ABSTRACT
Conspicuously absent from most history of psychology texts and biographical anthologies, Barbara Stoddard Burks is an enigmatic figure in psychology. During her brief but stellar career, she generated more than 80 publications. Her journal articles, book chapters, reviews, and monographs concerned general heredity and the genetics of behavioral traits, innovations in research methodology, and themes in developmental, personality, social, and educational psychology. When Burks died in 1943, Florence Goodenough wrote:
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letters. Barbara's father, Jesse Dismukes Burks, was a graduate of the University of Chicago and Columbia University and was a prolific scholar in municipal research and education. Her mother, Frances Williston Burks, was a prominent figure in education and, together with her husband, wrote a 1913 guidebook for parents, teachers, and policymakers titled Health and the School: A Round Table. In it, they argued that health care should be socialized for the improvement of children as well as the educational process; they insisted that health is not only a civic obligation but also a right.
