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Louisa Pinkham Holt, Public Sociology and Racial Desegregation

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Abstract

The article examines the career of sociologist-social psychologist Louisa Pinkham Holt with particular emphasis on her expert testimony in the landmark racial desegregation case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. I provide some necessary background information on Louisa's upbringing, education and professional training that helps to contextualize and explain her testimony. I then describe some of the later consequences of her involvement in Brown v. Board, including a portrayal of her role in a popular film, and I sketch out the details of her subsequent, non-conforming professional career. I conclude that although Louisa is not widely remembered today, her expert testimony remains one of the most successful examples of "public sociology.

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Further Reading

  • Bailey, Enid. 1992. Letter to the organizers of the Martin Luther King breakfast, February 26. In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Brown v. Board of Education Trial Homepage. N.D. “Trial Testimony in Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka: Louisa Holt.”

  • Buonimi, C. 2008. Interview with Robert H. Holt. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 17(4), 249–253.

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  • Carter, Robert. 1954. Letter to Louisa Pinkham Holt, June 21. In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Cook, B. 1993. Louisa to Louisa Pinkham Howe, June 21. In the Louisa P:inkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Greenberg, Jack. 1951. Letter to Louisa Pinkham Holt, November 5. In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Greenberg, Jack. 1992. Letter to Louisa Pinkham Howe, January 31. In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Holt, Louisa Pinkham. N.D. Papers. Schlesinger Library, Racliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA.

  • Holt, Louisa Pinkham. 1949. Psychoanalysis and the Social Process: An Examination of Freudian Theory with Reference to Some of Its Sociological Implications and Counterparts. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Harvard University Archives, Pusey Library.

  • Howe, Louisa Pinkham. 1993. Letter to the producers of “Simple Justice,” January 25. In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

  • Howe, Louisa Pinkham. 1955. “Some sociological aspects of identification.” pp. 61–79 in Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences, vol. 4. New York: International Universities Press.

  • Kluger, R. 1976. Simple justice: The history of Brown v. Board of Education and the black struggle for equality. New York:Knopf.

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  • Patterson, J. 2002. Brown v. Board of Education: A civil rights milestone and its troubled legacy. New York:Oxford.

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  • Pinkham, H. W. 1923. Collective homicide. Boston:Association to Abolish War.

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  • Pinkham, Henry Winn. N.D.-a Papers. University of Denver Library, Special Collections and Archives.

  • Pinkham, Louisa Catherine. 1937. Utopia and the Search for Causality. Unpublished senior honors thesis in sociology. Available at Widener Library, Harvard University.

  • Pinkham, Wenona Osborne. N.D.-b Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.

  • Shaw, Theodore M. “Tribute to Jack Greenberg.” Columbia Law Review 117(5).

  • Supreme Court of the United States. 1954. Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U.S. 483.

  • Willie, Charles V. 1998. “Statement Delivered at the Memorial Service of Dr. Louisa P. Howe.” In the Louisa Pinkham Holt Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge MA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506-6326, USA

    Lawrence T. Nichols

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  1. Lawrence T. Nichols
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Correspondence to Lawrence T. Nichols.

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Nichols, L.T. Louisa Pinkham Holt, Public Sociology and Racial Desegregation. Soc 56, 378–382 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00385-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00385-2

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