Joseph Jastrow, American experimental and developmental psychologist, was born January 30, 1863 in Warsaw, Poland, second son of Dr. Marcus and Bertha (Wolfsohn) Jastrow. His father was a rabbi who came to Philadelphia in 1869 to head the Rodeph Shalom congregation.
Jastrow finished his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania in 1882 and received his MA there in 1885. That same year he accepted a fellowship in psychology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; he studied there under G. Stanley Hall and in 1886 received his doctorate, the first one given in psychology by Johns Hopkins.
While a student at Johns Hopkins, Jastrow roomed with the Benjamin Szold family. Rabbi Szold headed the Oheb Shalom Congregation and had been a close friend of Joseph's father, Marcus Jastrow, since the Jastrows had come to America. The Jastrow and Szold children had known each other all their lives. In 1888, Joseph Jastrow married Rachel Szold, Rabbi Szold's second daughter.
Also in 1888 Jastrow was appointed the first Professor of Experimental and Comparative Psychology at the University of Wisconsin. In Science Hall he set up the first psychological laboratory in the Midwest. He remained at the University of Wisconsin until 1927, one year after his wife's death, when the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents named him Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He then moved to New York, where he became associated with the New School for Social Research, 1927-1933.
Throughout his career, Jastrow was interested in presenting psychology to the layman. He was a popular lecturer; gave a series of broadcasts, 1935-1938, over NBC radio; and for a New York paper wrote a daily newspaper column, “Keeping Fit,” circa 1927-1933. In addition to his scholarly works, he wrote many popular books, especially later in his career. Some of his books are Fact and Fable in Psychology (1901), The Subconscious (1906), Character and Temperament (1915), and Getting More Out of Life (1940).
He died January 8, 1944 at the age of 79.
