– contributed by CCHP Reference Archivist Lizette Royer Barton
It’s July.
It’s the National Recreation and Park Association’s Park and Recreation Month.
Summer is half over.
Let’s face it – we could all use a vacation.
In honor of summer vacations and parks and recreation let’s check out some psychologists enjoying a little rest and relaxation.
I have to start with these photographs William R. (Bob) Hood sent to Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif. Bob Hood was a graduate student at Oklahoma, a co-conspirator in the Robbers Cave Study, and an author on Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment (1954). But I like to think of him as the Clark Griswold of psychology.
Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif papers, box V63, folder 8
Of the dozen or so images the Hoods sent the Sherifs the next one was my favorite. I’ve been to Moab, UT . I experienced Arches National Park and the Canyonlands National Park on a month-long road trip with three girlfriends after college. It was a life changing experience for me and just like Jack White (another graduate student of Muzafer Sherif’s and co-author on the Robbers Cave book), I lost my ever-loving mind.
Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif papers, box V63, folder 8 caption
Henry H. Goddard was a voracious traveler and his collection contains hundreds of travel photos – including a scrapbook we recently digitized and made available online HERE. The 30+ page scrapbook from the early 1900s contains incredible images including this one of climbers (possibly Goddard himself) on Blackfoot Glacier in Glacier National Park in Montana.
Henry H. Goddard papers, box V37, folder 4
Maybe climbing a mountain glacier isn’t your speed. Maybe you just want to leisurely cruise the country in style. If that’s the case, Molly Harrower would’ve been a good travel partner for you. Molly’s Folly seems like a blast!
Molly Harrower papers, box V54, folder 4
THIS is the way to wake up in the morning! Notice the typewriter? Was Molly working while on vacation? I like to think she was typing letters to friends and providing updates on the folly.
Molly Harrower papers, box V54, folder 4
Gardner and Lois B. Murphy were also big travelers and their collection includes hundreds of photographs from their trips all over the world.
The notation on back of this image of Lois in Puerto Rico clains she was at a conference. I like to think she tossed her name badge and requisite conference bag onto her hotel room floor and then ran to the ocean as soon as the sessions ended. I bet she did.
Gardner and Lois B. Murphy papers, box V61, folder 1.5
The Murphy papers have a lot of photographs of Gardner hiking and camping throughout his long life. He was outdoorsy to say the least.
I really love this photograph of Gardner cooking on a stove made of cinder blocks on a dock near a lake. What’s better after a day of hiking, fishing, and general vacationing than a good meal cooked outside near a lake?
Gardner and Lois B. Murphy papers, box V40, folder 2
The notation on the back of the photograph didn’t provide any information about the other man in the photograph but it did give me a few clues that deserved some further investigation. So I googled the following: Cloverly + Holderness + Frank.
And lo and behold the Googles delivered and I was down the vacation rabbit hole.
The Frank of “Frank’s dock” was Lawrence K. Frank. As the director of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial from 1923-1929 and director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s child-development program from 1929 to 1933, he was instrumental in establishing Child Development Institutes across the United States through Rockefeller funding. He also turned out to be a mentor to many and helped quite a few social scientists secure employment and funding for their research. I even came across a quote from Margaret Mead that claimed Frank “more or less invented the behavioral sciences” (I still haven’t located a citation. Anyone have one?).
So the Frank of “Frank’s dock” turns out to be super important when it comes to the social sciences and “Cloverly” turns out to be Franks’ summer home – Cloverly Cottage in New Hampshire.
Cloverly Cottage was built in 1918 and was Frank’s summer residence from 1921 until his death in 1968. A history of the cottage claims “Frank used Cloverly as a base for meetings with colleagues over the years and he and other social scientists held discussions and wrote articles and books….it served as a spot for inquiry into the fields of psychology, anthropology, and child development….”
Who else besides Gardner Murphy hung out at Cloverly Cottage and what kinds of discussions took place?
I took to the Murphy papers to look for some answers and I found a folder of letters commissioned by Gardner Murphy in 1965 from various social scientists in honor of Lawrence K. Frank’s 75th birthday. Murphy collected the letters, copied them, and provided a bound volume of all the letters to Frank and each of the letter writers.
The list of contributors was a who’s who.
Gardner and Lois B. Murphy papers, box M1806, folder 7
As I skimmed the letters I noticed several instances of folks specifically mentioning the cottage in New Hampshire. I knew Gardner Murphy spent time at Cloverly but I also found evidence that so did Peter Blos, Erik Erickson, William Walter Greulich, Helen and Robert Lynd, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, Ruth Washburn, and of course Lois B. Murphy.
Check out this letter from Erik Erikson (written in the third person).
“A few weeks later the young man [Erikson] and his wife, were indeed driving through NH…they looked up Mr. Frank’s telephone number and were promptly invited to dinner. After that it seemed quite natural for Mr. Frank to ask the couple to stay the night – so natural, in fact, that they stayed for a week….the host also found it natural to arrange for a research position for the young man, so he could develop some notions he had.”
And take a look at this one from Helen Merrill Lynd.
“…we were fortunate in having a month at that happy place which became a center of openness and friendship for so many of us….no one was ever turned away from Cloverly….It was at Larry’s home that I first met Erik Erikson and Kurt Lewin….New Hampshire was a gathering place for people who were asking fresh questions, shaping important problems in new forms.”
THE HISTORY AT CLOVERLY IS ALMOST TOO MUCH FOR ME.
But wait! There’s more!
Cloverly Cottage, Lawrence K. Frank’s cottage in Holderness, New Hampshire that housed “Frank’s dock” and was a meeting space and catalyst for countless research projects, theories, ideas, and chatter in the social sciences is still in the Frank family and available for rent right now through VRBO. I’m not kidding!
I think I need to book a vacation. Maybe it’s time to make a little history.
