contributed by Lizette Royer Barton.
If you read my last blog, Go with the Flo!, you’ll remember that I’m working backwards and highlighting the first five women presidents of the American Psychological Association for a series of blogs in honor of Women’s History Month.
Up next, Leona Tyler.
Check out this wonderful letter Edna Heidbreder sent to Tyler congratulating her on her election to APA President in 1971 (Tyler served as president in 1973).
Leona Tyler papers, box M415, folder 2I confess that there is enough of the old-fashioned feminist in me to account for some of my pleasure, but not all of it! It is a satisfaction to know that your widely and highly respected contributions to the field have been recognized in this way.
Leona Tyler (1906-1993) is most well known for her work in counseling psychology and her research on individual differences and development. She did her graduate work at the University of Minnesota under Donald G. Paterson and her dissertation, an extension of research done for her master’s thesis, focused on the development of interests in adolescent girls.
Leona Tyler papers, box M412, folder “Written Works”Most of us associate interest inventories with Edward K. Strong and the Strong Vocational Interest Inventory (SVI). The SVI was first published in 1927 – just for dudes – and an inventory for women wasn’t published until 1933.
Interestingly, higher level occupations weren’t included on the women’s version and women who seemed to lean more towards those occupations were simply given the men’s scale.
Like Leona.
Leona Tyler papers, box M415, folder 17The best part is the little handwritten note at the bottom. Check this out.
“This norm is the male norm, there is no female norm.” Well if that doesn’t just wrap up women’s history month in a nutshell!
As I went through Tyler’s papers I found so much good stuff.
Like this address she delivered in 1970 titled, “Counseling Girls and Women in the Year 2000.”
Leona Tyler papers, box M410, folder “Counseling Girls and Women”One of the traits that most consistently shows up as feminine in research studies…is sensitivity to people….The main reason I should like to see greater equality of representation of women in politics and diplomacy is that I think these fields could use an infusion of this quality. If a larger proportion of the people in high level government positions were people who knew how to think about human individuals in all their concreteness rather than just as abstractions…I think we would all be better off.
Word, Leona Tyler. WORD!
And I love how she ends the talk. That last line works in all kinds of situations, “Let’s start right now.”
“Counseling Girls and Women in the Year 2000”The right we must insist on above all others is the right to contribute….This is what counseling is all about, in 1970, in 2000, or in 2070. Let’s start right now.
Tyler spent her entire career at the University of Oregon, eventually being promoted to Dean of the Graduate School in 1965.
Thanks goodness Tyler saved the clippings around the announcement so we can all “enjoy” them during Women’s History Month in 2020.
Leona Tyler papers, box M409, folder “Graduate School Appointment”She will become one of the few women in the nation to hold a major academic post in the graduate field….MISS Tyler, a silver-haired professor professor of psychology with a national reputation….
Leona Tyler papers, box M409, folder “Graduate School Appointment”“…Those who know the most agree it is, to say the least, highly unusual that a woman would be named dean of a graduate school, especially at a coeducational university….Already a leader in a field where women do not often excel, MISS Tyler finders her appointment greeted with almost universal approval from her male colleagues.”
The dean is a lady. GASP!
Leona Tyler papers, box M409, folder “Graduate School Appointment”Not until someone sent her a clipping from an out-of-town newspaper about another woman graduate dean (“only woman known to hold such a position”) had the though ever occurred to her. But it’s the position, not the woman, that’s important, she says.
Leona Tyler, an unmarried woman and leader in her field, was named the dean of the graduate school on June 1, 1965. But just before that was official the Eugene Register-Guard published the following piece on May 23, 1965.
Leona Tyler papers, box M409, folder “Graduate School Appointment”
A single woman may do as well as a man, but there may be some discrimination – usually indirect – against a married woman.
Indirect? Really? Check out the last couple of lines from this same newspaper article.
Welcome to the faculty club, ladies. We’ve come a long way, baby.
