Professor Hamilton's Diary: Jan. 21, 1935

He fails to hear speech by famous Dr. Alfred Adler, a founder of psychotherapy

It had thawed enough today that Professor Hamilton took the chains off his tires. He taught his classes as usual, and that evening went to the Woman’s Club to hear the famous Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler speak. Alas, there was an overflow crowd, with people flooding the aisles, seated on stage behind the speaker, “clustered like bees in the tiny alcoves off the rostrum,” and hundreds of people were turned away, according to the next day’s Reading Times. Failing to get in, he went home and spent the evening with Margaret.

Adler, a colleague of Sigmund Freud and considered with Freud and Carl Jung to be one of the three fathers of psychotherapy, was a famous figure at that time. His speech in Reading gave advice to mothers on how to raise well-adjusted children. Paid subscribers can read about the speech that aroused such curiosity and about Dr. Adler himself. Click below to upgrade to paid for as little as $5 a month.

The sketch of Dr. Adler was accessed through Wikimedia Commons.