Those catalytic women teachers: Mary Marvin, Margaret Maguire, and the social history of the psychological clinic of the University of Pennsylvania, 1870–1920

Abstract

The emergence of clinical psychology as a distinct scholarly field is usually traced to 1896, when Lightner Witmer established the country’s first psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania–an institutional innovation sparked by Witmer’s contacts with Philadelphia teachers Margaret Tilden Maguire (1874–1941) and Mary Eva Marvin (1869–1933). However, the historical record is mostly silent about both teachers’ lives, backgrounds, and careers. As a result, they, along with the teaching profession as a whole, have often been portrayed as inexperienced or neophyte instructors working in a professional vacuum. Using previously overlooked primary sources, this paper aims to provide novel factual data concerning Maguire and Marvin’s backgrounds and early careers in Philadelphia, and offers a contextual interpretation of their pioneering contributions to clinical psychology. I will argue that neither Maguire nor Marvin was an undertrained or unskilled professional. Instead, they were thoroughly educated individuals and dedicated workers who were hindered by the profound and sudden changes experienced by the US public-school system between 1870 and 1920, particularly in Philadelphia. These changes formed the crucial institutional and professional context in which the rapprochement between early twentieth-century psychology and education took place–a rapprochement that Maguire and Marvin undoubtedly spearheaded.