Stolz, Lois Meek

Dr. Lois Meek Stolz was born in Washington, DC, in 1891 and died Palo Alto, CA, in 1984. She received her A.B. from George Washington University in 1921 and her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1925. In 1929 she returned to Columbia to help direct the newly created Child Development Institute. In 1938 she married Herbert Stolz and moved to California to work with him at his Institute of Child Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the outbreak of World War II, she was recruited by Edgar Kaiser for one of the homefront's most remarkable programs -- to develop child care centers for the children of working mothers at Kaiser Shipyards. Her first of its kind center in Portland, Oregon, was open 24 hours a day and served 25,000 women employees. It became the model for industry-based child care. After the war, she became Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, retiring in 1957. Her classes were among the favorites at Stanford and she always took a personal interest in all her students, acting as mentor and often forming lifelong professional friendships. She was a founding member of the Society for Research in Child Development, and her 1951 book Somatic Development of Adolescent Boys, co-authored with her husband, is still a classic in the field. Her research and teaching philosophy focused on parental education and involvement. Her book Your Child's Development and Guidance won the Parent's Magazine Medal in 1940.

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