Eleanor Touroff Glueck (April 12, 1898 – September 25, 1972) was an American

social worker Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

and

criminologist Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...

. She and her husband

Sheldon Glueck Sheldon Glueck (August 15, 1896 – March 10, 1980) was a Polish-American criminologist.Staff report (March 13, 1980)Sheldon Glueck of Harvard Dies; Studied the Roots of Delinquency.''New York Times'' He and his wife Eleanor Glueck collaborated e ...

collaborated extensively on research related to

juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...

and developed the "social prediction tables" model for ascertaining the likelihood of delinquent behavior in youth. They were the first criminologists to perform studies of chronic

juvenile offender A young offender is a young person who has been convicted or cautioned for a criminal offense. Criminal justice systems often deal with young offenders differently from adult offenders, but different countries apply the term "young offender" ...

s and among the first to examine the effects of

psychopathy Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent Anti-social behaviour, antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and Boldness, bold, Disinhibition, disinhibited, and Egotism, egotistical B ...

among the more serious delinquents.Staff report (September 26, 1972)
Eleanor Glueck, expert on crime; Writer on delinquency with her husband dead at 74.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Life and career

Glueck was born Leonia Touroff in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the only daughter of Russian immigrant Bernard Leo and Polish immigrant Anna Wodzislawska, although she had two brothers. Upon graduating from

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Hunter is publicly funded, and there i ...

in 1916, she majored in English at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

and was awarded a B.A in 1920. She then entered the

New York School of Social Work The Columbia University School of Social Work is the graduate school of social work of Columbia University. It is the nation's oldest social work program, with roots extending back to 1898, when the New York Charity Organization Society's first s ...

, where she met the psychologist Bernard Glueck, Sr., who was a

forensic psychiatrist Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiat ...

Sing Sing Prison Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north o ...

specializing in social work and criminology. She also met Bernard's brother

, who helped her become head social worker at the Dorchester Community Center of Boston from 1921 to 1922. She married Sheldon Glueck on April 16, 1922. In 1922, Glueck began her graduate school studies at the

Harvard Graduate School of Education The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the education school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, it was the first school to grant the EdD degree and the first Harvard school ...

. She was awarded a M.Ed. in 1923 and an Ed.D. in 1925 with a thesis on ''The Community Use of Schools''. Their only child, Anitra Joyce (1924–1956) was a poet. Glueck worked at the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

as a

research assistant A research assistant (RA) is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university, a research institute or a privately held organization, for the purpose of assisting in academic or private research. Research assistants are not in ...

from 1928 until 1953, while her husband was a professor there. Eleanor and Sheldon Glueck embarked upon an internationally recognized partnership in criminology that would last the remainder of their lives. They would collaborate on more than 250 publications, beginning with ''Five Hundred Criminal Careers'' (1930), followed by ''Five Hundred Delinquent Women'' (1934) and ''One Thousand Juvenile Delinquents'' (1934). For the juvenile delinquents, they made attempts to predict criminality using

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

, followed by the likelihood of their

rehabilitation Rehabilitation or Rehab may refer to: Health * Rehabilitation (neuropsychology), therapy to regain or improve neurocognitive function that has been lost or diminished * Rehabilitation (wildlife), treatment of injured wildlife so they can be retur ...

upon release. They were the first criminologists to perform studies of chronic juvenile offenders and among the first to examine the effects of

among the more serious delinquents. Their studies showed that psychopathy was 20 times more common among juvenile delinquents. In 1940, they began a ten-year

longitudinal study A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...

that was published as ''Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency'' (1950). This resulted in the Gluecks' "Social Prediction Tables" that gave predictions of the likelihood of juvenile delinquency based upon parameters from when the youths were six years old. In 1953, she became a research associate at a Harvard Law School Research Project that was investigating the causes, treatment and prevention of juvenile delinquency. In 1947, the United Prison Association of Massachusetts awarded her its Parsons Memorial Award. Although Glueck never received a tenured appointment with the faculty, both Eleanor and Sheldon Glueck were awarded honorary Sc.D. from Harvard in 1958. She was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1960. In 1969, Glueck was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from Barnard College. She was a trustee at the Judge Baker Guidance Center. She became a fellow with the International Society of Criminologists and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. The couple retired during the 1960s. Glueck accidentally drowned in a bathtub at her home in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, at the age of 74.Staff report (September 26, 1972)
Dr. Eleanor Glueck, 74, Harvard criminologist.
''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

References

External links

*
Finding aid for Eleanor T. and Sheldon Glueck Papers, 1911-1972
Harvard Law School Library
Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck
featured in online exhibit
Collections , Connections: Stories from the Harvard Law School Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glueck, Eleanor Touroff 1890s births 1972 deaths American criminologists American women criminologists American social workers People from Brooklyn Barnard College alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Hunter College High School alumni Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni Columbia University School of Social Work alumni

Life and career

References

Further reading

External links