds of reference requests each year via telephone, email and on-site visitors. So who is conducting research at CHP?  You’d be surprised to learn that it isn’t just historians of psychology. Our patrons are a diverse group researching a variety of topics including my own personal favorite – family history.

Recently we received an email from George Rosenberg in London. Rosenberg came across the Center through a reference to an oral history in King and Wertheimer’s (2005) Max Wertheimer & Gestalt theory. The oral history was conducted by Michael Wertheimer and the interviewee was Anni (Wertheimer) Hornbostel – Michael’s mother and Max Wertheimer’s wife.

It turns out that George’s great uncle, Fritz Rosenberg, was married to Anni Hornbostel’s aunt Emilie Pick! Even cooler – Anni met Max Wertheimer while living with the Rosenbergs and attending the University of Berlin. And as newlyweds Max and Anni lived in a small apartment in Berlin owned by Fritz Rosenberg. Tragically, George informed us that in 1941 the Rosenbergs committed suicide in order to avoid “deportation” and he is currently working on tracking down information about them. We were happy to send a copy of the oral history to Mr. Rosenberg.

Another family oriented request came from a patron searching for materials regarding her grandfather, social psychologist Aaron Hershkowitz. Tara Gould found the Center through a reference to Dr. Hershowitz in the Solomon Asch finding aid which is available to researchers through the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.

We were able to locate several letters between Asch and Hershkowitz and several references within two other manuscript collections. We sent the scanned materials to Tara via email (click on images below to enlarge). She hopes to use the them in a film project about her grandfather.

The Center also regularly works with other archives and libraries, sharing information whenever possible.  We recently received a request from a fellow archivist at the Hanns Sachs Library and Archives which is located at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.  The archivist was processing the papers of psychoanalyst Felix Deutsch.  In processing his papers, the staff came across a handwritten letter to Deutsch that appeared to be from Abraham Maslow.

However, the authenticity of the letter was in question.  Upon doing some searching online, the archivist found that the Center has a large collection of materials from Abraham Maslow in our manuscript collection.  She e-mailed us to ask if we could scan and send her some handwritten documents by Maslow so that they could authenticate the letter.  We scanned and e-mailed her two such documents from the Maslow papers.  One was a letter to his daughter signed “Dad,” and the other was a paper titled “The Oversold Emerson” which was signed “AH Maslow.”  The archivist replied promptly saying that the documents we sent were sufficient proof that the letter to Deutsch was in fact written by Abraham Maslow.

These are just a few examples of the stories told and mysteries solved here at the Center every day. Stay tuned to the CHP blog and facebook page for more of these tales from the Archives!

Lizette Royer Barton is the Reference Archivist at the Center for the History of Psychology. She handles all requests for research assistance. Andrew Tannehill is a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State University. We are happy to have him completing a practicum here at the CHP.

“I thought he was very fat”: Children’s Thoughts on Santa

-Contributed by Cathy Faye

Ever wonder how kids feel about Santa Claus? How they later recall their feelings about him? Two studies, one done in 1896 and one done in 1977, have helped answer these questions by gathering children’s recollections of Santa Claus.

One of the authors of the 1977 study, Dr. Ludy T. Benjamin Jr., describes those studies:

“In 1977 I conducted a survey of approximately 1,000 school children in Lincoln, Nebraska in the 4th through 8th grades. The survey was actually a direct replication of a study done on Lincoln children in 1896 by a student of H. K. Wolfe (as part of the child study movement). The author, Frances Duncombe, surveyed children’s ideas about Santa Claus and published her work in an 1896 journal. We used her questions, her scoring criteria, etc. to replicate the study as exactly as possible on a sample of kids the same age, 81 years later.”

In both studies, children were asked to recall:

• what they thought about Santa when they were younger
• how they found out the truth about who he really is
• whether children should be taught to believe in Santa

The results, published in Psychology Today in December of 1979, showed some interesting differences in the findings of the 1896 and 1977 studies. For example, the 1896 sample was more likely to attribute superhuman powers to Santa, whereas the 1977 sample viewed him as a regular human being. In addition, when the children were asked how they learned the truth about Santa Claus, the 1977 sample was twice as likely as the 1896 sample to indicate that they had heard it from their parents rather than from their peers. (Click here to  read a newspaper article on the study).

The raw data from the study is now housed at the CHP. In honor of the holiday season, we bring you excerpts from the children’s responses. Happy holidays from everyone here at the CHP! Click on each image to enlarge: