• Biography In 1862, Hall left Ashfield for Williston Academy. However, He was not happy there. The following year he transferred to Williams College. Upon graduating in 1867, he wanted to study abroad but did not have the necessary funds, so he attended the Union Theological Seminary for a year, and then was able to travel abroad. Eventually Hall was granted his Ph.D. in Psychology under William James and Henry P. Bowditch, the first Ph.D. in Psychology in America. He began as a professor of psychology and pedagogics at Johns Hopkins University in 1882. When Clark University opened in 1889, Hall began as the president, and remained there until his death in 1924. Along the way, Hall founded the first psychological journal in America, the American Journal of Psychology in 1887, along with many to follow in the later years.
While at Clark University, Hall organized a conference in 1909 for 175 people, 40 of which were American Psychologists. Hall ran the conference as well as arranged the order of lectures and handled the social arrangements. Among the attending psychologists were Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who are seated respectively to Hall's right and left in this photo. The Clark Conference, as named, was in celebration of Clark University's twentieth anniversary. Through all of this, Hall is also important for his work with the child study movement and attained some notoriety with his theory that ontology recapitulates phylogeny. He showed the importance of early childhood through adolescence as a turning point in psychological growth. To him, childhood was merely an extension of embryological development. Hall died in 1924, but still remains an important part of psychology's history.
Hall's specific theory that maturation needs to be tracted, allowing deeper thoughts to be provoked only when the physical aspect of growth is complete, did not greatly influence education. At the same time, he paved the way for future scholars such as Piaget.
1858 Day long vigil, vowed to leave farm and to be someone in the world
1860 First independent job as a schoolmaster
1862 Left Ashfield for Williston Academy
1863 Left Williston Academy
1866 Began Junto, literary club
1867 Graduated from Williams College
1867 Attended Union Theological Seminary as a divinity student
1868 Studied abroad in Germany
1878 Earned the first Ph.D. in Psychology in America
1882 Left for work at Johns Hopkins University
1887 Founded the first Psychological Journal is America, the American Journal of Psychology
1889 Became president of Clark University
1892 Founded the American Psychological Association
1894 Founded the Pedagogical Seminary
1904 Wrote Adolescence
1909 Organized the Clark Conference
1917 Founded the Journal of Applied Psychology
1924 Died
Hall, G. Stanley. (1906). Youth: Its Education, Regiment, and Hygiene. New York, Appleton.
Hall, G. Stanley. (1911). Educational Problems. 2 vols. New York, Appleton.
Hall, G. Stanley. (1917). Jesus, the Christ, In the Light of Psychology. 2 vols. Garden City, New York, Doubleday.
Hall, G. Stanley. (1920). Morale: The Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct. New York, Appleton.
Hall, G. Stanley. (1923). Senescence: The Last Half of Life. New York, Appleton.
Hall, G. Stanley. (1923). The Life and Confessions of a Psychologist. New York, Appleton.
N. Orwin Rush (Ed.). (1948). Letters of G. Stanley hall to Jonas Gilman Clark. Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Library.
Sources:
Hothersall, D. 1995. History of Psychology, 3rd ed., Mcgraw-Hill:NY
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. (1968). Vol. 6. Macmillian and Free Press.
Ross, Dorothy. (1972). G. Stanley Hall. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Hulse, Stewart and Green, Jr., Bert. (1986). One Hundred Years of Psychology Research in America.
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University.
Kavanaugh, Robert, Zimmerberg, Betty, and Fein, Steven. (1996). Emotion. Mahwah, Laurence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.