Celestia Susannah Parrish, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCelestia Susannah Parrish
psychologist
Date of Birth: 12-Sep-1853
Place of Birth: Pittsylvania County, Virginia, United States
Date of Death: 01-Jan-1918
Profession: psychologist
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Celestia Susannah Parrish
- Celestia Susannah Parrish (September 12, 1853 – September 7, 1918) was an American educator. She was born the daughter of a plantation owner on September 12, 1853 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
- She was orphaned by age 10 and was taken under the care of relatives until her uncle’s death five years later.
- At that point, she took up a job as a community schoolteacher to support her younger brother and her sister but struggled with her early teaching experiences. Parrish's early life was difficult, but she was determined to support her family and to obtain an education for herself.
- In 1874, she accepted a position as a teacher in Danville, Virginia which allowed her to begin taking classes at Roanoke Female College with her younger sister.
- In 1876, she graduated but went on to take two more years of schooling at the Virginia State Normal School.In 1892, Parrish had gained a significant reputation for her teaching and was offered a position at the newly opened Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia as the chair of mathematics.
- Under this position, she was also responsible for philosophy, pedagogy, and psychology.
- In order to gain a better understanding of the field of psychology, she enrolled in a summer session at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to study under the famous American psychologist E.
- B.
- Titchener.
- Although Titchener is known as a rigid sexist (no women were permitted to join his Society for Experimental Psychology), he did accept a number of female graduate students, including Parrish. After Parrish returned to Randolph-Macon, Titchener initially refused to do any correspondence work with her.
- She begged him to change his mind, urging him that “you must help me.
- A man who sits down to the rich feasts which are spread before you has no right to deny a few crumbs to a poor starveling like me (Parrish, 1925, p.
- 3).” Titchener relented and the two eventually became good friends.
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