Archives of the History of Psychology
Also steeped in the classics, yet a very different database from that at the Murray Center, is the Archives of the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio. To see what's available there, go to www.uakron.edu/ahap/. As its name implies, the Akron Archive is dedicated to promoting research in the history of psychology. If the Murray Center is psychology's El Dorado, then the Akron Archive is our Smithsonian, that is to say, our attic.
Much of what is contained in Akron cannot be accessed on the Internet because it is solid stuff. Seven of B. F. Skinner's teaching machines are housed there, for example. Is there an introductory psychology student in the last 40 years who has not seen the black and white film of Stanley Milgram's startling study of compliance? The simulated shock generator that remains the iconic representation of that experiment is in Akron. There are other symbols of our history there too. David Wechsler's psychogalvanograph and his Brunzwigia calculating machine are there. There is a film of Kurt Lewin explaining Field Theory (not to mention child development and the social climate of groups), and one of Ivan Pavlov concerning functions of the brain. What was Sigmund Freud like as a teacher? There is a reel-to-reel tape containing recollections of one of his students to give you some idea. What was Abraham Maslow like as a student? His class notes are preserved at the Akron Archive, as is Spence's correspondence with Hull regarding the Hull-Spence Theory.
Since it opened in 1965, the Archive has been the repository for the records of many of the country's psychological science societies. Our institutional memory literally resides there. In fact, when the Archive's capacity to take in new material from the societies was exceeded several years ago and it was announced that no new material of that kind would be accepted, it sparked a serious discussion among leaders of the country's societies about how the records of our organizations can continue to be preserved. It is a discussion that is still underway.
The Akron Archive's travails over capacity and resources mirror that at many of our archives. With more resources, much more of the printed, filmed, and audiotape holdings of the Akron Archive could become available online for teaching and research. With more resources, people could be hired to put more of the papers of our most revered scientists in order and make them available for scholarship. For now, there is enough light in the attic only to show us the shadowed outline of our past.
