MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN
1871 — 1939
Margaret Floy Washburn was as completely a New York
State product as Florence Cushing was a child of
the Back Bay. A great uncle of hers, Michael Floy,
a graduate of Columbia in the 1820's left behind
him a charming manuscript diary which should some
day see the light; it is tender, introspective, and
withdrawn; the manuscript ends happily in a honey-
moon on the Morris and Essex Canal. Many of the
characteristics of Michael Floy I could see in
Margaret Floy Washburn, and often I thought of them
as I watched her striding meditatively along the
paths of the Vassar campus, stopping to play with my
dog's ear, to chat with one of the children, or to
tell the latest anecdote of her animal laboratory.
Equipped with superb mental powers, excellently trained
in philosophy, and knowing exactly where she stood as
to her own philosophical basis of life, Margaret
Washburn was always a positive force. Her concentration
was prodigious. As I think over her many activities
as researcher, writer, editor of psychological journals,
correspondent with most of the great psychologists of
her day, encourager of her students, closely attentive
to every need of the psychological laboratory, I wonder
how she could have done so much.
But Margaret Washburn was no narrow specialist. She
loved music, and played the piano for her own pleasure.
She learned to paint, and completed a number of
creditable landscapes. She loved to act, and took
leading roles in play after play of the faculty or the
Experimental Theatre. Her work in the part of the
nurse in Hippolytus was a notable achievement, as was
her comic rendition of the wife's role in Douglass.
The role in Hippolytus was performed at a temperature
of 102 degrees because Miss Washburn would not dis-
appoint the cast and audience by obeying doctor's
orders. She organized and led faculty dances, and
was excellent in waltz and two-step.
Margaret Washburn was a great favorite among the men
of her profession. They loved the give and take of her
ready wit, and her vigorous and incisive logic, even
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN
Tribute of a Friend (Continued)
when it demolished their pretenses. Margaret
Washburn knew what she knew and knew what she be-
lieved; she had no patience with the mind that
tolerates because it is too lazy or too timid to
affirm its creed. "We all know what the open mind
is," she once said. "It is a mind with nothing in
it." At a faculty party I was once analyzed by Miss
Washburn. It was all in fun, but the analysis was
so keen and so true as to leave me tingling. We
differed on many subjects, but were always the
closest of friends.
with all her loyalty to psychology, her first thought
was of people. She was given by her pupils an endow-
ment fund, the income of which she was to use as she
pleased; she always used it to aid aspiring students.
Once when she thought she had made an error in such
an award she refunded the money from her own pocket,
though under no obligation to do so. The soul of
loyalty and gallantry, Margaret Washburn will be
remembered as among the first women to attain the
highest honors in her chosen field of science. She
will long be honored at Vassar College as one of our
great teachers.
Henry Noble MacCracken
Vassar Alunae Magazine
January 1940, Page 5