Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics marked a major turning point for the field of theoretical physics, and in society’s broader struggle to accept increasingly complex scientific discoveries. This event also corresponds with a point in time when Einstein’s reputation in the media was finally being backed by the approval of an organization with global prestige. Thus the impact of the prize upon his fame highlights how science’s place in the public sphere was evolving dramatically during the interwar period. The decade of the 1920s is generally known as a time when traditional outlooks grappled with developments in culture and technology, and Einstein’s experiences with fame and recognition reflect an analogous conflict. From the perspective of the Nobel Committee, which had dismissed his name in the nominations for over a decade, this story reveals the challenge of maintaining authority over the entire academic field, in an age where headlines were gravitating towards entertainment above all else. Immersed in his own personal struggle to justify his controversial theories to both public and private audiences alike, Albert Einstein’s reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics sheds light on the trials and tribulations that come with being the modern world’s first celebrity scientist.

Beginning in the first few years of the 20th century, Albert Einstein made a name for himself as a thinker who would not be bound by classical schools of thought, or by the discouragement of mainstream academic institutions. In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Switzerland, he published a paper on the photoelectric effect, which would become his gateway into relevance in the scientific community, and ultimately the justification for his reception of the Nobel Prize.¹ This paper built upon the work of Einstein’s contemporaries, but added new theories to the mix that would eventually pave the way for technological developments ranging from X-rays to digital camera sensors. His studying of the photoelectric effect was directly cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the awarding of the Nobel Prize not only because it was an exceptionally topical discovery given the expansion of electricity and electrical machinery around the turn of the century, but also because it was far less controversial than his most notable work: the theory of general relativity.²

General relativity, which was first published in May of 1916, stands on par with scientific discoveries such as the debunking of a geocentric understanding of the solar system, or the first analysis of DNA in terms of how much it uprooted scientists’ comprehension of the world. Einstein had proposed such a fundamental shift in perspective that many other physicists were forced to conclude that either much of their own work was irrelevant, or that Einstein himself was merely an extraordinarily imaginative lunatic. Given the resulting uproar from the scientific community, the theory of general relativity posed a tremendous problem to the Nobel Committee and other well-established academic institutions, and to the general public as a whole.

In the world of the early 1920s, physics was not seen as a malleable field to be drastically and sporadically reshaped by the ideas of one lone thinker, it was part of a stable canon of academia, which was only to be gradually developed over time by approved experts. When observations of a solar eclipse in 1919 ultimately proved Einstein’s theories to be accurate, hordes of prestigious scientists were shockingly forced to reevaluate their authority, and the press brought the spectacle to the masses. In the proverbial “blink” of a solar eye, audiences all over the world were reading about how the theories of a largely unknown theoretical physicist had left Western civilization’s most trusted minds in disarray and confusion.

Newspapers were utterly incapable of explaining the machinations of the theory to their readers, yet felt so pressured to assert that humanity’s scientific knowledge had not collapsed completely. One subheading from Pennsylvania even reads, “Men of Science More or Less Agog… Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to Be, but Nobody Need Worry.”³ General relativity’s dramatic confirmation and incalculable impact upon intellectual communities created a swirl of public awareness around the name Albert Einstein, which would cement him as one of the only celebrity scientists of the time, and draw increased pressure for a Nobel Prize. However, the committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences remained wary about recognizing someone who had so consistently failed to play by the rules of academic progress.

Between 1910 and his eventual reception of the Nobel Prize for 1921, Einstein was nominated by multiple fellow scientists every year except for 1911 and 1915, with many nominations mentioning both his pragmatic work on the photoelectric effect and his theoretical work on relativity. Although public audiences and leaders of mainstream academic institutions were skeptical of general relativity and the evidence of the 1919 eclipse, individuals who had experience proposing seemingly outlandish concepts in scientific fields often rallied behind Einstein, and celebrated the undeniable brilliance of his ideas. By the beginning of the 1920s, many such scientists were even writing letters to the Nobel Committee in support of Einstein’s contributions to the field of physics. While some argued that his earlier work alone should justify a Nobel Prize regardless of whether or not general relativity had been reliably proven, others went as far as to argue that even his more recent, radical work had already been essentially proven, and should thus be recognized as a revolutionary scientific achievement. In support of Einstein for the 1920 Nobel Prize, the prominent Danish physicist Niels Bohr stated that Einstein’s work, and specifically relativity were, “…advances of decisive significance for the development of research in physics.”⁴

Despite the increased support and respect from countless influential voices, the Nobel Committee repeatedly commissioned additional reports on the merit of general relativity, which deemed it undeserving of a Nobel Prize over and over again. One explanation for this polarization within the scientific community is that many of Einstein’s supporters were also theoretical physicists, and therefore had been more directly exposed to his earlier work, and were fundamentally more accustomed to experimental, imaginative theories. The Nobel Committee on the other hand, appointed people like Allvar Gullstrand to make the aforementioned reports on the reputability of relativity, although Gullstrand had made his name in ophthalmology and medicine. When his report on Einstein’s theory was published in conjunction with his considerations of the various Nobel Prize candidates in 1921, it was the first time Gullstrand had ever technically written on relativity.⁵

Particularly in 1921, these specially commissioned reports were a hindrance to Einstein’s reception of the prize. While Gullstrand claimed that general relativity was too controversial and untested to be credited with a Nobel Prize, his fellow Nobel Committee member Svante Arrhenius reported that Einstein’s earlier work on the photoelectric effect was not radical enough to be recognized on the global stage. Arrhenius had been tasked with informing the committee on whether or not Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect alone could be justification for a Nobel Prize, but was personally of the opinion that the 1921 award should be given to an “experimentalist.”⁶ Caught between the clear internal conflict of the Nobel Committee, both Einstein and the entire scientific community was robbed of commendation that year, with no prize in physics being awarded in 1921.

In 1922, Einstein was obviously nominated once more, and the letters from other scientists flooded in again. However, 1918 Nobel laureate and well-known physicist of the time Max K. Planck took the extra step beyond writing a recommendation letter, and provided the committee with a plan that accorded Einstein proper recognition, while not dismissing the skepticisms of the past years. Planck proposed retroactively giving the 1921 prize to Einstein, and awarding the 1922 prize to Niels Bohr, who had also been nominated multiple times in recent cycles. Again the Nobel Committee conducted additional reports on the merit and scientific significance of both the photoelectric effect and general relativity, and while Gullstrand held fast to his doubtful conclusions, it was not enough to overtake the pressing evidence that Einstein deserved the prize even without taking relativity into account. On November 10, 1922, Albert Einstein was informed of his reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, in a note that specifically stated that it was in recognition of his work on the photoelectric effect and not on general relativity.⁷ In true “Einstein” fashion, he and his wife were halfway around the globe, visiting Japan when the Nobel Prize presentation ceremony occurred.⁸

Significance

The dichotomy between Albert Einstein’s rise to fame during the early 20th century and the Nobel Committee’s hesitance to award him the Nobel Prize in Physics is emblematic of the widespread conflict of that time between institutionalized knowledge and the common experience. World War I exposed how unabated technological development could just as quickly break civilization down as it could build it up in the first place, and from this phenomena, science and technology became sequestered to an isolated component of society. Whereas the intellectual discoveries that culminated in the invention of electric lights had swiftly altered nearly every corner of the industrialized world, the publishing of general relativity had absolutely no significance to the average person’s life. Yet the scientific community was utterly besides themselves, struggling to rectify how ideas so seemingly outlandish actually redefined their understanding of the mechanics of the universe overnight.

Science may have become more broadly integrated into the public consciousness during the 1920s, but this did not mean that it was becoming more accessible as a field, or even any more practical. Newspapers of the decade loved painting Einstein as the controversial free-spirit of academia precisely because his theories could not be understood or applied to the day-to-day realities of life. Theoretical physics was beginning to explore such otherworldly zones of knowledge, to the point where Einstein’s public persona resembled a mad scientist from a fictional tale, who had been pulled out of literature and dropped into the actual scientific community. Mainstream academic institutions were undoubtedly angered by this, as longstanding conventions dictated that research and discovery was most successful when it was clearly aimed at societal progress. However Einstein himself accepted that his place in the public consciousness, and perhaps also milestones of recognition such as the Nobel Prize, would never fully encapsulate the passion that kept him engaged in his own work. Rather his status as a well-known intellectual during the 1920s bound him to contemporary thinkers by, as Lynn Dumenil phrases it, “their shared consciousness of modern times and their role as interpreters of their culture.”⁹ With a task as daunting as interpreting quantum mechanics and relativity to mainstream audiences and reporters, it is no surprise that Einstein developed into the whimsical, imaginative presence that he is remembered for to this day.

The publicity surrounding Albert Einstein after his reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics also exposed him to an emerging component of fame: the oversimplification and misinterpretation of one’s identity.¹⁰ Since newspapers could not spend columns upon columns explaining mathematical proofs of the theories that had won him the prize, they instead searched for controversy under any rock which could be turned over. This is already obvious in relation to the 1919 eclipse which was claimed to have proven general relativity, for papers immediately covered debates between frustrated scientists, without even being able to explain what was being debated. This type of press continued to become increasingly personal for Einstein throughout the twenties, as his background as a German-born Swiss citizen, who had become widely popular in England and America since roughly the end of World War I, entangled him in the web of geopolitics. Einstein himself was tremendously aware of the media’s ability to influence his public image since he gained global notoriety, stating that:

“…today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire, the description will be reversed and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English.”

“Einstein on the Palestine University,” The Denver Jewish News, May 11, 1921, p. 1.

Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was a monumental event both for the field of theoretical physics, and for the role of science in popular culture during the early 20th century. Throughout all the turmoil between his supporters and conservative skeptics within the Nobel Committee, the eventual achievement signified a prestigious academic institution’s recognition that they could not forever maintain authority over who became an ambassador of intellectualism. Einstein’s subsequent fame in that role was shaped by the developing celebrity culture of the 1920s, but also serves as an example of someone who did not let fame dictate their work. Nobel Prizes and newspaper headlines alike, what mattered was the sense of discovery and imagination that is still associated with the name: “Einstein.”

Citations

Footnotes

1. Jennifer Ouellette, “Einstein and the Photoelectric Effect,” American Physical Association News, January 1, 2005. ︎
2. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 358. ︎
3. “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants,” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, 7. ︎
4. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 363. ︎
5. Ibid, 363. ︎
6. Ibid, 363-364. ︎
7. Ibid, 364. ︎
8. Jerry Adler, “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. ︎
9. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 149. ︎
10. Ibid, 77-78. ︎

Bibliography

• Featured Image: Karnell, Anders Wilhelm. Einstein speaks in Gothenburg, Sweden 1923. July 11, 1923. Accessed March 16, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_foto.gif.
• Adler, Jerry. “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/albert-einstein-visited-japan-180968737/.
• “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants.” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, p. 7.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
• Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
• Missner, Marshall. “Why Einstein Became Famous in America.” Social Studies of Science 15, no. 2 (May 1985): 267-291. https://www.jstor.org/stable/285389.
• Ouellette, Jennifer. “Einstein and The Photoelectric Effect.” American Physical Society News, January 1, 2005.
• Pais, Abraham. “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize: Why did the Nobel Committee for Physics wait so long before giving Einstein the Prize, and why did they not award it for relativity?” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (Summer 1982): 358-365. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27851543.
• The Nobel Prize Organization. “Nomination Archive: Albert Einstein.” Accessed March 17, 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=2728.
• Wazeck, Milena. “Marginalization processes in science: The controversy about the theory of relativity in the 1920s.” Social Studies of Science 43, no. 2 (April 2013): 163-190. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43284178.

More Resources

• Arora, Jagdish Krishanlal. The Nobel Prize and Its Global Influence. Independently Published, 2025.
• Elton, Lewis. “Einstein, General Relativity, and the German Press, 1919-1920.” Isis 77, no. 1 (March 1986): 95-103. https://www.jstor.org/stable/232505.
• Greene, Brian. “Why He Matters.” Scientific American 313, no. 3 (September 2015): 34-37.
• Pais, Abraham. “Knowledge and Belief: The Impact of Einstein’s Relativity Theory.” American Scientist 76, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 154-158. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27855069.

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

With the death of Thomas Salmon, M.D. in a sailing accident on August 13, 1927, the mentally ill lost one of their most respected and influential advocates of that era. Salmon’s journey from failed family doctor to the upper echelons of American psychiatry reflects both his personal drive and his empathy for those struggling with their mental health. He was also a man defined by paradoxes. Although Salmon wore the uniform of the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service or the U.S. Army Medical Corps for much of his career, he had an allergy to authority of all kinds. (A 1906 investigation by the Public Health Service into his refusal of a direct order on Ellis Island pronounced Salmon “far from loyal, obedient or even consistent” (Unrau 1984, 679).) Later, Salmon would be praised for his superb organization and management of psychiatric services for American soldiers in World War I, yet he was also well-known as one who couldn’t pay his own bills or debts on time.

Early Life

Born in 1875 in Troy, New York, Salmon was the son of a family doctor who had immigrated from England. He graduated from Albany Medical College in 1899 and returned home to establish a medical practice. Salmon was a skilled artist whose work appeared in at least one medical textbook (Gordinier 1899). Salmon’s career as a family doctor was short-lived. He refused to advertise in the local newspapers, despite the highly competitive nature of medicine in that era. Although certainly a competent physician, Salmon proved a terrible businessman. When he did bill for his services, he neglected to chase payments. By the time he left his practice, Salmon had uncollected bills of $15,000-$25,000 (Komora 1937,  McKown interview).

Seeking a steady income for his growing family, Salmon took a position at Willard State Hospital in New York, a mental institution, where he was hired to investigate—and end—a diphtheria epidemic (Russell and Salmon 1905).  Not satisfied with laboratory work, Salmon decided to enter the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service (later shortened to “Public Health Service”). He may have at first failed the highly competitive exam, which took place in Washington D.C. each year over a three-day span, but Salmon eventually passed and entered Public Health and Marine Hospital Service in 1903, and was assigned to Ellis Island.

Ellis Island

While Willard State served as Salmon’s entry into psychiatry, it was at Ellis Island that Salmon became fully immersed in the specialty. Salmon was initially assigned to the immigrant inspection line, where he and other Public Health and Marine Hospital Service physicians did a cursory examination of steerage-class passengers, seeking to identify those with dangerous contagious diseases, mental illness, and “feeblemindedness.” These immigrants would be sent to Ellis Island Hospital, a facility on its own artificial island that would grow to 650-beds, for treatment and observation. Some of them would be refused entry and returned to their home country on the basis of their condition.

Unsettled by the rough handling of insane immigrants, Salmon pushed for better care. Arriving immigrants, particularly in the early 1900s, suffered from the harsh conditions of steerage, without clean water, decent food, and proper sanitation for the 7-21 day journey to the United States. Sleep-deprived, they arrived at Ellis Island homesick, disoriented, and afraid. Salmon noted that a bath, clean clothes, good food, and rest often eliminated their “insanity.”

As there were no special wards for these immigrants, Salmon, with his drawing skills, designed one. It would be built after his conflicts with his superior officers, stemming from his unwillingness to work on the inspection line, resulted in his transfer to the port of Boston. With a growing number of foreign-born patients filling its state mental asylums, in 1911 the New York State Commission in Lunacy approached Salmon, whose work at Ellis Island had grown his reputation, to study its immigrant insane, provide statistics, and create a standardized system of reporting admissions and discharges. Granted a leave of absence from the Public Health Service, and offered a substantially higher salary, Salmon got to work. Salmon was among those who pushed for medical examination of immigrants before they departed from their home countries for the United States, so those with mental illness would not be permitted to come to the United States at all.

Mental Hygiene Movement

Salmon’s work in New York State attracted the attention of Clifford Beers, founder of the mental hygiene movement. A Yale graduate, Beers was himself a former mental patient and told his story in A Mind that Found Itself: An Autobiography, which was published in 1907. Beers exposed that too often the only “treatment” for the insane were straightjackets and violence on the part of the untrained attendants. Beers established the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene, which by the next year was renamed the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (NCMH). The organization lives on today under the name “Mental Health America” (“Mental Health America: Our History”).

Salmon joined the NCMH, serving as its Medical Director from 1912 to 1922, taking a leave of absence from 1917 to early 1919 to serve in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. With a salary paid by the Rockefeller Foundation, Salmon finally resigned his Public Health Service officer commission at the end of 1914. Salmon’s work at the NCMH exposed conditions in state asylums (“Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene” 211). In the 1920s, the NCMH wrote and lobbied for model commitment laws (“Mental Health America”), which were passed by the states.

Advocating for “Shell-Shocked” Soldiers

In the  U.S. Army Medical Corps had the daunting task of  setting up psychiatric hospitals and recruiting doctors and nurses to work in France. Upon his return in 1919, Salmon pushed for proper care of soldiers suffering from “shell shock,” what is generally known today as post-traumatic stress disorder. When he learned that such victims would be put in hospitals and institutions without proper psychiatric staffing and treatment, he said that “… you can’t take care of these sick men in facilities like those, just as though they were so many stalls to house so many horses” (Komora 1937, Bryan interview). Salmon became a national figure in the 1920s, giving fiery speeches for the American Legion and testifying before Congress demanding that the country provide for veterans who returned with mental disorders. It put him at odds with the Harding administration and the Public Health Service (which was supposed to care for such men), and alienated the Rockefeller Foundation. But his advocacy helped establish what would eventually become the Veterans Administration.

Practical Psychiatric Treatment

After his return to the United States from France, Salmon became active in the American Psychiatric Association. He also developed a lucrative private practice, which didn’t end his lifelong money woes, but did improve his financial standing. Among his patients was Marion Frankfurter, the wife of the future Supreme Court Justice. Marion Frankfurter suffered from bouts of depression throughout her life. She lauded Salmon for the “extraordinary skill and gentleness with which he led me through the dark wood.” Her interviewer, Paul Komora of the NCMH, wrote, “As Mrs. F. put it, Salmon virtually saved her life” (Komora 1937, interview with Felix and Marion Frankfurter). Salmon turned down $50,000 a year to treat Stanley McCormick, an heir to International Harvester’s family fortune (Komora 1937, Brumley interview). At the time, physicians in private practice earned $5,000 to $10,000 a year (Bendix 2023).

Seeking to improve the teaching of psychiatry as a discipline and interest more capable medical students to enter the field, Salmon joined the faculty of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1921. Psychiatry was very much a rapidly developing field in the first decades of the Twentieth Century, as doctors sought ways to more effectively treat the mentally ill rather than simply warehousing them in institutions. Lynn Dumenil’s 1995 analysis of the forces that shaped the 1920s, The Modern Temper, highlights the work of Sigmund Freud and John B. Watson (146) in its discussion of psychiatry and psychology. Both of these thinkers could be put on the opposite ends of a spectrum. Freudianism, with its emphasis on the unconscious mind, sex, and repressed desires, could be located on one end, while Watson, whose work focused on the study of discernable, measurable behaviors and their manifestation in an individual’s external actions and reactions, could be placed on the other.

Salmon and the mental hygienists are in the middle of this spectrum. Mental hygienists certainly believed in talk therapy (Freud), and they saw the value of identifying behaviors and attempting to understand their relationship to the patient’s environment (Watson). For example, Salmon was called in to treat a boy who was caught tampering with the signal mechanisms of a railroad near his boarding school. Such vandalism could have proved deadly. After spending some time with the child, who was about to be kicked out of his school, Salmon found he displayed an unusual ability in mechanical and electrical work. His “prescription” was to arrange much more time for the boy to study these subjects. In this example there is an attempt to identify the issue and identify a practical solution, rather than delve deeply into a person’s psyche, on the one hand, or reduce them to a simple set of actions/reactions, on the other.

Expanding Psychiatry

This sort of approach was particularly important in the “child guidance clinics” the NCMH set up in cities (Blanton et al., 1927), as well as the work Salmon helped organized in Sing-Sing prison (“Psychiatric Services for Prisoners” 1916). Though neither he nor the mental hygiene movement are mentioned in Dumenil’s survey, Salmon and other leaders were effective in reducing the stigma of mental illness and pushing for treatment of the insane, rather than imprisoning  them in state institutions. They focused on not only ending the abuse and isolation of patients in mental institutions, but sought to end long-term, involuntary incarceration. They pushed for psychiatric treatment in the communities where the mentally ill lived, in an out-patient fashion, before such clinics were widely established. We particularly see the legacy of the mental hygienists in the lessening of the stigma of mental illness as well as the evolution of the principal profession body for psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association.

Founded in 1844 as “The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane” and then in 1892 as “The American Medico-Psychological Association,” the organization finally became “The American Psychiatric Association” (APA) in 1921.  Such name changes signaled the transformation of psychiatry from a discipline concerned with patients in mental institutions to one with broad scope to treat the range of mental disorders (Ozarin and McMillan, “APA History”). In 1923, Salmon was elected the president of the APA, the first one who had not served in a leadership capacity at a state mental institution. “The ideal psychiatrist was no longer the institutional superintendent of the [eighteen] eighties, or even the man of the laboratory of the nineties,” wrote Barbara Sicherman (1967, The Quest for Mental Health in America, 280).  Ever progressive, the new psychiatrist, who worked in schools, prisons, and hospitals, collaborated with social workers and educated laymen, had become an advocate of “science with a public mission,” an apt description of Thomas Salmon.

Bibliography

“Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.” 1928. Mental Hygiene. 12: 211.

Beers, Clifford Whittingham. 1907. A Mind that Found Itself: An Autobiography. Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Bendix, Jeffrey. September 28, 2023. “A Century of Primary Care Transformation, Chapter 1: 1923 vs. 2023: A Doctor’s Daily Life.” Medical Economics Journal. 100:10.

Accessed May 4, 2025

Blanton, Smiley and Margaret Gray Blaxton. 1927. Child Guidance. Century Company.

Introduction by Thomas Salmon.

Bond, Earl D. with the collaboration of Paul O. Komora. 1950. Thomas W. Salmon: Psychiatrist. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Chafee, Jr. Z. May 26, 1937. Letter to Paul Komora. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Dumenil, Lynn. 1995. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. Hill and Wang.

Gordinier, H.C. 1899. The Gross and Minute Anatomy of the Central Nervous System. Blakiston’s Son & Co.

Komora, Paul. May, 1937. “Visit with Dr. Bryan in New London.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 2, Folder 3.1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Notes from Salmon Dossier in the Public Health Service.” Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with J.F. McKown, Carmel, N.Y.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with Justice and Mrs. Felix Frankfurter.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with Mr. Brumley.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

“Mental Health America: Our History.” Undated.

Accessed May 3, 2025.

Ozarin, Lucy, and Gary McMillan. “APA History.” Undated.

Accessed August 31, 2023

“Psychiatric Services for Prisoners.” 1916. The Survey. 36: 444.

Russell, W. L. and T.W. Salmon. 1905. “Report of Epidemic of Diphtheria in the Willard State Hospital.” Reprint.  Annual Report, New York State Commission in Lunacy, Oct. 1904. Brandow.

Sicherman, Barbara. 1967. The Quest for Mental Health in America, 1880-1917. Arno Press, 1980. First published as a PhD dissertation in 1967.

Unrau, Harlan D. 1984. Historical Research Study (Historical Component): Ellis Island Statue of Liberty National Historic Monument New York – New Jersey Volume II. U. S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service.

Brian Scanlan

Brian Scanlan is a former publishing executive with an interests in the history of the immigration and medicine. He has a B.A. in history from Rutgers University.

This is a short biographical section of what Einstein has become and what he did to become the person that he was during that time period. The eye catching title sparks readers attention because of how a genius such as Einstein was not good at something. As a society, we deem that “geniuses” seem to be good at everything but in reality they aren’t. I found this article to be interesting because it gives the reader a look in what Einstein’s personality was really like during this time period. This newspaper clipping is from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and published on March 4th 1928, page 105 of the newspaper.

Transcription

Einstein, Though at Home With Relativity, Flunked As Mathematics Student

Scientist, Voted “Great Man,” a Dominating Personality in Laboratory but Almost Childish in Private Life—- Too Shy to Make a Speech in Public.

By Meyer Weisgal ¹.

He ².is only 49, and yet he is now called the “world’s greatest man.” Albert Einstein is given this title as the result of a survey recently conducted by the London Daily Chronicle. ³ This newspaper compiled a list of the world’s great men in answer to a statement made by the Archbishop of Canterbury ⁴ that the world has no great personalities today.

It is said that very few people know the actual content of the theory of relativity ⁵ but almost everybody has heard of its author, Albert Einstein. His theory of the universe was so startling that not only the scientists but the laymen were astonished by its implications. It is very strange in this age of machinery, an age where sheer force and power are presumed to entitle one to distinction, that a man like Albert Einstein supremely intellectual and reserved, should even be considered for the post of “the world’s greatest man.”

Failed as Mathematics Student

Professor Einstein son of a German Jewish family, was born in 1879 in Ulm, Wurtemberg. He spent his school days in Munich where he attended a gymnasium.⁶ From 1896 to 1900 he studied mathematics and physics at the Technical High School in Zurich, Switzerland. Originally, he intended to become a school teacher, but having meanwhile become naturalized, he obtained a post as engineer in the Swiss Patent Office. ⁷ The main idea involved in the most important of Einstein’s theories date back to this period.

In 1909 he became professor at the University of Zurich. Later he was called to the University of Prague. In 1914 ⁸ he accepted an invitation to the Prussian Academy of Science, Berlin. It was here that he completed his work of “General Theory of Relativity” between 1915-17.

One of the most amazing circumstances in the life of this man who is acknowledged leader in a branch of science which is dependent on figures is that he failed in mathematics while at the university. It is the duality of this man, not unusual in geniuses, which is his distinguishing characteristic.

Childish in Private Life

There is a remarkable contrast between Albert Einstein the man, and Albert Einstein, the scientist. In his latter profession Einstein is a dominating personality, whose courage in the face of ideas has led him to some of the most revolutionary discoveries. He is aggressive in the scientific world, daring to tackle theories and facts which have been accepted by the scientists for centuries. It is this very disregard of established facts and theories that has been responsible for the widespread fame that he has secured. Albert Einstein came to be thought of as “the world’s greatest man” because he is an outstanding example of man’s superiority over the forces of nature.

And yet Einstein, is an entirely different personality within private life. He is very naive, sometimes even to regret his extremely sensitive nature. Indicative of his craving for quiet is the passion with ‘which he has cultivated his musical talent.’ Einstein is not only a scientist: he is a violinist of great accomplishment. Music critics who have had the good fortune to be present at some of the private recitals which Einstein has given have declared that the concert stage offers him huge sums of money. ⁹

Refuses to Make a Speech

Einstein is unimpressed with his own fame. He cannot conceive of himself as an internationally known figure, and childish wonderment always overcomes him when he hears himself referred to by prominent scientists as a distinction to their profession. Einstein thinks much more of his violin playing than of his scientific achievements.

Typical of his shyness is Einstein’s known powers as a good listener. He rarely talks in company, but gives the impression of listening very centratedly. Even when a huge crowd expects an encouraging speech, no matter how short, he is too reticent to appear. A speech of his that has become famous was delivered about six years ago while he was visiting this country in the presence of a fellow-scientist, Dr. Chaim Weizmann ¹⁰ who is also president of the World Zionist Organization. ¹¹ A mass meeting was being held at one of the New York City armories, attended by some of the foremost Jews in the metropolis. Nobody has heard Einstein before they were all eager to get a glimpse of the famous Einstein and to hear what he might have to say.

At last Einstein appeared on the platform greeted by a five-minute ovation. Then there was silence, And Einstein spoke: “Wizmann is your leader. Follow him. I have spoken.’ Those three terse sentences was all Einstein said.

Hounded as a Jew

He attends few functions, especially those which are intended to do him honor. There was one celebration planned for him in Germany given by the outstanding scientists of his country. He was to be guest of honor. At the last moment he wired: “Sorry: unable to attend; congratulations.”

One would think that a man who has attained the stature of Einstein would be considered far above personalities. And yet even Einstein, who has brought so much credit to German science ando German culture, has been hounded in Germany because he is a Jew. He, together with a number of other prominent Jews, among them the late Maximillian Harden ¹² , enemy of the Kaisers, were put on what become known as the “black list.” This “black list” was gotten up after the war, when German monarchists were trying to divert the German people from the defeat they had sustained at the hands of the Allies. Some monarchists spread the rumor that the leading Jews of Germany over the Allies and that it was because of Jewish defection, that the Central Powers ¹³ lost the World War ¹⁴.

Speaks Only One Tongue ¹⁵

This succeeded in winning a number of German anti-Semites, who determined to rid the nation of Jews. Walter Rathenau ¹⁶, the German-Jewish financier and statesman, was made a victim of the “black list.” He was assassinated. But Einstein fled to Switzerland, where he had to remain for some time before the anti-Semitic agitation learned up in Germany.

Einstein can only speak one language, German. Many noted visitors come to his home, who try to speak to him in various languages, but he deprecates his lingual ignorance and adds: “The language I know best is physics.”

Einstein is typical of the great Jewish figures whom Germany has produced. He has made Zionism his hobby. ¹⁷ When he is through with his laboratory, and after he has soothed himself with his violin, he takes up the problems which confront the Jewish people, and does whatever is in his power to aid their solution. He belies staunchly that a Jewish homeland should be built up in Palestine.

Backs Zionist Move

Time and again, when he has been asked to write on scientific subjects, Einstein has preferred to concentrate his energies on Jewish problems. His writings on Jewish topics are quite prolific, and all of them are show through with an idealism and optimism.

This is a typical passage:

“The reconstruction of Palestine is not merely a philanthropic task for Jews; it represents not merely an opportunity for colonization but it is a problem of first-rate importance for the Jewish people. It is not mainly a refuge for Eastern Jews but the incarnation of the revised national feeling of all Jews. Is it desirable and necessary to strengthen this feeling? In my opinion the reply must be in the affirmative.

“It is essential that we Jews above all should become once more conscious of our existence asa nation, that we should regain the self-respect which is necessary for such a national existence. We must take upon our selves once more cultural tasks which are adapted to strengthen our collective national feeling.”

Likes American Jews

Einstein’s participation in his people’s cause has not only been a matter of writing. H has given a great deal of time to conferences and meetings wherever his personality would be of value in stimulating interest in the gathering.

Speaking of his reactions to his American visit, Einstein said: “My greatest experience was that for the first time in my life I have seen the Jewish people. I have hitherto seen very many Jews in large numbers, but I have never seen the Jewish people, neither in Berlin Nor elsewhere in Germany. I have seen how extraordinarily self-sacrificing these American Jews are. I found that it was generally the middle class, and above all the common people, and not those who by their social position or other advantages had rise to the top, who still possessed the sound instinct of their common origin and who were willing to make sacrifices on a large scale for their people.”

Citations

“4 Mar 1928, Page 73 – The Brooklyn Daily Eagle at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed April 28, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/image/57570109/?terms=einstein&match=1. 

The majority of the annotations I used were simple google searches to tell me who, or what the text read. In majority I used Wikipedia because that was the first link that would come up when I searched a person’s name or place or ideal. All websites I used for research are listed below:

“Albert Einstein.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, April 9, 2021. https://www.biography.com/scientist/albert-einstein. 

“Central Powers of World War I.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 25, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Powers_of_World_War_I. 

“Chaim Weizmann.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 21, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann. 

“Daily Chronicle.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, March 23, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Chronicle. 

Hanlon, Mike. “Einstein’s Violin Fetches $516,500 at New York Auction.” New Atlas, March 11, 2018. https://newatlas.com/einstein-violin-auction/53760/. 

“Maximilian Harden.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, March 26, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Harden. 

“List of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 25, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archbishops_of_Canterbury. 

“Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 22, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Institute_of_Intellectual_Property. 

“Theory of Relativity.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 10, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity. 

“Walther Rathenau.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 8, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau. 

“World Zionist Organization.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 2, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Zionist_Organization. 

“Zionism.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 15, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism#Terminology. 

Roberta Carbah

I am a Ramapo senior who is majoring in Elementary Education. I am taking this course because I want to be certified in Social Studies at the middle school level. I graduated from Bergen Community College in the Spring of ’19 with an associate’s in Early Childhood Education. Currently, I am working  at Starbucks as a Shift Supervisor until I obtain my degree from Ramapo.

Albert Einstein was born in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, on March 14th, 1879. Einstein’s fascination with “empty” space started at the age of five when his father showed him a pocket compass and then realized that “empty” space was acting upon the needle in the compass. This event foreshadowed his later career, in which Einstein would describe this experience as one of the major realizations in his career. Einstein is famous for developing relativity theory, which created a bigger understanding of space, time, gravity, and the universe. Relativity is all physical phenomena that are in the absence of gravity. Einstein developed the equation E=mc^2, which is the definition of the simplicity of fundamental physics as we know it. This equation was revolutionary for us to understand lights and solar panels, and modern chemistry. Einstein filled his career with theories and scientific explanations as a theoretical physicist. Einstein died on April 18th, 1955, at Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.

Early 1920s (1920-1923)

At the beginning of the decade, Pauline Einstein, Einstein’s mother, dies in Berlin in February after a long illness. Einstein joined the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters which is a non-governmental national academy for the advancement of science that was founded in1 742. Einstein was induced as a foreign member on April 9th. Also during the year 1920, Niels Bohr, a Danish physician, paid a visit to Einstein in Berlin. Einstein looked up to Bohr because of his contributions in the physician field Bohr had created the Bohr model which allows us to know how many protons, neutrons, and electrons are in an atom and how they interact. Einstein joined the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences which is responsive for institutes that pay research and collections by Dutch sciences. which is another organization in Amsterdam as a foreign member on May 20 2021.

Travels in the 1920s around Europe

Einstein did much traveling in 1920 to express his theories that he made sense of in earlier years. He started in 1920 by teaching at the University of Berlin. Einstein also made lecture trips to Holland, Denmark, and Norway, where he was a visiting professor. Also, on this trip, he met physicist Niels Bohr who created the atomic model. Einstein thought Bohr was a “truly a man of genius and he had full confidence in his way of thinking.”

Einstein’s travels to the States for the first tine

In the spring of 1921, Einstein made his first trip to America with two objectives. His first objective was to take part in a fundraising tour on behalf of a Hebrew University the Zionists were planning to establish in Jerusalem. Einstein supported founding the university, and he favored an emphasis on the sciences and health professions. His second objective Was to visit Princeton University in New Jersey to deliver four lectures on relativity theory. Upon his arrival in the United States, he became immediately popular. Reporters rushed this his ship upon his arrival and he and shortly after, city officials took him on a motorcade to the lower streets in Manhattan to City Hall where Mayor James Hylan welcomed him. He spoke at Columbia University and the City University of New York. With packed auditoriums. Einstein then headed to Princeton to deliver a speech at the National Academy of Sciences in DC. Einstein’s lectures were delivered in German and were translated as he spoke. When in America, Einstein met with the president at the time, Warren Harding.

Einstein returns to Europe and reflects on how the US treated him

Before going back home, Einstein stopped in England, where Albert gave a lecture at the University of London on the relativity theory and at King’s College and at Manchester University, Einstein signed his name on a blackboard that is still preserved. While in England, Einstein paid his respects at Sir Isaac Newton’s tomb, whom he greatly admired and left a bouquet there. When Einstein returned home, he remarked on the culture of how Americans acted toward him and observations he had about Americans. Einstein remarked that “men were lapdogs of their wives and wives are extravagant spenders of their husbands’ money.” Rebutting his previous statement, Einstein commended Americans for their wrath and friendliness and expressed admiration for the schools and universities’ close relationships.

Einstein goes on Vacation and receives news of Nobel Peace Prize

After returning to Berlin, Einstein took his two sons on vacation for Hans Albert and Eduard, 17 and 11. Sailed the Baltic coast staying at a room in the local village bakery. Einstein preferred this type of vacation or getaway because of the simplicity it held. This vacation time allowed Einstein to better understand his two sons after doing substantial amount of traveling in the last year and a half of his life. Toward the end of this year, Einstein received news that he won a Nobel prize in physics to work with the photoelectric effect. This effect led to a communications revolution. The Photoelectric effect is the outburst of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Einstein proposed that a beam of light is not a wave propagating through space but a swarm of discrete energy packets, which would later be called photons.

Significance of Einstein

In 1921 Einstein published “Einstein on Education,” which he concluded in this present day mathematical and scientific education is too concerned with the abstractions and learning should be more hands-on that testing students with exams are unnecessary. Einstein states,

“In the matter of physics [education], the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see.”

—Albert Einstein From “Einstein on Education,” National and Athenaeum” December 3rd, 1921

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As a future educator, I admire Einstein by discussing this in 1920, and it is still a problem in our school system a century later. Learning should be hands-on learning with no stress of standardized testing in schools. If we consider Einstein to be one of the well-known geniuses globally, why can’t we evoke standardized and just normal testing in schools? The stigmatism of schools being stressful would decrease.

Map of Einstein’s Life in the 1920s

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=1-3e_PUDRLE5cxV72U5bBJZbrhOBjreyl

Bibliography

• Calaprice, A. and Lipscombe, T., 2005. Albert Einstein. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
• Einstein, A., Calaprice, A. and Dyson, F., n.d. The Ultimate Quotable Einstein.
• Unknown. 1921. Professor Albert Einstein. https://library-artstor-org.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/asset/LOCEON_1039799751.

Roberta Carbah

I am a Ramapo senior who is majoring in Elementary Education. I am taking this course because I want to be certified in Social Studies at the middle school level. I graduated from Bergen Community College in the Spring of ’19 with an associate’s in Early Childhood Education. Currently, I am working  at Starbucks as a Shift Supervisor until I obtain my degree from Ramapo.