Allport, G. W.

Basic Biographical Information

Gordon Willard Allport was born November 11, 1897, in Montezuma, Indiana. His father was acountry physician who was of English descent, his mother of German and Scottish heritage. He was the youngest offour sons. One of his brothers, Floyd, who was astudent at Harvard University, was influential in Gordon’s seeking admission to Harvard University. He referred to his home life as, “marked by plain Protestant piety and hard work.” In the context of the American demographic profile of 1897, there was nothing especially uncommon about Gordon W. Allport’s family background. By the time of his death on October 9, 1967, however, in the context of mainstream American psychology of the first two thirds of the twentieth century there was everything quite uncommon about the psychology proposed by Gordon W. Allport.

Crucial to his development as apsychologist were what Allport described in his autobiographical essay (1967) as “two intellectual dawns.” The first dawn...