author
Milicent Washburn Shinn
1858–1940
A pioneering writer and psychologist, she helped open new paths for women in higher education while shaping early studies of child development. Her close, careful observations of infancy made her work especially influential.
1 Audiobook
The biography of a baby
by Milicent Washburn Shinn
About the author
Born in Niles, California, in 1858, Milicent Washburn Shinn studied at the University of California, Berkeley, earning her undergraduate degree in 1880. She later became the first woman to receive a doctorate from Berkeley, completing a Ph.D. in 1898. Alongside her academic work, she also built a literary career and served as editor of Overland Monthly for more than a decade.
Shinn is best remembered for her pioneering research on early childhood development. She closely observed the growth of her niece and turned those records into some of the earliest systematic studies of infant behavior published in English. Her work was later collected in The Biography of a Baby, a book that helped establish careful observation as an important method in developmental psychology.
She died in 1940, but her legacy reaches across both literature and science. Today she is remembered not only for her scholarship, but also for breaking barriers for women in American higher education.