The Beginnings of the New Profession of Psychology 29designated as “clinical psychology” (Witmer, 1907). Based
on the work in his clinic and his promotional efforts on behalf
of applying psychology to the remediation of learning and
behavioral problems, Witmer has generally been acknowl-
edged as the founder of clinical psychology and school psy-
chology in America (McReynolds, 1997).
In addition to schools and clinics, the new psychology
also quickly found its way into the world of business. In the
fall of 1895, Harlow Gale (1862–1945), a psychology in-
structor at the University of Minnesota, began his research on
the psychology of advertising. He sent a brief questionnaire
to approximately 200 businesses in the Minneapolis–St. Paul
area asking them about their advertising practices. He wrote,
“It is our aim to find the mental processes which go on in the
minds of the customers from the time they see an advertise-
ment until they have purchased the article advertised” (Gale,
1900, p. 39). Gale discovered that the business community
may not have been as interested in psychology as he was in
their field; only about 20 businesses returned his question-
naire, a return rate of 10%. In the next 5 years, however, a
theoretical debate among advertisers about the nature of con-
sumer motivation led the advertising community to make
contact with psychology, initially with Walter Dill Scott
(1869–1955), who published books on the psychology of ad-
vertising in 1903 and 1908. With his work, the field of indus-
trial psychology was born (Benjamin, in press). By 1915,
many psychologists were employed full-time in the business
field in advertising, sales, and personnel work.
Thus, whereas many of the early academic psychologists
appeared content to remain in their laboratories where they
used their new scientific techniques to answer age-old ques-
tions of mind, others were lured beyond the ivy-covered
walls, motivated by a need for money or a curiosity about
problems in the world outside of the academy or by a need to
demonstrate the value of the new science of psychology
through application. It was the work of those pioneers that
marked the beginning of the new profession of psychology, a
profession that was to be grounded in science.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NEW PROFESSION
OF PSYCHOLOGY
It is doubtful that psychologists at the end of the nineteenth
century envisioned anything like the profession of psychol-
ogy that would exist in the 1930s much less the profession of
today. Yet the earliest of American psychologists, such as
William James (1842–1910), G. Stanley Hall, and James
McKeen Cattell, clearly recognized the potential contribu-
tions of psychology through applied research. It, perhaps,
was only a small step to move from applied research to
establish a role for psychologists as consultants employed
outside the university.
The beginning of the twentieth century in America was
marked by great social upheaval. American cities were grow-
ing rapidly and with them the factories that were the home of
the new urban labor. Immigrants came to America in even
greater numbers, seeking a better life. Child labor laws and
compulsory school attendance laws were passed in tandem to
prevent abuses of children in the workplace but also to pro-
vide an education needed for an urban workforce and to
impart the values of American society important to the melt-
ing pot of fully acculturated citizens. There were movements
for a national reform in education and for the right to vote for
women. As manufacturing capacity exceeded demand, busi-
nesses looked beyond their regions to a national consumer
base. Advertising became more important to create those
broader markets. The types of jobs available expanded con-
siderably as America moved from a largely agrarian/rural
society to a factory/urban one; consequently, people sought
more information about jobs leading to a new focus—
arguably a more scientific one—on adjustment.
The changes in America at the turn of the century virtually
clamored for an applied social science to solve the problems
of the new society. And, there were psychologists both inside
and outside of university settings who were ready to tackle
those problems. We will next examine some of the early prac-
tical applications of psychology in business, in counseling, in
education, and in clinical settings.The Business PsychologistAt the beginning of the twentieth century, American business
was changing America as well as being changed by the evo-
lution of American society. With the “formation of large in-
dustrial empires came new management problems and a
growing problem with efficiency” (Napoli, 1981, p. 28). As
efficiency became the watchword of new American business,
psychologists would take up the challenges of increasing
productivity, improving personnel selection, providing job
analyses, and improving worker morale.
Business psychology—later to be called industrial psy-
chology in the 1920s, and then industrial-organizational (I-O)
psychology in the 1960s—can be said to have originated
with Gale’s advertising study in 1895. But Gale did not pur-
sue that work. Instead, the first sustained program in business
psychology was that of Walter Dill Scott, who published
many articles on the psychology of advertising in Mahin’s
Magazine,a leading journal in the advertising field. Scott
also wrote about his advertising work in other magazines,