There’s only one place in the country that cares for, provides access to and interprets the historical record of psychology and related human sciences. And it happens to be located on the University of Akron (UA) campus.
The Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology houses the Archives of the History of American Psychology, the National Museum of Psychology, and the Institute for Human Science and Culture. The Center is the only Smithsonian Institution affiliate based on a university campus in Ohio.
The Archives opened 60 years ago thanks to the visionary leadership of UA psychology professors Dr. John A. Popplestone and Dr. Marion White McPherson. Neither the University nor the city have a particular connection to psychology, but the two faculty members felt driven to create an entity to preserve and honor the field of study.
“People ask, why is psychology’s history preserved in Akron and not in a major population center? We always say, because
Popplestone and McPherson were the ones with the good idea and the fortitude to make it happen. And they made it happen right here in Akron,” said Dr. Cathy Faye, the Margaret Clark Morgan executive director of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.
The Archives were originally kept in the Polsky Building. Transformational funding from Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings
allowed Dr. David Baker, who succeeded Popplestone as the Center’s director, to secure a building for the archival collections and eventually complete an expansion to include the Museum. The building’s third floor was renovated to house the Institute
thanks to a gift from donors Jim and Vanita Oelschlager.
Today, the Archives has more than 6,500 linear feet of items and is the world’s largest archival repository of materials related to the history of psychology. The collection includes a wide range of information from how psychologists helped design airplanes in World War II to the impact of psychology on how we train our pets.
The Archives continue to receive important papers. In 2022, psychologist R. Allen Gardner, who famously taught American Sign Language to a chimpanzee, bequeathed his intellectual property to the Archives along with a $5.9 million gift to the Cummings Center to care for and manage the Archives and Museum collections.
Faye’s focus is on safeguarding the collections’ future. Working with archives specialists and architects, she is transforming the existing Archives space into a world-class storage facility to ensure the preservation of century-old materials. She is also looking to expand the space with compact mobile shelving, so that the collections can continue to grow.
“As we celebrate 60 years of the Archives,” Faye said, “we are securing the long-term preservation of the irreplaceable materials
we have collected and planning for the expansion of this rich repository into the future.”
The exhibit “Why Akron? Reflecting on 60 Years of the Archives of the History of American Psychology” opens May 2025.
For other anniversary events, go to uakron.edu/chp.
By Jessica Whitehill