Carl Seashore
Encyclopedia
Carl Emil Seashore was a prominent American psychologist.
, Kalmar County
, Sweden
to Carl Gustav and Emily Sjöstrand. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1870 and settled in Iowa
. The name “Seashore” is a translation of the Swedish surname Sjöstrand. He graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College
, St. Peter, Minnesota
in 1891, having studied mathematics, music, and classical languages and literature. During his years in college he served as the organist and choir director of a Swedish-Lutheran church and his salary there paid most of his college expenses. Seashore attended Yale
when that school had just opened its psychology department under George Trumbull Ladd
. In 1895, Seashore was awarded the school’s first Ph. D in psychology for his dissertation on the role of inhibition in learning.
where he spent the remaining 50 years of his life. There, he was eventually made chairman of the department of psychology and Dean of the Graduate School.
Seashore was particularly interested in audiology
, the psychology of music, the psychology of speech and stuttering, the psychology of the graphic arts and measuring motivation and scholastic aptitude. He devised the Seashore Tests of Musical Ability in 1919, a version of which is still used in schools in the United States. His interests in the fine arts led to a joint effort with Professor Norman Meier and the publication of the Meier-Seashore Art Judgment Test in 1929. His complete publication list from 1893 to 1949 includes 237 books and articles.
Background
Seashore was born in Mörlunda, Hultsfred MunicipalityHultsfred Municipality
Hultsfred Municipality is a municipality in Kalmar County, in south-eastern Sweden. The seat is in the town of Hultsfred....
, Kalmar County
Kalmar County
Kalmar County is a county or län in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Kronoberg, Jönköping, Blekinge and Östergötland. To the east in the Baltic Sea is the island Gotland....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
to Carl Gustav and Emily Sjöstrand. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1870 and settled in Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. The name “Seashore” is a translation of the Swedish surname Sjöstrand. He graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in St. Peter, Minnesota, United States. A coeducational, four-year, residential institution, it was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. To this day the school is firmly...
, St. Peter, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
in 1891, having studied mathematics, music, and classical languages and literature. During his years in college he served as the organist and choir director of a Swedish-Lutheran church and his salary there paid most of his college expenses. Seashore attended Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
when that school had just opened its psychology department under George Trumbull Ladd
George Trumbull Ladd
George Trumbull Ladd was an American philosopher, educator and psychologist.-Early life and ancestors:...
. In 1895, Seashore was awarded the school’s first Ph. D in psychology for his dissertation on the role of inhibition in learning.
Career
After a trip to Europe and a subsequent fellowship at Yale, he accepted a permanent position at the University of IowaUniversity of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
where he spent the remaining 50 years of his life. There, he was eventually made chairman of the department of psychology and Dean of the Graduate School.
Seashore was particularly interested in audiology
Audiology
Audiology is the branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. Its practitioners, who treat those with hearing loss and proactively prevent related damage are audiologists. Employing various testing strategies Audiology (from Latin , "to hear"; and from Greek , -logia) is...
, the psychology of music, the psychology of speech and stuttering, the psychology of the graphic arts and measuring motivation and scholastic aptitude. He devised the Seashore Tests of Musical Ability in 1919, a version of which is still used in schools in the United States. His interests in the fine arts led to a joint effort with Professor Norman Meier and the publication of the Meier-Seashore Art Judgment Test in 1929. His complete publication list from 1893 to 1949 includes 237 books and articles.
Selected works
- Elementary Experiments in Psychology (New York, H. Holt and Company, 1908)
- The Measurement of Musical Talent (New York, G. Schirmer, 1915)
- The Psychology of Musical Talent (Boston, New York [etc.] Silver, Burdett and Company, 1919)
- Introduction to Psychology (New York, Macmillan, 1923)
- Approaches to the Science of Music and Speech (Iowa City, The University, 1933)
- Psychology of Music (New York, London, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1938)
- Why we love music (Philadelphia, Oliver Ditson company, Theodore Presser co., distributors, 1941)
- In Search of Beauty in Music : a scientific approach to musical esthetics (New York, The Ronald Press Company, 1947)
Further reading
- Miles, Walter R. In Biographical Memoirs (pages 256-316) NY: Columbia University Press. 1956
External links
- Picture, biography and bibliography in the Virtual LaboratoryVirtual LaboratoryThe online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life...
of the Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceMax Planck Institute for the History of ScienceThe Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin was established in March 1994. Its research is primarily devoted to a theoretically oriented history of science, principally of the natural sciences, but with methodological perspectives drawn from the cognitive sciences and from...