Lorine Livingston Pruette (November 3, 1896 – December 20, 1976) was an American
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
psychologist
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
, and writer.
Early life
Lorine Pruette was born in
Millersburg, Tennessee, to college-educated parents. Her mother and her maternal grandmother were among the first generation of college-educated women in the United States. Pruette's mother's dreams of a career in writing were never fulfilled; she placed enormous pressure on Pruette to fulfill the life she always wanted.
Pruette was exceedingly bright, but regarded herself as a social outcast throughout her childhood and adolescence and did not date in high school. In college, she joined a sorority, acted in plays, edited the college newspaper, and played the violin in the orchestra. Pruette graduated in 1918 from the
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UT-Chattanooga, UTC, or Chattanooga) is a public university in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 1886 and is one of four universities and two other affiliated institutions in the ...
with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and went on to Worcester College in Massachusetts (now,
Worcester State University
Worcester State University (WSU) is a public university in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1874 and enrolls nearly 5,500 undergraduates and over 900 graduate students.
History
Founded in 1874 as the Massachusetts State Normal Sch ...
), where she began her master's degree.
Political views and career
Mary Trigg, in her dissertation entitled ''Four American Feminists, 1910–1940:
Inez Haynes Irwin
Inez Haynes Irwin (March 2, 1873 – September 25, 1970) was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild. Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes ...
,
Mary Ritter Beard
Mary Ritter Beard (August 5, 1876 – August 14, 1958) was an American historian, author, women's suffrage activist, and women's history archivist who was also a lifelong advocate of social justice. As a Progressive Era reformer, Beard was a ...
,
Doris Stevens
Doris Stevens (born Dora Caroline Stevens, October 26, 1888 – March 22, 1963) was an American suffragist, woman's legal rights advocate and author. She was the first female member of the American Institute of International Law and first chai ...
, and Lorine Pruette'', explains that unlike many other twentieth century feminists, Pruette did not limit her vision to women's
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
but worked toward a broad agenda of "reshaping marriage, the family, and society." Throughout her career, Pruette addressed issues such as "the need for married women to achieve fulfilling lives in both public and private spheres, the weakness of men and the strength of women,
ndthe importance of the parent-child relationship". Pruette held strong anti-men views, which were products of a childhood overshadowed by her mother's oppression and unhappiness; Pruette wrote that by the age of nine she firmly believed that "all the evils of the world came from these intolerable males".
Pruette was initially determined not to wed or bear children. However, her strong anti-men viewpoint changed during her graduate work under psychologist
G. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1846 – April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on human life span development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psy ...
, whom she greatly admired, and also coursework that exposed her to the work of
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in ...
,
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
, and
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
. She married a fellow graduate student, Douglas Henry Fryer, and moved with him to New York, where "he became an instructor in the
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
department and she enrolled in the PhD program, receiving her degree in 1924". Pruette and Fryer's union did not last, and shortly after their divorce she had a two-year marriage to John Woodbridge Herring. Pruette cites both of her marriages in her book, ''Why Women Fail'', and states that men do not like to see women outperforming them in
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
or in the career field, and hints that this may be a key reason both of her marriages did not succeed.
Pruette lived through both world wars and associated feminism with
pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
; she believed women could make the world a more peaceful place. When
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
proposed his
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
cabinet, Pruette suggested he "instead inaugurate 'a real New Deal,' a cabinet made up of women, whose 'broader social viewpoint' and concept of
social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
could help steer the world away from
militarism
Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
". Pruette was firm in her feminist beliefs and spent much of her time traveling, lecturing, and writing about her views on feminism, yet the bulk of her work remains unpublished. She found work in various vocations such as editing, writing for newspapers or
professional journal A professional magazine or professional journal is a periodical published by the governing body of a profession."Professional Magazines or Journals" iProfessional/Trade Journals Piedmont College, Library. The standard of quality of such a periodical ...
s, she also taught sociology and psychology at several universities, and was a research and consulting psychologist for several institutions.
Later years
Despite the setbacks and difficulties of old age, Pruette continued to work as long as she could, and to address the social problem of aging. But despite being mentally sound, Pruette's agnostic beliefs caused her some spiritual grief as she contemplated what was to become of her
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
after her death, and within her last few years of life she is recorded as waking up in a feverish sweat numerous times yelling out, "Immortality is what I want!". She died on December 20, 1976, less than seven weeks after her 80th birthday.
Feminist legacy
Lorine Pruette was childless by choice but in her later years she regretted that she had no one to "carry on her 'bit of
protoplasm
Protoplasm (; ) is the living part of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane. It is a mixture of small molecules such as ions, monosaccharides, amino acid, and macromolecules such as proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, etc.
In some defini ...
'". Because Pruette lived through the transition from a
homosocial
In sociology, homosociality means same-sex relationships that are not of a romantic or sexual nature, such as friendship, mentorship, or others. Researchers who use the concept mainly do so to explain how men uphold men's dominance in society.
...
to
heterosocial
In sociology, heterosociality describes social relations with persons of the opposite sex or a preference for such relations, often excluding relationships of a romantic and sexual nature. The opposite of heterosociality is homosociality.
At an ...
society, aided in and witnessed many of the triumphs of feminism, she regarded the modern day woman as taking her rights for granted and being ignorant to the struggles of the women who came before her. Pruette dismisses the idea of a modern feminist, saying "there is no reason why she should think of herself as a feminist; she inherited feminism".
[Trigg, 6] Nearing the end of her life, Lorine Pruette urged women not to unquestioningly accept the
social stigma
Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, rac ...
s of the current society and to remember to use each other's help and support to press for change.
References
Sources
* "Pruette, Lorine, B. 1896. Papers, 1915–1974: A Finding Aid." OASIS Online Archival Search Information System; Office for Information Systems; Harvard University Library. Web. February 6, 2012.
.
* Showalter, Elaine. "These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties." Google Books. Web. February 2, 2012. .
* Trigg, Mary Kathleen. Four American Feminists, 1910–1940: Inez Haynes Irwin, Mary Ritter Beard, Doris Stevens, and Lorine Pruette. Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Information Service, 1989. Print.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pruette, Lorine Livingston
20th-century American psychologists
American women psychologists
American feminists
1896 births
1977 deaths
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga alumni
People from Rutherford County, Tennessee
20th-century American women
20th-century American people
Worcester State University alumni