----- Original Message ----- On Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:53:47 -0400, Christopher D. Green wrote: > X-Message-Number: 16 > > I am nearly certain this this is incorrect.
You're being a little vague here. My post is below. Are you saying that headshrinker was not in use in Hollywood in the later 1940s? What is your evidence? > Back in 1938, the manager of > the Chicago Cubs (Charlie Grimm) was quoted as saying that he >didn't want a "headshrinker" around when he heard that the owner, >PK Wrigley, had hired Illinois psychologist Coleman Griffith to help >the team. Source, please? If Grimm actually said this in 1938 and the quote was published in 1938, presumably in a newspaper or sports magazine, then where and when was it published? Proquest has digital copies of the Chicago Tribune back to 1849 and the Chicago Defender back to 1905. A search for "headshrinker" in both of these for articles prior to 1960 provides only three hits, all for the Chicago Tribune with the earliest being January 11, 1957 (a joke about a psychiatrist who keep African masks in his office to keep the elephants away). If headshrinker was in common use back in the 1930s, doesn't it stand to reason that there would have been in use in the Chicago newspapers prior to 1957? Or was the source for your statement above made some time after 1938 and the term headshrinker was used because it was popular at the time the statement was made, not in 1938. Again, knowing the source would clarify things. A couple of additional points: (1) Coleman Griffith was a psychologist but a researcher not a clinician, so why would one refer to Griffith as a headshrinker when the term was used to refer to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who were very much in the popular media while the number of clinical psychologists was very small in the 1930s (I believe that the U.S. federal government's support for training in clinical psychology in the wake of World War II would lead to the great increase in numbers of clinical psychologists and they too would eventually get the headshrinker/shrin moniker). (2) The Chicago (Daily) Tribune has an article by Irving Vaughan dated March 8, 1938 entitled "Grimm Selects Batting Order; Collins Missing" which has several paragraphs on Griffith's involvement with the team. Quoting: |Now It's a Laboratory. | | During the workout today Ducky Drake, the Cub's |contact man, announced that the club is going to try |something new in baseball. A laboratory is to be opened |and in the future the harvesting of budding stars will |be simple. | |The idea is so fantastic it might I be best to attempt |an explanation In the words used by Ducky in his |copies to the press as follows In part: | "fully equipped, scientific baseball research laboratory |under general supervision of Coleman Griffith of the |University of Illinois is being established by the Cubs. | |"Mr. Griffith will supervise the activities, which will be |located in Chicago under the immediate direction of |John E. Sterrett, recently of the University of Iowa |athletic department. | |It's All Very Scientific. | |"The laboratory operators will attempt to develop |information over a period of time as to personal, muscular, |and mental attributes possessed by great ball players. |This information should prove valuable as a yardstick |to both baseball and youngsters seeking a career in |this profession. | |"There probably are a great many young men in this |country who never have thought of baseball as a career, |who possess just the proper eye, muscular response, |and mental equipment to make them professional baseball |players, Usually men of these qualifications can develop |their talents very quickly through proper coaching." It might just be me but the description above seems to have very little headshrinky about it. So, I have some doubts about the accuracy of your source. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Mike Palij wrote: >> I just got a copy of an article by Warner Silas (1982) entitled >> "What is a headshrinker" which appeared in the American >> Journal of Psychotherapy. Silas reviews the concept and >> points out that the first use of the term in popular media >> appears to be the November 27, 1950 issue of Time magazine >> in a story about Hopalong Cassidy. Headshrinker is >> asterisked in the text and a footnote states "Hollywood >> jargon for a psychiatrist". One can locate the article online >> at the Time magazine website and it corroborates Silas' >> account. >> >> A search of newspapers via Proquest shows that the first >> use of headshrinker in "newspapers of record" is in 1955 >> in an article in the NY Times and an article in the Washington >> Post by Dorothy Kilgallen. Oddly, earliest article in the >> online database for "Variety" that mentions shrink in an >> is a 1980 review of "Dressed to Kill". >> >> So, it appears that headshrinker was used as slang in the >> late 1940s in Hollywood/Los Angeles and came into >> popular use at the start of the 1950s. It is still unclear >> who was the first person to use the term to refer to a >> psychiatrist (perhaps an unhappy "client" ;-). >> >> -Mike Palij >> New York University >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
