East coast Tipsters are probably aware that the Eastern Psychological
Association (EPA) will be holding its 84th annual meeting in NYC
on March 1-3, 2013. If you check the EPA website, you can get more
information but you may note that it also says "Founded 1896".
Tipsters who can still do math in their heads may wonder "how can
this be the 84th meeting if it was founded in 1896?" Ludy Benjamin
has examined the early history of the EPA which can be read here:
Benjamin, L. T. (1991). A history of the New York Branch of the
American Psychological Association, 1903-1935. American
Psychologist, 46(10), 1003.
And a somewhat more updated version of the above appeared in:
BENJAMIN Jr, L. T. (1994). A History of the New York Branch
of the American Psychological Association, 1903-1935a. Annals
of the New York Academy of Sciences, 727(1), 63-78.
According to Benjamin, EPA started in 1896 with NY psychologists
deciding to hold meetings in conjunction with the New York Academy
of Sciences (NYAS) section on anthropology, psychology, and
philology (philology became a separate section shortly after this time).
The source that Benjamin uses comes from a 1896 issue of "Psychological
Review" (volume 3), but the reference is to a "Notes" section.
There is a problem with accessing this source because the APA does
not include such "Notes", at least not in the early Psych Review
issues (looking for it led me to the "other" Psych Review"). So, one
either had to have access to a paper copy of the 1896 volume or
microform version (which I can tell you from personal experience is
a pain in the but to use).
However, the "Hathi Trust Digital Library" which contain the
electronic version of the contents of several academic libraries
does have a digital copy of early issues of Psych Review.
The problem is that access to Hathi materials is very limited
but NYU does provide access. So, as a public service,
I quote the section of the "Notes" that Benjamin appears
to cite in his 1991 article:
|A SECTION of the new New York Academy of Sciences has been
|formed devoted to psychology, anthropology and philology. The first
|meeting was held on April 27th, and meetings will be held on the
|fourth Monday in the month during the Academic year. An Anthro- .
|pological Club for informal discussion was formed in New York on
|March 4th. At this meeting the recent works on chi ldren and child
|psychology by Sully, Baldwin and Chamberlain were discussed.
One has to check the early issues of the "Annals of NYAS"
to see what the early presentations were between 1896-1903.
Starting in 1903, the Annals report having joint NYAS anthro/psych
section and "New York Branch" meetings (though joints meetings
with other societies, mainly anthropological, also occurred). The
program of presentations were published in the Annals as well in
"Science", "Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods",
in a couple of issues of "Psychological Bulletin" and even in the
"Journal of Educational Psychology". It might be noted that
both Columbia and NYU psychology faculty were involved in
both administration and presentations. NYU's James Lough was
secretary and provided reports to Science, et al, and Robert
MacDougall routinely made presentation. Lough and
MacDougall were the first "long term" psychology faculty at NYU,
starting in 1901 and lasting into the 1920s/30s. I'll leave it
to Columbia folks to highlight Columbia's role. ;-)
The NY Branch usually several meetings (usually three) a year,
often with an afternoon session at Columbia and an evening session
at the American Museum of Natural History, with the occasional
meeting at Yale, Princeton, and elsewhere).
As Benjamin points out, the New York Branch continued to
have meetings during the first decades of the 20th century but
published information about meetings during the 1920 is not
easily available. In 1930, the New York Branch was re-organized
and started to hold annual meetings So, 2013's EPA meeting
uses 1930 as it's first meeting, which is why this year's meeting
is the 84th annual meeting.
During the 1930s, a variety of factors affected the New York
Branch, such as its "New York-centrism" and it was decided
at the 1936 meeting (held at Fordham U), to change the name
to the "Eastern Branch of the APA". At the April, 1938 meeting,
the name was changed from "Eastern Branch of the APA" to
the "Eastern Psychological Association". The meeting was held
in NYC with the Friday activities at the Hotel Commodore and
the Saturday activities held at the University Heights campus
of NYU in the Bronx. For more on this meeting see this source
which is available on Jstor:
Oberly, H. S. ((Jul., 1938). The Ninth Annual Meeting of the
Eastern Psychological Association. The American Journal of
Psychology, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 577-578.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1416164 .
So, the discrepancy in dates and meeting numbers should be
resolved unless of course one wants to call shenanigans on
the 1896 origin date. And I ain't calling anything. ;-)
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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