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Leonard Carmichael
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Leonard Carmichael

American psychologist
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Quick Facts
Born:
Nov. 9, 1898, Philadelphia
Died:
Sept. 16, 1973, Washington, D.C. (aged 74)
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Leonard Carmichael (born Nov. 9, 1898, Philadelphia—died Sept. 16, 1973, Washington, D.C.) was a U.S. psychologist and educator who, as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1953 to 1964, was responsible for the modernization of the “nation’s attic.”

Carmichael received his Ph.D. from Harvard University (1924) and was teacher of psychology at Princeton, Brown, and Rochester successively. He became president of Tufts in 1938, leaving it to go to the Smithsonian. On his retirement there he became (1964) vice president for research and exploration at the National Geographic Society, where he sponsored the work of, among others, L.S.B. Leakey and Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Author or editor of several books on psychology, he also served terms as president of the American Psychological Association and of the American Philosophical Society.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.