Augusta Fox Bronner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Augusta Fox Bronner
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | July 22, 1881 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
|
| Died | December 11, 1966 (aged 85) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Columbia University Teachers College (B.S., A.M., PhD) |
| Occupation | Psychologist |
| Spouse(s) | William Healy (married 1932) |
Augusta Fox Bronner (born July 22, 1881 – died December 11, 1966) was an American psychologist. She was famous for her work with young people, especially those who had trouble with the law. She helped start the very first clinic to guide children. Her studies showed that a child's environment and experiences, not just what they were born with, often caused their problems.
Contents
Early Life
Augusta Fox Bronner was born on July 22, 1881, in Louisville, Kentucky. Her parents were Gustave and Hanna Bronner. She had an older brother and a younger sister. After living in Cincinnati for a while, her family moved back to Louisville. Augusta finished high school there in 1898.
Education and Early Career
Augusta's mother and grandmother encouraged her to study and have a career. She always wanted to be a teacher. After high school, she went to the Louisville Normal School to become a certified teacher. She had to take a break because of eye problems. During this time, she traveled in Europe with her aunt. She then returned to school and graduated in 1901.
Later, Augusta went to the Columbia University Teachers College. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1906 and her master's degree in 1909. While studying, she worked part-time for a psychologist named Edward L. Thorndike. She briefly taught at her old school, Louisville Girls' High School, in Louisville. After her father passed away in 1911, she went back to Columbia for her doctoral studies. She continued to work with Thorndike.
In 1914, Bronner earned her doctoral degree. She published her research called A Comparative Study of the Intelligence of Delinquent Girls. Her study showed that having a learning disability did not mean someone would break the law. This was important because many people at the time thought that criminal behavior was something people were born with.
Helping Young People
In 1913, Augusta Bronner met a doctor named William Healy at Harvard University. Healy was also very interested in understanding why young people got into trouble. He hired Bronner to work as a psychologist at his Juvenile Psychopathic Institute in Chicago. In 1914, the institute changed its name to the Psychopathic Clinic of the Juvenile Court. Bronner soon became the assistant director.
Bronner and Healy greatly changed how people studied and helped young people who broke the law. They showed that most problems came from a child's environment and experiences, not from their genes. For example, Bronner found that young people with learning differences or special talents often got into trouble because they were in the wrong school settings.
In 1917, Bronner and Healy moved to Boston. They started working at the Judge Baker Foundation (now the Judge Baker Children's Center). This was a new clinic that helped children and was connected to the Boston juvenile court. Bronner did most of the psychological tests for young people. She also interviewed girls and the youngest children.
In 1927, Bronner and Healy wrote an important book called Manual of Individual Mental Tests and Testing. It was a guide for understanding a person's mental state. At first, Healy was the director, and Bronner was the assistant. But in 1930, Bronner became co-director of the Foundation. The Judge Baker Foundation became a model for other child guidance clinics across the country. Bronner and Healy developed the "team" method. This meant that psychologists, social workers, and doctors worked together to help each patient.
On November 19, 1930, President Herbert Hoover invited Bronner and Healy to a special meeting. It was called the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection.
During the 1930s, Bronner also worked for a short time at Yale University in New Haven. She was the Director of the Research Institute of Human Relations there. In 1932, she was also the president of the American Orthopsychiatric Association.
Important Ideas and Books
After her doctoral research, Bronner published The Psychology of Special Abilities and Disabilities in 1917. In this book, she said it was important to find tasks that people are good at. She believed we should adjust education and jobs to fit their strengths. Instead of focusing on what people can't do, we should focus on what they enjoy and succeed at. Her book has been printed many times and helped the idea of testing people for different jobs.
How Attitude Affects Tests
In 1916, Bronner wrote an article called "Attitude as it Affects Performances of Tests." She explored how a person's attitude can change their test results. She believed that how someone approaches a task affects whether they succeed or fail. She mentioned Edward Thorndike and his ideas about learning, which also included attitude as an important factor. Bronner said that attitude could not be studied in a lab. Instead, it could only be studied by watching people. Mental tests, she noted, help find a person's potential.
At that time, many psychology problems were studied using mental tests in labs. Bronner argued that many real-life things can affect how well someone does on these tests. She also pointed out that test results could decide a person's future care and education. Bronner and others studied people's attitudes in courtrooms. She said a good psychology lab should be quiet, free from distractions, and have good lighting. Bronner also said that having people watching can affect both the person taking the test and the person giving it. So, there should be no onlookers. Bronner described common attitudes she saw in teenagers taking the Binet test, and how these attitudes affected their scores. She also talked about how the environment can impact performance.
Working with William Healy
As Augusta Bronner and William Healy worked more closely, Bronner started publishing less on her own. She preferred to write books with Healy. Together, they published many books about young people's psychology. These included Reconstructing behavior in youth: A study of problem children in foster families (1929), Treatment and what happened afterward (1939), and What makes a child delinquent? (1948).
They also wrote many articles, like "How does the School Produce or Prevent Delinquency?" (1933). This article explained that problems in school can lead to young people breaking the law. For example, if schools make children repeat a grade or put them in grades below their age, children might lose trust in school. They might become bored and look for excitement in other ways, sometimes leading to criminal behavior.
Personal Life and Retirement
In September 1932, after Healy's wife passed away, he and Bronner got married. Their marriage did not change much about their work together. It just made it easier for them to work on evenings and weekends.
During World War II, there were not enough staff at the Judge Baker Foundation. This meant Bronner and Healy had to keep working longer than they planned, even though they wanted to retire. After they finally retired in 1946, Bronner destroyed most of her own research papers. She wanted people to focus on her husband's academic work. Bronner and Healy spent their retirement in Clearwater, Florida.
Death
Augusta Fox Bronner died in Clearwater, Florida, on December 11, 1966.
Images for kids
-
Augusta Fox Bronner
