Frank, Lawrence K. (Lawrence Kelso), 1890-1968

Leader of New York Society for Ethical Culture; educator, social psychologist.

Social scientist and lecturer.

Lawrence K. Frank was born in Cincinnati, OH, December 6, 1890 and received his bachelor's degree in economics from Columbia University in 1912. He died September 23, 1968, in Boston, MA. He first worked as a systems analyst for the New York Telephone Company, but in 1923 shifted to foundation work, first at the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. He later worked for the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation and the Caroline Zachary Institute of Human Development. He retired in 1955 to Boston, MA, where he lived until his death.

Frank is often considered the originator of child development movement in the United States, but Margaret Mead said his impact was far greater, and that Frank "more or less invented the behavorial sciences." As associate director of the Spelman Fund, one of the leading financiers of child development research during the 1930s and 1940s, Frank championed the new holistic interdisciplinary paradigm of human development that recognized individual differences among particular children, and which incorporated knowledge not only from evolutionary natural science, but from the social sciences as well. Applying this holistic paradigm to developmental theory, Frank argued that the central problem of child development research was to understand the development of the whole child. He advocated that researchers be child-centered by understanding that children are emerging, becoming, and dynamically learning.

A prolific writer, he wrote a popular column for the New York Times and Sunday magazine called "Parent and Child." To social scientists he was a scholar, technical writer and innovative foundation executive whose influence extended beyond the financial to the intellectual, a man who devoted himself to bringing together people from across disciplines. In 1947, he shared the Lasker Award with Catherine Mackenzie for "contributions to popular adult education in mental health, especially concerning parent-child relationships."

[Portions excerpted from "What is 'Normal' Adolescent Growth?" A Paper Presented at the History of Childhood in America Conference, August 5-6, 2000, Washington, DC by Heather Munro Prescott, Central Connecticut State University]