July 22: Augusta Fox Bronner and Juvenile Delinquency

Psychologist Augusta Fox Bronner, who redirected the study of juvenile delinquency to social and environmental rather than biological causes, and to character rather than intelligence, was born in Louisville, Kentucky on this date in 1881. After training at Columbia University’s Teachers College and spending several rewarding years as a classroom teacher, Bronner attended a Harvard summer seminar at which she met and joined forces with William Healy, whom she married after co-founding the Judge Baker Foundation, a model center for guiding adolescents through the trials of youth. Bronner kept the Foundation (later called the Guidance Center) running throughout her life, and became a model for hundreds of child guidance clinics in the U.S. and other lands. Her 1917 book, The Psychology of Special Abilities and Disabilities, and her 1927 book with Healy, A Manual of Mental Tests and Testing, were significant in both clinical psychology and criminology. “Particularly significant was their development of the widely adopted ‘team’ concept in psychiatric practice — which brought the psychologist, the social worker, and others into a case conference with the physician.” —Notable American Women, the Modern Period, Volume 4