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A Forgotten Voice: A Biography of Leta Stetter Hollingworth

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Far more than a biography, this book is also a history of gifted education and a snapshot of the life of the exceptionally gifted in our society. I learned a great deal while reading it, not only About Leta Hollingworth and her contemporaries in gifted, but about myself, and my fit within my world.

As a biography, "Leta" captures the imagination, taking you to turn-of-the-century Nebraska during the westward expansion. Life was not easy then, and Leta had a harder time of growing up than most. They say "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger," and this certainly applies to Leta's young life. Continuing to college at an early age, Leta faces a new challenge: she is a young woman in a man's world. While she is highly successful there, many still will not accept her, and her struggles continue.

As a history book, "Leta" is just as interesting, and should be required reading for any education or psychology degree program. The relationships between many of the leading historical figures in gifted psychology and education are explained, and the reader learns how their theories and experiences intertwine to form the basis of gifted theory of today.

And most importantly, Ann Klein has done a terrific job combining the elements of Leta Hollingworth's life into an enjoyable volume. Don't miss this book!

A Forgotten Voice: A Biography of Leta Stettler Hollingsworth
By Ann G. Klein, Ed.D

Which of us remembers when female students were not expected to excel in academic endeavors because of a belief that female physiology stood in the way of logical thinking and reasoning? Who of us can recall the time when equality in education meant that all children must learn the same things, at the same rate, and by the same processes of learning? Early in the 20th century, an exceptional young woman, Leta Stettler Hollingsworth, challenged those myths.
In her book, A Forgotten Voice: A Biography of Leta Stettler Hollingsworth, Dr. Ann G. Klein describes the hardships of Leta's early life and her struggle to take advantage of every educational opportunity possible to her. Leta's husband, Henry Levi Hollingsworth (Holly) was her constant companion, support and mentor. Together they moved from rural Nebraska to New York where each would find success and satisfaction though their involvement in the relatively new field of psychology at Columbia University's Teacher's College and at Barnard.

After a stint of baking lemon pies and researching the effect of caffeine in Coca Cola, Leta completed her graduate studies and had the opportunity to work with such eminent researchers and scholars as John Dewey, Lewis Terman, Edward Lee Thorndike, and Naomi Norsworthy. In addition to becoming an active feminist, Leta studied and worked with school children, primarily focusing on those who demonstrated very high intelligence. She was instrumental in founding the Speyer School, a New York City School for Exceptional students. Leta Hollingsworth served as educational advisor of the Terman classes for those students who scored 130 or above on the Stanford Binet IQ test.

In working with the Terman students, Leta introduced cooperative and thematic studies, observed the "special perplexities" (social and emotional needs) of gifted children, noted the frequency of uneven (asynchronous) development, and recognized the benefits of grouping gifted students to provide stimulus and challenge.

While the life of Leta Stettler Hollingsworth was cut short, her influence lives on. I thank Dr. Ann G. Klein and Great Potential Press for sharing her with us.

As a history buff and a lover of biographies with an interest in the studies of human potential, I found this book fascinating. What a great opportunity it was to get to know Leta Stetter Hollingworth from her own perspective as well as the perspective of her husband, family, co-workers, friends, and rivals. The book was nicely rounded, and the balance of personal information combined with historic and academic information was satisfying. Well, almost anyway. The book definitely left me wanting to learn more about Leta.

"A Forgotten Voice" is not just one more "I've got to read this because I should" biography. Dr. Klein has woven the threads of Leta Hollingworth's life and the strands of educational philosophy (both past and present) into a cloak well worth the trying on. I highly recommend this volume to anyone with an interest in gifted education/psychology and/or the lives of influential women. You will not be disappointed.

BOOK REVIEW
by
Bob Heckel

A Forgotten Voice: A Biography of Leta Stetter Hollingworth

by

Ann G. Klein, Ed. D.
Great Potential Press, Inc. 2002

Psychologists have rarely been the subjects of published biographies, or autobiograhies, for that matter. The few published exceptions have had little to do with their psychological contributions, but much to do with their personal lives. Elitist Henry Murray rated an extended biography and even a review in The New Yorker, not for his psychological contributions, but rather for his affair(s) and his social connections.

So it is a rare treat to find a biography of one of the early important female contributors to the areas of clinical, school and developmental psychology, Leta Stetter Hollingworth(1886-1939). Dr. Ann Klein has produced a major contribution in her work, despite the extreme difficulty of tracking down information on a very private, independent, determined, taciturn midwesterner(some might have called her "feisty"). Dr. Klein's effort took 12 years to completion, during which time she sought every possible source and visited the few living relatives, as well as the places of Leta' s early life, the small towns and rural areas of Nebraska.
Her task was made doubly difficult because her husband, eminent psychologist Harry Hollingworth, destroyed her letters, and gave her research papers to her colleagues. Some of her poetry remains, and are presented in the book.

This work documents and describes the triumph of Leta's overcoming the traumas of her mothers death when she was three, an errant and neglectful father, a cruel stepmother, life in the primitive conditions of prairie living in a sod cabin. From this she rose, through her determination and extremely high level of ability to successfully complete her college training at Nebraska. There she met her husband, Harry and together they sought degrees in psychology at Columbia. Leta faced the problems of all women of that time, a psychological community that felt higher education was inappropriate for them. The book rercounts her struggles, the important figures who played major roles in her academic life and interests, Thorndike, Terman and others. Well documented are the flowering of her intersts and work with the gifted which resulted in a number of books, papers and research projects, many still highly relevant 64 years after her death.

Her efforts on behalf of female equality brought her in contact with some of the most outspoken and radical feminists of the time. She a active participant in their work, though she was not a political liberal. She also held conservative views on eugenics, heredity and other topics, not unlike many eminent psychologists of that time( Cattell, Terman, Yerkes, Hall). In many ways reading about her views suggests positions not unlike Libertarians of today.

What is missing in this work is a glimpse of the inner person. Leta was very private, and if she left any of the kinds of notes which would help us understand her long illness with cancer(10 yrs.), her feelings about not having children, or a deeper insight into her relationship with her husband, this was not to be.What does come through is a triumph over incredible odds, and the achievement of the highest level of success by a very determined woman.

This is a book well worth reading. Thoe interested in the gifted might become acquainted with the press publishing this work. They offer a number of interesting works in this area.

Highly recommended for both Women's Studies and American Education History Studies, A Forgotten Voice: Biography Of Leta Stetter Hollingworth is the story of the proverbial "mother of gifted education." Born in 1886 in rural Nebraska, Leta Hollingworth (1886-1939) survived an abusive childhood and endemic gender discrimination to become a talented psychologist, feminist, author, educator, and tireless advocate for the education of gifted children. Biographer Ann G. Klein (Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) provides a truly fascinating study into the life and work of an extraordinary, trailblazing woman.