| Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society Students, as part of an advanced seminar, examined and wrote about the lives of these women, their intellectual contributions, and the unique impact and special problems that being female had on their careers. |  |
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"Myrtle had a physical and mental vigor with personal tenaciousness and, most of all, her dedication to the truth-seeking process. Preservation of avenues for expressing truths and personal opinion and the rights to self-correct were among Myrtle's passions. She was an early libertarian, an early feminist, and always a friend of the young." --Gerard Piel
Myrtle Byram McGraw was born on August 1, 1899 in Birmingham, Alabama. She left public school at age twelve to be a typist. She eventually attended a small seminary, now Snead Junior College in Boaz, Alabama. She then transferred to Ohio Wesleyan University where she got her AB degree in 1923. While in high school, her reading inspired her to write John Dewey. A few years later she was attending Columbia University and typing his manuscripts. She began studying infants, came to know John B. Watson, held a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fellowship in Child Development in 1927, was a research assistant in the Institute for Child Development in 1928-1929, and was a Psychology Intern at the Institute for Child Guidance in 1929. McGraw received her master's and doctoral degrees in 1925 and 1931, respectively, at Columbia University Teachers College. From 1930-1942 she was associate director of the Normal Child Development Study at Babies Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Meanwhile, she published GROWTH: A Study of Jimmy and Johnny in 1935.
In 1937, McGraw's career as an academic child psychologist was interrupted for motherhood after she married Rudolph Mallina, a scientist-engineer. However, motherhood did not stop her entirely from continuing reading and researching in her field. During her "mother period" she was an occasional teacher at New York University and Adelphi University. In 1939, McGraw published her most important work The Neuromuscular Maturation of the Human Infant. Within this book she described the three-phases, which were all documented on film, of early childhood development as it pertained to psychomotor abilities. Most clearly seen on these films are of babies in the water. She called this "swimming reflexively." Through her research she laid the foundation for many things about early childhood development. Mainly, our respect for babies capabilities, including their remarkable psychomotor performances and capacities for fending off threats to their well-being and the 'neurally meditated self-regulatory behaviors of human infants.' In 1953 McGraw returned to formally teaching as a Professor of Psychology at Briarcliff College until her retirement in 1972.
Among all of her achievements she is known for her personal traits that made her different from the rest. Among these, her persistence on scientific integrity, the relationships she cultivated with her research subjects and her compassion and caring for young children in general. She was also influential in the development of water-birthing and the benefits of allowing babies to swim at a very early age to develop better psychomotor skills. On September 8, 1988 McGraw died at the age of eighty-nine. During her eulogy her daughter Mitzi described her mother as a woman on the forefront. She stated, "My mother was born in the 19th Century, lived in the 20th Century and thought in the 21st Century."