Christine Ladd-Franklin Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Christine Ladd-Franklin - Research Paper Example Background Christine Ladd- Franklin was born on 1st December 1847 in Windsor Connecticut. She was the oldest child of her parents Eliphalet and Augusta (Niles) Ladd and was fondly called Kitty. She had a brother, Henry Ladd and a sister Jane Augusta Ladd McCordia. Christine had the opportunity to attend women’s rights lectures from her earlier ages since her mother Augusta, and her aunt Juliet Niles were ardent supporters of women’s rights movements; and these lecture classes made Christine a strong women’s rights supporter and she believed that woman must get equal standards as that of a man in every phase of social life (Furumoto, 1992, p.176). On account of her mother’s death, she was forced to move to Portsmouth where her father’s home was situated. She joined in Wesleyan Academy in order to attend the course for Harvard, which was generally attended by boys. Christine had got the freedom to continue her education at Vassar College although she faced protestations from her family at the earlier stages. During the course of her study at Vassar College, Christine was driven to move to Utica so as to overcome her financial difficulties by earning money from teaching. From Utica, she got the chance to deal with various languages, trigonometry, and botanical specimens and it increased her academic talents. Even during the course of her studies, Christine had continued her women’s right activities with all supports from her father and aunt. She returned to Vassar College to complete her studies, where she met a female astronomy professor, Maria Mitchell. Mitchell motivated Christine to increase her knowledge in mathematics and science and it influenced Christine a lot. She worked as an instructor of mathematics and science in secondary schools in Pennsylvania for nine years after she had completed her graduation course from Vassar College. She applied to Johns Hopkins University for her higher education and got admission on the strength of her earlier works even though she faced certain restrictions from the university. In 1882, Christine married Fabian Franklin who was the younger faculty of John Hopkins math department. Christine published some brilliant papers in American Journal of Mathematics and gradually her interests turned to logic subjects. Although she had completely fulfilled the conditions for the Ph. D, she did not get it until 1926. Christine became famous mainly on the ground of her theory of color vision in which she defined mathematical as well as psychological perspectives for her concept. She accompanied her husband Fabian Franklin when he took a sabbatical to Europe and it helped Christine to continue her research in Professor G. E. Muller’s laboratory without getting affected by restrictions in German universities. After completing her research studies in Muller’s laboratory, she went to Berlin where she was admitted in the Hermann von Helmholtz’s laborator y (Rossiter, 1982, p.43). Christine’s works in different laboratories with different faculties enabled her to contribute a lot in the field of psychology. She presented her theory at International Congress of Psychology held in London in 1892; it gave great fame in the world of psychology. She acted as the associate editor in Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology for the period of 1901 to 1905. In 1904, Johns Hopkins permitted Christine to lecture one