From its inception in 1911, the New York Psychoanalytic Society has counted women among its members, but it was not until the late 1930s that women began to play a major role in its affairs. The first woman elected to membership, on November 28, 1911, was Beatrice Hinkle, originally from San Francisco, where she was the first woman in the United States to serve as a public health doctor. When during her tenure as the city's physician San Francisco was struck by bubonic plague, Hinkle was impressed by how differently people responded to the disease, and she began to practice suggestion, an early form of psychotherapy.
In 1905 she moved to New York, and in 1908 she and Charles R Dana opened a psychotherapeutic clinic at the Cornell Medical College. Hinkle's interest in psychoanalysis prompted her to travel to Europe, where she attended the 1911 Weimar Congress and began an analysis with Jung. After returning to New York, she joined the NYPS, but soon returned to Europe to resume work with Jung.
On April 22, 1915, she was again proposed for membership in the Society (her initial membership apparently having lapsed) by Horace Frink and C.P. Oberndorf, but no action was taken. At a meeting on January 25, 1916, her candidacy was blackballed by four members, probably because she was viewed as a Jungian. (The second woman member of the NYPS, Josephine Jackson is an obscure figure. A physician from California, she was elected to membership on January 28, 1913. Although she remained a member for nearly 20 years, resigning in 1932, apparently she attended only one meeting of the society, in 1923.)
At the 1915 meeting at which Hinkle was renominated for membership, the name of Mary K. Isham (1871-1947) was also brought forward, by Oberndorf and AA Brill. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Isham graduated from Wellesley, did postgraduate work at the University of Chicago, and became a Fellow in philosophy and psychology at Bryn Mawr College in 1899. After finishing medical school in 1904, she practiced as a psychiatrist in Ohio before moving to New York in 1915. She presented a number of papers before the society on topics ranging from the “Inaccessibility of Paraphrenia” to “Visual Imagery in Relation to Libido.” In 1922 she became the first woman to hold office in the Society when she was elected its secretary. In the fall of 1923 she resigned her membership and later returned to Cincinnati, where she suffered a mental breakdown in the early 1930s.
In 1919 Edith R Spaulding and Marion Kenworthy became members. Spaulding was interested in delinquency and criminality and for a time worked with William Healy at the Judge Baker Guidance Center in Boston. In 1916, after studying for a year in Zurich, she became Director of the Psychopathic Hospital, which was connected to the Laboratory for Social Hygiene, the latter established through the munificence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Its purpose was to study, classify and outline a treatment course for people confined to reformatories. The Psychopathic Hospital was built so that treatment schemes devised by the Laboratory for Social Hygiene could be implemented. The hospital itself and the population it served are described in Spaulding's book, An Experimental Study of Psychopathic Delinquent Women (1923).
Marion Kenworthy's long and distinguished career defies compression. She is perhaps best remembered for her formative contributions to the field of psychiatric social work and her tireless efforts in behalf of children. These found expression through the many agencies and committees with which she was involved, among them the Bureau of Children's Guidance, the Wiltwyck School for Boys, Louise Wise Services, and the ad hoc Non-Sectarian Committee for Refugee Children. Kenworthy was also the first woman president of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1958-60) and of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry.
In the late 1920s Lillian D. Powers, Sara Bonnett, Susanna Haigh, and Rita Z. Parker became members of the Society. They were followed in the 1930s
by other, equally notable women, including Flanders Dunbar, Phyllis Greenacre, Lillian Malcove, Ruth Loveland, and Bettina Warburg. Powers was the first woman from within the society to become a training analyst. After attending a 1933 meeting where a list of training analysts was announced that did not include her name, she wrote to the Educational Committee and asked to be appointed to this position on the grounds that she met the criteria Informed that her request was being turned down because she lacked teaching experience, she pointed out that she had never been given an opportunity to teach. In 1935 she was assigned a seminar on Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, and in 1936 she was one of 17 persons named training analysts. At that time only two other women, Karen Horney and Clara Thompson, had attained this position.
“Between 1948 and 1960,… Jive of the seven presidents of the Institute were women.”
Within a few years, however, women were playing a leading role in the educational activities of the Society and Institute as members of the Educational Committee, as teachers, and as training analysts. Powers herself was elected to the Educational Committee in 1939 and served as vice president of the Society and Institute in 1940 and 1941. Sara Bonnett was first elected to the Educational Committee in 1939 and served as its chair in 1942, 1949, and 1951. In 1945 she was elected president of the Society and Institute, the first woman to hold this office. Susanna Haigh served as secretary in 1938 and was later a member of the Educational Committee and Board of Directors. Rita Parker was elected secretary in 1940, served as its treasurer in 1943 and 1944, and also sat on the Board of Directors.
“Within a few years, however, women were playing a leading role in the education activities of the Society and Institute as members of the Educational Committee as teachers, and as training analysts.”
The growing involvement of women within the Society and Institute in the late 1930s and 1940s was reinforced by the arrival of a distinguished group of emigree analysts from Europe, among them Edith Jacobson, Annie Reich, Margaret Mahler, Berta Bornstein, and Marianne Kris. They quickly began teaching courses and serving as training analysts, immeasurably enriching the educational and intellectual life of the Society and Institute. A program in child analysis became possible with the arrival of such gifted child analysts as Bornstein, Kris, and Mahler. But the contributions of the emigrees were not confined to their role as teachers; these women soon became members of the Educational Committee and held offices in the Society and Institute, which became separate bodies in 1946.
During the period roughly from 1935 to 1960, women constituted about 25% of the membership of the Society at any given time. (The membership lists were checked at five-year intervals, beginning in 1935.) Yet their influence was considerably greater than their numbers would suggest. Between 1948 and 1960, for example, five of the seven presidents of the Institute were women. (Two of them—Annie Reich and Ruth Loveland—served twice; the third was Phyllis Greenacre.) During the same period, Edith Jacobson and Greenacre held the presidency of the Society. Moreover, during these years women often held half the seats on the Educational Committee of the Institute. There is not room here to speculate on whether the widening role of women in the Society and Institute influenced the speed with which European women were able to gain a significant role within the Society and Institute, but whatever the answer, the combination of the two was certainly potent.
Author's Note: The material discussed in this article was drawn from a research project on Early Psychoanalysts, which is being supported by The Fund for Psychoanalytic Research.