ABSTRACT
Gordon W. Allport was born on November 11, 1897, in Montezuma, Indiana. His father was a country doctor, his mother a schoolteacher; and his home life was “marked by plain Protestant piety and hard work.” Gordon’s family included three older brothers, one of whom (Floyd) also was to become an academic psychologist. Most of his childhood and adolescence was spent in Cleveland. Ohio, where the Allports moved when he was 6 years old. Gordon was somewhat of a misfit as a child, quick with words but poor at games, and a schoolmate once observed sarcastically that “that guy swallowed a dictionary.” Yet he “contrived to be the ‘star’ for a small cluster of friends” (Allport, 1968, pp. 378-379).
