This paper is concerned with the establishment of child psychology at the end of the 19th century and with its applied uses in the field of physical education. During this period psychology evolved from a philosophical field content with generalised statements about the human soul to a scientific field concerned with measuring and individuating the psyche. This paper focuses on how while psychology quickly laid claim to establishing the contours of normative mental health it was simultaneously deployed in the service of identifying and bolstering normative physical health. As interiority was systematically brought within the realm of science, the traditional metonymic connection between physicality and morality materialised into a new relationship between the self and its numerical existence. This relationship is explored here through an examination of physical-health testing in New York schools during the Progressive Era. My aim is to draw out the manifold ways in which psychological technologies were absorbed into spatial practice, supporting the claim of this theme issue that the proliferation of psychology can be traced through multiple governing practices and into specific geographies.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BedermanG, 1995Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL).
2.
BronnerS J, 1989, “Object lessons: The work of ethological museums and collections”, in Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880–1920 Ed. BronnerS J (W W Norton, New York) pp 217–254.
3.
BrownJ, 1991, “Mental measurements and the rhetorical force of numbers”, in The Estate of Social Knowledge Eds BrownJvan KeurenD K (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD) pp 134–152.
4.
BrownJvan KeurenD K (Eds), 1991The Estate of Social Knowledge (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD).
5.
CavalloD, 1981Morals and Muscles: Organised Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA).
6.
CooleyT, 2001The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet: Madness, Race and Gender in Victorian America (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA).
7.
CowlingM, 1989The Artist as Anthropologist: The Representation of Type and Character in Victorian Art (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
8.
CraddockS, 2000City of Plagues: Disease, Poverty and Deviance in San Francisco (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN).
9.
CurtisH, 1915Education Through Play (Macmillan, New York).
10.
DanzigerK, 1990Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
11.
FordP M, 1989, “Luther H. Gulick”, in Pioneers in Leisure and Recreation Ed. IbrahimH (American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Dance, Reston, VA) pp 79–92.
12.
FoucaultM, 1973The Birth of the Clinic (Tavistock Publications, London).
13.
FoucaultM, 1980a, “Body/power”, in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 Ed. GordonC (Pantheon Books, New York) pp 55–62.
14.
FoucaultM, 1980b, “The politics of health in the eighteenth century', in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 Ed. GordonC (Pantheon Books, New York) pp 166–182.
15.
GagenE A, 2000a, “An example to us all: Child development and identity construction in early 20th-century playgrounds”Environment and Planning A32599–616.
16.
GagenE A, 2000b, “Playing the part: Performing gender in America's playgrounds”, in Children's Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning Eds HollowayS LValentineG (Routledge, London) pp 213–229.
17.
GagenE A, 2004, “Making America flesh: Physicality and nationhood in early twentieth-century physical education reform”Cultural Geographies11417–442.
18.
GouldS J, 1996The Mismeasure of Man (W W Norton, New York).
19.
GrinderR E, 1967A History of Genetic Psychology: The First Science of Human Development (John Wiley, New York).
20.
GulickL H, 1904Physical Education by Muscular Exercise (P Blakiston's Son and Company, Philadelphia, PA).
21.
GurjevaL G, 2001, “Child health, commerce and family values: Domestic production of the middle class in late nineteenth–and early twentieth-century Britain”, in The Cultures of Child Health in Britain and the Netherlands in the Twentieth Century Eds MarlandHHoofstraGijswijst M (Rodopi, Amsterdam) pp 103–125.
22.
HallG S, 1904aAdolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education volume 1 (D Appleton and Company, New York).
23.
HallG S, 1904bAdolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education volume 2 (D Appleton and Company, New York).
24.
HannahM G, 2000Governmentality and Mastery of Territory in Nineteenth-century America (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
25.
HothersallD, 1984A History of Psychology (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA).
26.
KeenE, 2001A History of Ideas in American Psychology (Praeger, New York).
27.
KimmelM, 1996Manhood in America: A Cultural History (The Free Press, New York).
28.
KlineW, 2001Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
29.
LutzT, 1991American Nervousness 1903: An Anecdotal History (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY).
30.
MarshallM E, 1982, “Physics, metaphysics, and Fechner's psychophysics”, in The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-century Thought Eds WoodwardWAshM (Praeger, New York) pp 65–87.
31.
NoonD, 2001This is (not) a Child: Race, Gender and ‘Development’ in the Child Sciences, 1880–1910 unpublished PhD thesis, Department of American Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
32.
NoonD, 2005, “The evolution of beasts and babies: Recapitulation, instinct, and the early discourse on child development”Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences41367–386.
33.
ParkR J, 1987, “Biological thought, athletics and the formation of a ‘man character’: 1830–1900”, in Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 Eds ManganJ AWalvinJ (Manchester University Press, Manchester) pp 7–34.
34.
ParkR J, 1992, “Physiologists, physicians and physical educators: Nineteenth-century biology and exercise, hygienic and educative”, in Sport and Exercise Science: Essays in the History of Sports Medicine Eds BerrymanJ WParkR J (University of Illinois Press, Chicago, IL) pp 137–181.
35.
PinneyC, 1992, “The parallel histories of anthropology and photography”, in Anthropology and Photography 1860–1920 Ed. EdwardsE (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT) pp 165–173.
36.
PorterR, 2003Flesh in the Age of Reason (Allen Lane, London).
37.
RichardsonR, 1987Death, Dissection and the Destitute (Routledge, London).
38.
RichardsonT R, 1989The Century of the Child: The Mental Hygiene Movement and Social Policy in the United States and Canada (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY).
39.
RoseN, 1998Inventing Ourselves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
40.
RossD G, 1972Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL).
41.
RothmanD J, 1980Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and its Alternatives in Progressive Era America (Little, Brown, Boston, MA).
42.
RotundoE A, 1987, “Learning about manhood: Gender ideas and the middle-class family in nineteenth-century America”, in Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 Eds ManganJ AWalvinJ (Manchester University Press, Manchester) pp 35–51.
43.
SchlossmanS, 1973, “G. Stanley Hall and the Boys' Club: Conservative applications of recapitulation theory”Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences9140–147.
44.
SimmelG, 1971, “The metropolis and mental life”, in Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms Ed. LevineD N (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL) pp 324–339; first published 1903.
45.
SokalM (Ed.), 1987Intelligence Testing and American Society, 1890–1930 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ).
46.
TaggJ, 1988The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN).
47.
TwineR, 2002, “Physiognomy, phrenology and the temporality of the body”Body and Society8 (1) 67–88.
48.
VidlerA, 1994, “Psychopathologies of modern space”, in Rediscovering History: Culture, Politics and the Psyche Ed. RothM S (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA) pp 11–29.
49.
YoungR M, 1985Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
