Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIV. Dispositional Theories 13. Allport: Psychology of
the Individual(^396) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
sister, her favorite teacher, two of her friends, and a neighbor as well as notes in a
baby book, school records, scores on several psychological tests, autobiographical
material, and two personal meetings with Ada Allport.
Nicole Barenbaum (1997) has put together a brief account of Marion Taylor’s
life. Taylor was born in 1902 in Illinois, moved to California with her parents and
younger sister in 1908, and began writing to her diary in 1911. Soon after her 13th
birthday, her diary entries became more personal, including fantasies and secret feel-
ings. She eventually graduated from college, earned a master’s degree, and became
a psychology and biology teacher. She married at age 31 but had no children.
Although a wealth of personal documents on Marion Taylor became available
to Ada and Gordon Allport, the Allports chose not to publish an account of her story.
Barenbaum (1997) offered some possible reasons for this, but due to major gaps in
the correspondence between Marion Taylor and Ada Allport, it is now impossible to
know for certain why the Allports did not publish this case history. Their work with
Marion Taylor probably helped them organize and publish a second case—the story
of Jenny Gove Masterson, another pseudonym.
Letters From Jenny
Allport’s morphogenic approach to the study of lives is best illustrated in his famous
Letters from Jenny.These letters reveal the story of an older woman and her intense
love/hate feelings toward her son, Ross. Between March 1926 (when she was 58) and
October 1937 (when she died), Jenny wrote a series of 301 letters to Ross’s former
college roommate, Glenn, and his wife, Isabel, who almost certainly were Gordon
and Ada Allport (Winter, 1993). Allport originally published parts of these letters
anonymously (Anonymous, 1946) and then later published them in more detail under
his own name (Allport, 1965).
Born in Ireland of Protestant parents in 1868, Jenny was the oldest in a family
of seven children that included five sisters and a brother. When she was 5 years old,
the family moved to Canada; and when she was 18, her father died and Jenny was
forced to quit school and go to work to help support her family. After 9 years, her
brothers and sisters became self-supporting; and Jenny, who had always been con-
sidered rebellious, scandalized her family by marrying a divorced man, a decision
that further alienated her from her conservatively religious family.
After only 2 years of marriage, Jenny’s husband died. A month or so later, her
son, Ross, was born. This was 1897, the same year Gordon Allport, Ross’s future col-
lege roommate, was born. The next 17 years were somewhat contented ones for
Jenny. Her world revolved around her son, and she worked hard to ensure that he had
everything he wanted. She told Ross that, aside from art, the world was a miserable
place and that it was her duty to sacrifice for him because she was responsible for his
existence.
When Ross moved away to attend college, Jenny continued to scrimp in order
to pay all his bills. As Ross began to be interested in women, the idyllic mother-
son relationship came to an end. The two quarreled often and bitterly over his female
friends. Jenny referred to each of them as prostitutes or whores, including the woman
Ross married. With that marriage, Jenny and Ross became temporarily estranged.
At about that same time, Jenny began an 11^1 / 2 -year correspondence with
Glenn and Isabel (Gordon and Ada) in which she revealed much about both her life
390 Part IV Dispositional Theories