Milicent Shinn

Milicent Washburn Shinn (April 15, 1858 – August 13, 1940)[1] was a child psychologist who was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. She finished her undergraduate degree in 1880, edited the Overland Monthly from 1882 to 1894, and received her Ph.D. in 1898.

Milicent Shinn
1898: The Department of Pedagogy grants its first Ph.D. to Millicent Washburn Shinn. Hers is the first doctoral degree earned by a woman in the University of California.
Born
Milicent Washburn Shinn

(1858-04-15)April 15, 1858
Niles, California
DiedAugust 13, 1940(1940-08-13) (aged 82)
Niles, California
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology

Early life

Milicent Washburn Shinn was born in Vallejo's Mills (later known as the town of Niles, California and now a district of Fremont, California), on April 15, 1858, the daughter of James Shinn and Lucy Ellen Clark.[1][2][3][4] Her father worked as a modest farmer, and her mother was the owner of a orchard-tree nursery.[1] Shinn was one of seven children, however, four of her siblings passed away at a young age. Shinn's parents sent Milicent and her older brother Charles Howard Shinn to the University of California, Berkeley, which had only started admitting women the year prior in 1873. Her brother was a horticulturalist and forest ranger, while her cousin Edmund Clark Sanford was a prominent psychologist.[5] Shinn helped take care of her brother's daughter Ruth, who would coincidentally be the main focus of Shinn's studies.[6]

Career

She was active as a writer, editor, scientist and research worker; she was the first woman to receive Ph. D. degree from University of California.[2][7][8] Following her undergraduate graduation from the University of California, Berkeley, Shinn began work as an editor for the Overland Monthly. Her first published essay was "Thirty Miles" which depicted what she would see on her journey home.[9] Shinn believed in the power of the press and thought that contributing to the literature of California would help aid in reducing the social woes that had arisen following the end of the American Civil War.[5]

Shinn is well known in the Psychology community for her published Doctoral Dissertation "Notes on the Development of a Child (1898)." Additionally, Shinn's personal observational work prior to her doctorate program, "The First Two Years of the Child" was considered the first of its kind. Her research focused specifically on observing the emotional and psychical health of her niece and her progression over the first two years of her life. This was the first extensive documentation of a child's upbringing and was thought to be incredibly valuable to the field of child psychology. Shinn was convinced by her companions to pursue a doctoral degree in child psychology, which led to her resignation from the Overland Monthly in 1894 and her return to the University of California, Berkeley as a doctoral candidate.[6]

She was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the American Academy of Science, the Phi Beta Kappa, the American Eugenics Society, the Alumni Association of the University of California, the Save the Redwoods League, the League of Nations Association.[2]

Personal life

She was a lifelong resident of California.[2] Her life followed the path of academia, but family matters, described as the Family Claim, limited the amount of time she could invest in her personal aspirations. Given this limitation, Shinn capitalized on her surroundings making Ruth the center of her work.[5][1] There is no record of Shinn having any intimate relationships, and there is no record of her having any children of her own.[1]

Lilian Bridgman designed her home that was located on her family's property in Niles.

After retirement, she lived very quietly at home for over a quarter of a century at Niles, California where she passed away at the age of 82.[2]

Family Claim

Women such as Millicent in the 1900s often experienced what scholars currently refer to as the family claim and sisterhood. These two concepts describe the household values held by the majority of families in North America during this time period.[10] Females of all ages were understood to have an obligation to the family. This created a toxic environment that severely limited the social mobility of the individuals and limited the options for personal growth and expression.[11]

"Scarborough and Furumoto used Shinn as an example of “the family claim”—the career limitations women faced in terms of their family obligations."[10]

Despite the perceived notion that Shinn would be restrained by the family claim and her duty to her family, she was able to continue her work in the field of child psychology. Shinn did not let societal restrictions hold her back and pursued her efforts to collect data from her network of home-observers.[12] Her network consisted of college educated mothers who helped serve as observers of their own children which provided Shinn with much meaningful data. This unique approach to in-home data collection led Shinn to produce her powerful piece titled The Development of the Senses in the First Three Years of Childhood. [13]

The Overland Monthly

The Overland Monthly, the newspaper Shinn joined at age 25, was based in California and produced its first series of works in the year 1868.[14] The newspaper, which maintained the same ownership throughout its existence, changed titles over the years 1868 to1935.[15] In a paper in the Overland Monthly, during the year July, 1898, Shinn reflected on her years as editor, 1883–1894. She talks about how the world's attention at the time was fixated on the Gold Rush that took place in California.[16]

Works
  • The University of California (1883)[17]
  • End of an Era (1883) [18]
  • Summer Cañons (1883) [19]
  • Thirty miles. The Overland Monthly, I, 596-604 (1883).[20]
  • The Verse and Prose of H.H., Overland Monthly (Sept. 1885) [21]
  • A Pioneer Fruit Region, Overland Monthly (July 1888)[22] (under pen name J. Burns)
  • The Leland Stanford, Junior, University (1891)
  • The Lick Astronomical Department of the University of California (1892)[23]
  • Notes on the development of a child (1893)[24]
  • Notes on the development of a child, 2 volumes, University of California Studies, (1893).
  • Some Comments on Babies, Overland monthly and the Out West magazine (1894)[25]
  • Notes on Children's Drawings (1897)
  • The Biography Of A Baby (1900)[26]
  • Notes on the development of a child. II. The development of the senses in the first three years of childhood (1907)[27]
  • The Development of the Senses in the First Three Years of Childhood, (1908)
  • Women Wants Ballot Men Won by War, Appeal to Farmers of State Asks Votes for All Alike, (11 September 1911)[28]
  • Comments in Winning Equal Suffrage in California, 1912, p. 127-128; Condensed from leaflet to "Farmers and Fruit Growers," written for California Campaign.
  • The first two years of the child. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Education, Chicago, 1893. New York: National Education Association (1895).[5]
  • The marriage rate of college women. The Century, 50, 946-48.[5]

References
  1. "Shinn, Millicent Washburn (1858–1940) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
  2. Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A (1928). Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. p. 82. Retrieved 8 August 2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. Hinkel, Edgar Joseph; McCann, William E.; Alameda County Free Library; United States. Work Projects Administration (1942). Biographies of California authors and indexes of California literature. San Francisco Public Library. Oakland, Calif. pp. 195–196.
  4. Shinn, Josiah Hazen (1903). The history of the Shinn family in Europe and America. New York Public Library. [Chicago] Genealogical and Historical Pub. Co.
  5. "Milicent Shinn - Psychology's Feminist Voices". www.feministvoices.com. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
  6. "Milicent W. Shinn". psychology.jrank.org. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  7. "Profile Milicent Shinn". Psychology's Femnist Voices.
  8. College, Radcliffe (1971). Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674627345. shinn.
  9. "Millicent Washburn Shinn". faculty.webster.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  10. Scarborough, Elizabeth; Furumoto, Laurel (1987). Untold lives: The first generation of American women psychologists. Columbia University Press. pp. Abstract.
  11. Eisemann, Linda (1989). "Sisterhood and the Family Claim in Nineteenth-Century America". History of Education Quarterly. 29 (3): 465–473. doi:10.2307/368915. JSTOR 368915.
  12. Rodkey, Elissa N. (2016-11-01). "Far More Than Dutiful Daughter: Milicent Shinn's Child Study and Education Advocacy After 1898". The Journal of Genetic Psychology. 177 (6): 209–230. doi:10.1080/00221325.2016.1237235. ISSN 0022-1325. PMID 27797652. S2CID 26077163.
  13. Oertzen, Christine von (2013). "Science in the Cradle: Milicent Shinn and Her Home-Based Network of Baby Observers, 1890–1910". Centaurus. 55 (2): 175–195. doi:10.1111/1600-0498.12016. ISSN 1600-0498.
  14. Geiger, Roger (1992-01-01). History of Higher Education Annual: 1992. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-2535-1.
  15. "The Overland Monthly archives". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  16. Shinn, Milicent (July–December 1898). "Some Conditions in the Eighties". The Overland Monthly. Series 2. 32: 66–71. Retrieved 2018-06-08 – via HathiTrust.
  17. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (1883). The University of California. San Francisco: Bacon & Company, Printers.
  18. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (Jan 1883). "The Close of an Era". Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine. 1 (1): 52–53.
  19. Shinn, Milicent. "The Overland monthly. ser.2 v.2 1883". HathiTrust. pp. 205–210. Retrieved 2020-06-18.
  20. Shinn, Milicent. "The Overland monthly. ser.2 v.1 1883". HathiTrust. pp. 596–604. Retrieved 2020-06-18.
  21. Shinn, Milicent. "The Overland monthly. ser.2 v.6 1885". HathiTrust. pp. 315–323. Retrieved 2020-06-18.
  22. "The Overland monthly. ser.2:v.12 (1888)". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/hvd.32044092816370. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  23. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (1892). The Lick Astronomical Department of the University of California. San Francisco: Bacon & Company, Printers. Bibcode:1892ladu.book.....S.
  24. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (1893–99). Notes on the development of a child ... [University of California publications. Education. v. 1]. Berkeley: The University.
  25. "Overland monthly and the Out West magazine. ser.2:v.23 (1894)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2019-06-29.
  26. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (1900). The biography of a baby. Boston New York: Houghton, Mifflin and company.
  27. Shinn, Milicent Washburn (1907). Notes on the development of a child. II. The development of the senses in the first three years of childhood. University of California publications. Education,v.4. Berkeley: The University Press].
  28. Shinn, Milicent (11 September 1911). "San Francisco Call". cdnc.ucr.edu. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-07-07.
  • "Obituary". New York Times. August 14, 1940.
  • The Overland Monthly under Milicent Washburn Shinn, 1883-1894: a study in regional publishing. Skelley, Grant Teasdale. 1968. Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • Methods and techniques in child study as employed by Charles Darwin, William Preyer and Milicent Shinn. White, Ruth C. (Ruth Carolyn). 1936. Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • Milicent Shinn's papers are located at the University of California, with the archives for the Mission Peak Heritage Foundation, and at the Washington Township Museum of Local History.
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