Florene Mary Young and Margaret May Zeigler: The First Women in Professorial Ranks, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia

Abstract

AbstractIn 1933, two factors resulted in Florene Mary Young (1903–1994) and Margaret May Zeigler (1882–1976) concurrently becoming the first female tenured faculty members in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia (UGA). The first was the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, and the second was the legislative creation of the Board of Regents in 1932, established to oversee the University System of Georgia legislatively in 1933. For financial reasons the Regents closed the Georgia State Teachers College, where Young and Zeigler were employed, in Athens, also home of UGA. Young and Zeigler were offered and accepted tenured faculty positions at UGA.Before presenting biographical information about Young and Zeigler, I will present an overview of the history of psychology at UGA before their arrival and the status of women as students and faculty members at UGA before their arrival to provide useful background and context. Young was 21 years younger than Zeigler, earned the PhD in 1938, and had 36 years at UGA. Far more biographical information is available about Young than about Zeigler. Before the Closing Remarks I will consider Young and Zeigler in the context of other women psychologists of their generation.