Edward Thorndike (Psychology Archives, University of Akron)

Edward Lee Thorndike was born on August 31, 1874, in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. He died on August 9, 1949, in Montrose, New York. Thorndike proceeded very rapidly through his graduate education. After receiving a B.A. at Wesleyan University in 1895, he transferred to Harvard University, where he received a second B.A. in 1896 and his M.A. the following year. In 1898, Thorndike completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University, where he spent virtually his entire academic career as a professor at Teachers College (1899-1940). While this article will not dwell on Thorndike's achievements in the applied area that came to be called educational psychology, it should be noted that he created that field and developed it during his entire career at Columbia.

Thorndike's experimental studies of learning in monkeys brought him his first position at Teachers College as an instructor in genetic...