Can You Find Freud in This Photo?
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| Clark University, September 1909 |
Traveling with his colleagues, Sandor Ferenczi and Carl Jung, Freud said before the journey, "The thought of America does not seem to matter to me, but I am looking forward very much to our journey together."
In 1909 Sigmund Freud visited the United States for the first and only time. He journeyed to Worchester, Massachusetts at the invitation of G. Stanley Hall, the president of Clark University, in connection with the 20th anniversary celebration of the founding of America's original graduate student only academic research institution. Speaking in German to a who's who of psychologists and other social scientists (many of whom would have been multilingual in those days) Freud delivered a series of now famous lectures on psychoanalysis.
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| Group photo in front of Clark University: Front row: Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; Back row: Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi. |
Sigmund Freud delivered his Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis during the psychology conference—his only speaking engagement in the United States. The conference represented the first significant academic recognition of psychoanalysis, and Freud's lectures served to introduce psychoanalysis to a broader U.S. audience. Clark's distinguished reputation was part of the reason that Freud and Carl Jung decided to speak here; they were relatively unknown while Clark was highly respected. Clark President G. Stanley Hall was well known as a pioneer among American psychologists and had previously corresponded with most leading scientists in Europe at the time—including Freud. As a result, Hall was able to get Freud to come deliver the only lectures he ever gave in the Western Hemisphere. Freud's lectures at Clark propelled him towards becoming the well-known figure that he is today because his lectures brought him to the attention of a much wider audience.
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Below are participants and lectures cited in the preliminary conference program (PDF).
Who's Who in the group photograph?
See also
