James McKeen Cattell

1860 (Easton, Pa.) – 1944 (Lancaster, Pa.)

Cattell did much to get psychology taken seriously as a science and a discipline. He did his PhD under Wundt (they collaborated extensively), then while studying medicine at Cambridge met, worked with and was influenced by Galton, describing him as “the greatest man I have known.” The philosopher Dewey was a university classmate, and one of his earliest experimental subjects: he later helped bring Dewey (and Boas) to Columbia as university colleagues, both supporting him when his principles got him into trouble. James, whom Cattell admired, was a correspondent, and Thorndike, Washburn and Watson all students.

James McKeen Cattell knew…