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“As his name indicates”: R. S. Woodworth's letters of reference and employment for jewish psychologists in the 1930s
Author(s) -
Winston Andrew S.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1520-6696(199601)32:1<30::aid-jhbs3>3.0.co;2-s
Subject(s) - judaism , antisemitism , stereotype (uml) , immigration , psychology , personality , social psychology , character (mathematics) , context (archaeology) , face (sociological concept) , sociology , religious studies , social science , history , theology , law , political science , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , archaeology
Letters of reference from Robert S. Woodworth identified some psychologists as Jews and reveal an implicit stereotype of Jewish “objectionable traits.” I examine these conceptions of “Jewish character” in the context of Woodworth's general views on individual differences and in the broader context of Jewish immigration to America and enrollment at Columbia University in the early 1900s. Constructing the exclusion of Jews from academic psychology in terms of the personality and social behavior of the individual and dividing of Jews into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” allowed for a face‐saving gloss on the generally antisemitic hiring practices in 1930s American academia.