Dr. John A. Popplestone, founder and original director of the Archives of the History of American Psychology passed away in Akron, Ohio on September 15, 2013.
Photograph taken by Rick Zaidan (1991) for ‘Akron Magazine’
Dr. Popplestone earned his doctoral degree in psychology from Washington University in 1958 and was a faculty member in the psychology department at The University of Akron from 1961 to 1999.
He and his wife, the late Dr. Marion White McPherson, established the Archives of the History of American Psychology in 1965 with support from The University of Akron.
He directed the Archives until his retirement in 1999.
John A. Popplestone and Marion White McPherson with a plaque in Recognition of Exceptional Contributions to Research in History from the American Psychological Association (undated)
We in the history community owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Popplestone and Dr. McPherson. The Center has come a long way since John and Marion began collecting and storing psychology’s history in a small room in the university library. The Center has grown in ways that our early founders could not have anticipated and we are grateful for their early foresight and perseverance.
John A. Popplestone, W. Horsley Gantt, and Bernard Weiss at the annual APA Meeting (1969)
John A. Popplestone and an AHAP student assistant examine a tropostereoscope (undated)
Marion White McPherson and John A. Popplestone in the AHAP Stacks (1992)
Photograph by Rick Zaidan
Marion White McPherson, John A. Popplestone, Sharon Ochsenhirt, and Dorothy Gruich at the annual APA Meeting in 1992
