ABSTRACT
Conspicuously absent from most history of psychology texts and biographical anthologies, Barbara Stoddard Burks is an enigmatic figure in psychology. During her brief but stellar career, she generated more than 80 publications. Her journal articles, book chapters, reviews, and monographs concerned general heredity and the genetics of behavioral traits, innovations in research methodology, and themes in developmental, personality, social, and educational psychology. When Burks died in 1943, Florence Goodenough wrote:
In the short span of her life[,] Dr. Burks’ contributions would have done credit to one of double her age. Her zeal in research, her fine technical skill, and her clear insight into the basic principles underlying the problems which she set out to solve won the unqualified admiration of her colleagues both in this country and abroad (Terman, 1944, p. 136).
