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Lead Section[edit source]

Thelma Gorfinkle Alper (July 24, 1908 - July 30, 1988) was an American clinical psychologist, known clinically for creating a study measure for women's achievement motivation. She was also the first Jewish woman to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, having careers at multiple institutions as she conducted studies primarily on memory of tasks, with an interest in its relation to women.

Personal Life[edit source]

Alper grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts to a Jewish family that Alper described as "achievement oriented, but not at all a college-oriented, Jewish family". She had an older sister that was ten years older, named Bertha, who was described as the most influential role model in her Alper's life, yet someone who she could never dream of surpassing, or even matching her achievements. Bertha had been valedictorian and graduated at sixteen to try for a career in business, and was described as more outgoing then Thelma. It was Bertha who persuaded Alper to follow a more educational track by taking on the college prep track in high school.

She was a professor's assistant in college, and was later promoted to a general assistant for Wellesley's psychology department. She also worked for the Judge Baker Guidance Center in Boston for free before getting her B.A. and M.A. later on. She married Abraham T. Alper, who was involved in law, in 1932. She was subject to much gender discrimination throughout her career, especially during her time at Harvard. She was subjected to a grueling three hour interview where she was informed of the low female acceptance and survival rate. Furthermore, she would not receive a position at a university that guaranteed a tenure because of her gender until 1952 at her alma mater. Despite this, she was able to make her mark and see the changing times later on as more women were accepted onto faculty positions. She would retire from her position as a faculty member at her alma mater in 1973 and from Judge Baker in 1979, but continued to run a small practice to help out adult patients until her death.

Thelma Alper passed away on July 30th, 1988  at Sherrill House in Boston due to a stroke. She was 80 years old.

Education[edit source]

As Alper's educational record in school was excellent, she was informed by her principal she would not have to take the College Entrance Examination, and was eligible to be admitted into Radcliffe College as a student right away. Despite this, Alper struggled with her choice of college. While Alper favored Radcliffe, her sister and father wanted Wellesley, while her mother picked out Simmons College. Although nervous at the lack of familiar social connections at Wellesley, Alper went with her sister's choice and took the College Boards in June 1925, before officially starting college in September of the same year at seventeen years old.

Alper did not take well to Wellesley at first, and was even thinking of pulling out as she had thought that her future could be in the role as a kindergarten teacher, for which Wellesley did not show a promising field or chance for growth for at the time. However, she chose to stay for the full year at her sister's request, and ended up feeling better about the choice later on as she took more German classes that piqued her interest - leading her to major in the language. Her sophomore year would be where she would be introduced to the topic of psychology through a required introductory course. Interestingly, she found the subject quite dry and could care less for it, even when taking more advanced classes in the field. Despite this, she accepted the role as the introductory psychology professor's teaching assistant in May 1929, as it allowed her to take care sister's young son (as her sister had passed away in December 1928), and to continue her education at Wellesley for free, even as a graduate, if she so chose. She chose this position over several jobs that were related to her German major, including a teaching position at Wheaton College, a translator for a publishing firm, and a position in a foreign department of Yale.

She was later promoted to an assistant in the department, allowing her the experience of teaching small discussions and participating in some research. She received her B.A. in 1929, with General Honors. A brief six-week stint between her junior and senior year of college for Judge Baker Guidance Center allowed her to work in a more clinical position. She later received her M.A. in 1933. Unfortunately, her professor died that summer, which meant that she no longer had good support within the psychology department to advance any further without a Ph.D. It was around this time she hit a wall in her career, both being financially unsure, yet not being able to move forward with her work at Wellesley. She would choose to take classes at the Harvard Graduate School of Education a few years later to be eligible to help in the English department, where her took on the role of a "director of remedial reading". But, Alper wanted a new challenge and was thus spurred to apply for a spot for a Ph.D. program in Harvard's College of Liberal Arts psychology department. Despite the chairman, Dr. Edwin G. Boring, warning her that their acceptance of females was sparse and the environment for them harsh, she was accepted and began her time in 1939.

Career[edit source]

Her first publication came during her time with remedial reading, which appeared in The Wellesley Magazine and titled "If Only I Could Read Faster". She would later become a co-editor for her collaboration with Dr. Boring for two books, Psychology for the Fighting Man and Psychology for the Returning Veteran.

Despite the harsher treatment of women at Harvard at the time and the smaller graduating class compared to men, Alper passed the Qualifying Preliminary Examinations in 1941, and got her Psychology Ph.D. in 1943. After resigning from Wellesley, she became a Psychology tutor at Radcliffe in 1942, but later become a Psychology instructor for Harvard in 1943, which led to much hardships on Alper's part, as much of Harvard's curriculum was based around separating male and female. Despite much initial opposition from the male faculty, it was found that the male students were much more accepting to the idea of a female instructor, and enrollment stayed the same. She would be the only female in the department until 1946, with the arrival of Eugenia Hanfmann in the social relations department.

The gender discrimination would continue as both women would eventually leave due to the lack of tenure opportunity from Harvard. Alpers would find similar results at Tufts and Boston, where both offered spots without the possibility of tenure. She would later accept a position for Clark University's psychology department, where she was, again, the only female on staff. Despite a more accepting and open-minded environment there, she left to take an offer back at Wellesley in 1952 due to her husband's poor health. The position included a role as an associate professor, where she could be promoted into a full professor within two years, and tenure. Furthermore, the Nursery School would remain as long as it was useful to her research. She would remain there until she retired in 1973. She was also the chairwomen of the psychology department there for some unknown time.

In 1959, Alper would return to the place where she was first given clinical experience - Judge Baker Guidance Center. Her visit was agreed upon with the president of Wellesley, in coordination with her acceptance of her position at the university. At Judge Baker, she would spend her time in clinical research and training in therapy. At some point, she was a consultant for a Head Start set-up in Charleston, MA, with Dr. Bessie Sperry, which lasted for five-years. She would retire from Judge Baker in June 1979.

Research[edit source]

Alper's research mainly focused on completed and uncompleted tasks, meshing clinical and social psychology, the latter of which was influenced by Professor Kurt Lewin's class. This interest was further pursued via her Ph.D., and later led to her creation fo a role-orientation measure, termed the Wellesley Role-Orientation Scale (WROS) in 1974. Women who receive a high score using this measure typically prefer the role that are assigned to them via the culture - the traditionalists. Those who don't receive a high score are more likely to either be neutral when it comes to taking on more traditional male careers, or feel that the world is unjust due to the heavy discrimination on women who desire to make a career in male-oriented fields. 

Legacy, Awards, and Achievements[edit source]

During her time taking courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she developed The Wellesley Spelling Scale with another colleague, which was later published and marketed by the California Test Bureau. After passing her examinations at the Harvard College of Liberal Arts, she became the eleventh woman to gain a Ph.D. from Harvard in psychology.  She was also the first Jewish woman to receive such a distinction from Harvard. She served as President of the Massachusetts Psychological Association and two chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. Furthermore, Alper created a measure to study achievement motivation in women, named the Wellesley Role Orientation Scale (WROS). She received a Career Contribution Award in 1975 from the MPA.

Article Evaluation:

I reviewed the article for Dorotea Bucca. The article appears unbiased, which is a good sign, but it's heavily lacking in information. The article admits the lack of information on her, and the latter half of the article doesn't even talk about her. There doesn't seem to be much activity on the page in general, as the last edit was from December 2016, and was only to add sources about Italian women in medicine. It doesn't seem there is extensive interest in expanding the article either, and I wonder how many people have actually heard of her, given what's available. The sources I accessed seem to not show any bias as well, which is good. The few sources that are listed do seem legitimate. The article does need to be expanded, but it's hindered by the fact there doesn't seem to be much information about her.

Wiki Article Plans:

I plan to contribute to Thelma Alper's Wikipedia article. I still have sources to look through, but what I'm hoping to mainly add is a more detailed section regarding her studies (in terms of what was significant about her results or perhaps why people should care), so that her award/legacy section makes more sense to users. I also plan to try and find sources to see if I can add to her biography and her career, so that readers can get a more comprehensive idea on the type of woman she was, the things she did, and why she is an important figure.

This is what I posted on the talk page, but also serves as my critique for what needs to be improved or what is missing that needs to be added:

Expanding on her biography

• Finding more details about her childhood or anything before she started her formal career
• Hopefully planning to find out where her interest in psychology started, and/or how it developed into the career path she chose
• Would love to find some of her old work, and perhaps some accounts on how she was received at Harvard, given that she was the first Jewish woman to receive a PhD there
• Relationships - I question what her relations to her family, friends, and possible lovers were like, and whether they had any influence on what all she did in her career. If I am able to find sources, I wish to add this sort of info.
• Plan to add in key dates throughout her article as well, and maybe spruce it up by adding a picture of her like many other pages have

Career

• Want to find more info on the circumstances regarding her leaving Harvard and Clark
• Expanding on what is already stated, plus hoping to tie that into her clinical work

Legacy

• I wish to frame her page so that her legacy stands out more. I might move the first Jewish woman to receive a PhD from Harvard down to the section as well, as it seems to be of major significance.

Studies

• I had put in this section when I first edited it, and wish to expand more on this by detailing more of her studies and what they all concluded so it's clear what contributions she made in her field, and why they are important, and remain important.
• Referencing certain articles of her work would be good here.

UPDATE: I changed this to a research subsection, as to not detract from talking about her.

Death

• This might either be its own section or be put in the biography section, but I would love to find more details regarding how she passed.
• The date of her death would be informative here.

UPDATE: Putting this in her personal life section

Lead Section

Thelma Gorfinkle Alper (July 24, 1908 - July 30, 1988) was an American clinical psychologist, known clinically for creating a study measure for women's achievement motivation. She was also the first Jewish woman to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, having careers at multiple institutions as she conducted studies primarily on memory of tasks, with an interest in its relation to women.

Current Bibliography

Alper, Thelma G. “Psychology in New England: A Retrospective Look—a Woman's Point of View.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, vol. 16, no. 3, July 1980, pp.

220–224. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1002/1520-6696(198007)16:3<220::AID-JHBS2300160303>3.0.CO;2-1.

Alper, Thelma G. “Task-Orientation vs. Ego-Orientation in Learning and Retention.” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 59, no. 2, 1946, pp. 236–248. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/1416887.

Alper, Thelma G., and Adelaide Black. “The Effect of Instruction, Task, and Population-Sample on Mental Set.” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 62, no. 2, 1949, pp. 295–299. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1418470.

Gul, Pelin. "Profile of Thelma Alper." Psychology's Feminist Voices Multimedia Internet Archive. Psychology's Feminist Voices Project/ Alexandra Rutherford, 2011. Web.

O'Connell, Agnes N. "Thelma G. Alper." Models of Achievement: Reflections of Eminent Women in Psychology. N.p.: Erlbaum, 1983. 189-99. Print.

Postman, Leo, and Thelma G. Alper. “Retroactive Inhibition as a Function of the Time of Interpolation of the Inhibitor between Learning and Recall.” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 59, no. 3, 1946, pp. 439–449. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1417613.

Unger, Rhoda K. "Psychology in the United States." Jewish Women's Archive. The Jewish Women's Archive, 1 Mar. 2009. Web.