G. Stanley Hall

Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1844 – April 24, 1924) was an American psychologist and educator who earned the first doctorate in psychology awarded in the United States of America. His interests focused on human life span development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psychological Association and the first president of Clark University. A 2002 survey by Review of General Psychology ranked Hall as the 72nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with Lewis Terman.

Early life

Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Hall grew up on a farm with his parents, Granville Bascom Hall, who served on the Massachusetts legislature, and Abigail Beals, who attended school at Albany Female Seminary and went on to become a teacher herself. As an adolescent, Hall experienced frequent nocturnal emissions. He spent much of his time reading and taking advantage of the educational opportunities he could gain from his parents and the local schools. At a young age, he was interested in animals and bodily skills. By the age of 16, he began to teach other students, most of whom were older than he was

Education and early career

Hall attended Williston Seminary and graduated from Williams College in 1867, then studied at the Union Theological Seminary. Inspired by Wilhelm Wundt's Principles of Physiological Psychology, Hall pursued doctoral studies at Harvard University, where he met William James, an adjunct professor who had just taught the nation's first psychology class. In 1878, Hall earned his doctorate in psychology from Harvard, the first psychology doctorate awarded in the United States of America. Afterward, Hall could find no academic jobs available in psychology, so he went to Europe to study at the University of Berlin, and spent a brief time in Wundt's Leipzig laboratory in 1879.