Inez Beverly Prosser (December 30, 1895 - September 5, 1934) was a psychologist, teacher and school administrator. She is often regarded as the first African-American female to receive a Ph.D. in psychology. Her work was very influential in the hallmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. After growing up in Texas, Prosser was educated at Prairie View Normal College, the University of Colorado and the University of Cincinnati. She was killed in a car accident a short time after earning her doctorate.
Early life Despite prior claims that have been made stating that Prosser was born to Samuel Andrew and Veola Hamilton Beverly in Yoakum, Texas on December 30, 1897, both the location and year of Inez's birth are not completely clear. Most published sources do list Prosser's birth year as 1895, but her transcript at the University of Colorado lists 1894; her application for a General Education Board fellowship, written by Prosser herself, lists 1896; and her death certificate lists 1895. Professionals have accepted 1895 as the most likely date. When it comes to birth location, family recollections point to Inez being born in San Marcos, Texas, a small town between Austin and San Antonio.The family was believed to not move to Yoakum until 1900. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was a waiter. Prosser was the eldest daughter and the second of eleven children.
During her youth, there were few educational opportunities for African-Americans, and her family moved many times to seek the best education they could find for their children. This fact would best explain the move to Yoakum in 1900 as that year would be the same year Inez and her older brother Leon would have started school. In 1907, Prosser and her family left Yoakum for Corpus Christi, Texas, but Inez and her brother Leon only stayed for approximately a year because Corpus Christi did not have a Black high school. Both Inez and her brother went back to Yoakum, staying with family relative until graduating Yoakum Colored School—where Prosser was valedictorian—in 1910. Prosser almost did not get her family's support to go to college. Prosser's parent felt as if they could only financially send one of their children to college, and they were planning on sending Leon. But when Prosser expressed great interest in education and Leon did not, Prosser was able to enroll for college. To contribute to the household, Prosser started a college fund to support her younger siblings' education. Of the eleven children, all graduated from high school and six went on to earn college degrees.Warren, W. (1999). Black women scientists in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana Press. Prosser received a degree in teacher training from Prairie View Normal College (now Prairie View A&M University), where she was also valedictorian.
Education and career She returned to Yoakum and taught for a short time at their segregated schools. Then, Prosser became an assistant principal at Clayton Industrial School in Manor, Texas, before accepting a more long-term position at Anderson High School. Throughout her time at Anderson, she taught English and coached for the spelling competitions of the Interscholastic League, an organization that sponsored events for Black high school students in athletic and academic contests throughout the state.
During this period, Prosser met and married Allen Rufus Prosser, who worked as an elevator operator at a department store in Austin, and the two were married in 1916. While working at Anderson in 1921, Prosser also began to work towards her bachelor's degree at Samuel Huston College. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926, minoring in English and Psychology and graduating with distinction. Prosser received several awards and embraced the opportunity to continue her education. She went on to receive a master's degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado. Prosser began this work in the summer of 1924, taking four undergraduate courses (two in English, one in Abnormal Psychology, and a Physical Education class) to make up for what Colorado thought she lacked in her record at Samuel Huston College. At Colorado, Prosser took several courses that were particularly relevant to her Master's thesis whose subject areas include mental tests, tests and measurement, and research methods. Her thesis, "The Comparative Reliability of Objective Tests in English Grammar", examined four kinds of English grammar tests (using the standards proposed by the National Education Association). Her four test types included true-false, multiple choice, completion, and matching questions. All tests covered the same subject areas and difficulty levels as well as comparable numbers of factual and reasoning questions. This unpublished thesis did not change the course of grammar assessment, but it motivated Prosser to further her education and appeared to ignite her interests in psychology.
Upon receiving her master's degree, Prosser left Anderson High School in 1927 to accept a position as a faculty member at Tillotson College, a Black college in Austin. Tillotson had been coeducational, but in 1926, a year before Prosser arrived, it had become a women's college. At Tillotson, she not only displayed her teaching and leadership skills but truly dedicated herself to the educational and psychological development of Black students. At Tillotson, she was given the opportunity to organize a series of lectures from 1929 to 1930, which even featured a lecture by George Washington Carver. Overall, Prosser was at Tillotson College from 1921 to 1930, serving as "Dean, Registrar and Professor of Education. Aside from the president, Prosser was second in terms of administrative authority at Tillotson. Her influences extended well beyond the classroom walls or administrative offices. Prosser was eventually transferred to another dual teaching and administrative position at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi. Even as Dean and Registrar of Tougaloo College, Prosser accepted the position as Principal of Tougaloo High School. Her career took an important turn when she applied for and was awarded aid from the General Education Board (established by John D. Rockefeller in 1902). In her application, she noted, "I am interested in that type of research which will lead to better teaching in elementary and high schools". She received $1,000 to apply towards another year of graduate studies. Prosser spent the 1931–1932 academic year at the University of Cincinnati in residence. Finally in 1933, she became one of the first Black women to earn a PhD in psychology, graduating from the University of Cincinnati.Winegarten, R. (1996). Black Texan women: 150 years of trial and triumph. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Warren states that, "Prosser was mentored closely by her Doctoral adviser and developed a close friendship with them." She held positions at many schools, and not only taught, but also became assistant principal. Although racial discrimination was rampant, Prosser continued to accept minimal wages for work that rivaled or exceeded that of her white colleagues. In Prosser's case, according to Warren, "Although her dissertation research was in psychology, her doctoral mentor and other members of her committee were psychologists, and much of her coursework was in psychology, she is often denied her well-deserved title of psychologist."
Prosser returned to Tougaloo College for the 1932–1933 academic year while still working on her dissertation to work as a faculty member. Her dissertation was approved in June 1933. Dean Louis Augustus Pechstein who was the head of Prosser's Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of Cincinnati wrote to William Holmes, the president of Tougaloo College stating, "Mrs. Prosser was accepted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ed. last week . . . Mrs. Prosser developed into a first-rate graduate student, a very keen and penetrating thinker, and will in our judgment, be a fine leader in the educational work with Negro college students. I am glad to give her my special commendation for it is never an easy task for a member of her race to pursue successfully the arduous course attending se- curing the doctorate degree. This she has accomplished with dignity and credit."Fellowship Record Card. (1931–1933). For Inez B. Prosser. In the GEB Archives of the Rockefeller Archive Center
(Series 2, Box 244, Folder 2459), Sleepy Hollow, NY.
Dissertation and other works Prosser arrived at the University of Cincinnati as a candidate for a PhD in Educational Psychology in 1931. She arrived at a time when there was a research program that "focused on African Americans in different school environments". The general consensus in the department at this time was that "all-black schools with black teachers could best provide the skills black students needed to survive in a society where most faced limited opportunities…segregated schools, by insulating black students from white abuse, were crucial to the formation of black identity and could become unifying community centers." Prosser's dissertation, The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools, became an important text for issues relating to education, reform, social development, racial identity, and other prominent topics related to segregation.Guthrie, R. V. (1976). Even the rat was white: A historical view of psychology. New York: Harper & Row. It was a "companion study" to Mary Crowley's 1931 dissertation, "A Comparison of the Academic Achievement of Cincinnati Negroes in Segregated and Mixed Schools" When Prosser began collecting data for her study in November 1931, Crowley was able to aid Prosser in getting the same institutions to co-operate in her research. Prosser's interest in the topic "grew out of a desire to determine objectively, so far as possible, the degree of truth in the often repeated statement that the Negro child develops superior character traits, more racial self-respect, and a greater concomitants of a well-rounded education when he is placed under the direction of Negro teachers during his formative years". She took Crowley's research a step further by considering the demographics of the student body in the schools as well. The purpose was:
(1) to measure vocational interests, leisure interests, social participation, emotional or neurotic tendencies, social distance, ascendancy-submission, overstatement, introversion-extraversion, and general personality adjustment..., (2) to ascertain the difference, if any, that exists in these traits, and (3) to determine whether one of the other of these schools is better fostering growth in personality in so far as it can be determined by the available techniques.