Barbara Spofford Morgan

Barbara Spofford Morgan (July 15, 1887 – April 1, 1971) was an American educator, essayist on religion and a specialist in mental testing.^[1]

Early life and education

Barbara Spofford was born on July 15, 1887, in New York City,^[1] the daughter of Charles Ainsworth Spofford, a director of the Northern Pacific Railway, and Ellen Boardman. They moved to Norfolk, Connecticut, to give their daughter a better environment, and in 1898, built The Alders (now known as the Manor House), a Victorian Tudor-style mansion, designed by E.K. Rossiter.^[2] Later Barbara and Shepard Morgan lived on Mountain Road, Norfolk.^[1] Spofford was the granddaughter of Ainsworth Rand Spofford,^[3] Librarian of the United States Congress from 1864 to 1897.^[4]

She was educated at

On February 20, 1912,[9] she married Shepard Ashman Morgan (1884-1968),^[10] president of the Chase National Bank and author of The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England and Reminiscences of Shepard Ashman Morgan (1950).^[1][11][12] The Morgans were members of the Jekyll Island Club, a Southern haven for America's millionaires.^[13]

In 1926, while her husband was economic advisor and later finance director of the Office for Reparation Payments in Berlin, Germany, she enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University,^[14] where she received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1928, the first American woman to achieve such a distinction. Her doctoral thesis was The Individual in American Education.^[15]

Morgan was the author of The Backward Child, a Study of the Psychology and Treatment of Backwardness; A Practical Manual for Teachers and Students (1914),^[16] Friendly Shepherdess (1933),^[17] Individuality in a collective world (1935),^[18] Skeptic's search for God (1947) (reissued in 1949 as Man's restless search).^[1] She also contributed articles to The Atlantic,^[19] the North American Review,^[20] and The Baltimore Sun.^[21]

From 1910 to 1911, she directed the psychological clinic of the Neurological Institute of New York. In 1911, she was featured in a full-page article in The New York Times: "Teaching Backward Children Their A-B-C's by Dancing, Where ordinary methods fails, Miss Barbara Spofford resorts to a novel plan of her own to instill the alphabet into youthful minds".^[22] From 1916 to 1918 she lectured on mental testing at the New York University^[23] and from 1914 to 1920 she had a private practice in mental testing in New York City.^[1]

Morgan was governor of the Women's Municipal League, a field worker for the North American Civil League for Immigrants and an activist for the benefit of the Randalls Island Hospital for Mental Defectives. She was a trustee of the Public Education Association and a governor of the

In 1970, she donated The Papers of Ainsworth Rand Spofford to the Library of Congress.[24]^[25] Morgan died on April 1, 1971, in Canaan, Connecticut.^[1]

References