Helen Thompson Woolley
Woolley's work in education continued with her involvement in the Vocation Bureau, the Merrill-Palmer School and the Institute for Child Welfare Research at Teachers College, Columbia University.
[3][2][4] She was the second of three daughters and although her parents supported their education, her elder sister Jane had been forced to leave the University of Michigan after one year due to the financial burden.
[5][2] Woolley graduated first in her class from Englewood High School in 1893, delivering a valedictorian speech titled "The Advance Towards Individual Freedom by the Aid of Invention", which reflected her inclination towards scientific contributions in social development.
[7][8] Women who completed PhDs in 20th century were proportionate to men in receiving acceptance into professional organizations such as APA, yet their occupational status was incomparable.
[9] Under the direction of Angell, Woolley's doctoral dissertation investigated the performance of 25 males and 25 female university students on "motor ability, skin and muscle senses, taste and smell, hearing, vision, intellectual faculties and affective processes".
After completing their undergraduate studies, Woolley was offered a graduate fellowship and remained in Chicago while Paul left for residency at Johns Hopkins University.
While Woolley took on this project, Paul took a job in Siam (now Thailand) doing public health work and manufacturing vaccines for smallpox and anthrax.
As director of the Cincinnati Vocation Bureau, appointed in 1911, she contributed significantly to the understanding of influential factors in the physical and mental development of adolescents.
[9] The Vocation Bureau was responsible for the issuance of "working certificates" to children between the ages of 14 and 16 years and therefore provided a wide pool of data for Woolley to successfully conduct her research.
[11] After completing an extensive data analysis with her assistant, Charlotte Rust Fischer,[12] Woolley did not find support for her cognitive tests; however, her project increased awareness of the utility of experimental psychology in the advancement of the public-school sector and educational policies.
[9] In an attempt to follow her husband to Michigan, Helen Woolley accepted a position as a psychologist and assistant director at the Merrill-Palmer School in 1921.
[13] Moreover, she expressed concerns with the validity of cognitive testing in young children and emphasized the importance of environmental factors in the development of IQ in such ages.
In May 1925, Helen Woolley received an offer to become a director for the Institute for Child Welfare Research at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The director of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, Lawrence K. Frank, had interviewed the Dean of Teachers College, James Russell, and reflected on it in a memorandum: "I told Dean Russell that had been approached by several of Dr. Woolley’s friends with a request that I help her out of the difficulties she was facing and that as nearly as I could understand the matter, Dr. Woolley's temperamental aversion to any disputes or self-assertion put her at considerable disadvantage at Teachers College.
[15] Despite her health issues, Woolley officially moved to New York in September 1926, and subsequently developed two nursery schools within Teachers College for the purpose of studying early childhood education.
[11] The death of her close friend, Bess Cleveland, and her divorce from Paul, were only two of many factors in Woolley's life that caused emotional instability.
[11][9] Woolley took a leave of absence for a year and traveled to various nursery schools in England, Brussels, Vienna, and Geneva in order to gain knowledge on early childhood education in European countries.
[11] Woolley's accomplishments during her time at Teachers' College included becoming an internationally known researcher and scholar,[11] having multiple publications, and being considered as one of America's top child psychologists by the age of 55.
He cited difficulties with her teaching, but Woolley received excellent student evaluations, was an internationally known scholar and researcher, and it was her work and ideas that had made Teachers' College renowned for early childhood education.
[9] Woolley spent the next decade attempting to find work in academia but found no success due to few jobs being available during the Depression and even fewer available for women in academe.
[11] Unexpectedly, Woolley was being asked to resign from Teacher's College by Dean William Russell in February 1930 because of her poor teaching and incompetent administration, although she denied having any problem with her duties.
[9] In January 1933, Adolf Meyer, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, reported that Woolley had an "obsession of vindication" in regard to her resignation in Teacher's College rather than having depression.
