Martha Helson Wilson

Abstract

Helson (1900-1979?). Martha Alice was practically raised on college campuses, principally at Bryn Mawr where her father was professor of psychology for many years. Her mother had earned undergraduate and master's degrees in French literature before marrying; later, she authored several published remedial-reading texts, workbooks, and teacher manuals. When World War II broke out, Dr. Helson moved his family to Foxboro, MA, for several years to work on Navy-funded human-factors research. Martha Alice was sent back to a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, where she would graduate from Westtown Friends School in 1946 before enrolling in Bryn Mawr College. Martha was encouraged by her father to prepare for a career as a psychiatrist to bring scientific rigor to the area that was still dominated by psychoanalytic thought, and indeed she completed all