Emma Sophia Baker
Emma Sophia Baker ( – ) was a Canadian psychologist. In 1903, she became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and one of the first two women to earn a Ph.D. from that institution (the other being chemist Clara Benson). Biography. Baker was born in Milton, Ontario, in 1856. She attended Newmarket High School in Newmarket; Toronto Normal School; and Albert College, in Belleville. She taught and served as a principal at a number of girls' schools, including Dickenson's Seminary (now Lycoming College) in Pennsylvania, and Presbyterian Ladies' College in Toronto . For her Ph.D. in philosophy (psychology was considered a subdiscipline of philosophy at the time), Baker worked under the supervision of August Kirschmann, a German-born psychologist who led the psychology laboratory at the University of Toronto. In the laboratory, Baker conducted experiments on the aesthetics of colours. She published two of her experiments in the laboratory's in-house publication, called the "University of Toronto Studies, Psychological Series": first, “Experiments on the aesthetic of light and colour: On combinations of two colours," and second, “Experiments on the aesthetic of light and colour: Spectrally pure colours in binary combinations." Baker 's doctoral dissertation consisted of the two reports. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 1903. From 1901 until 1914, Baker worked at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, first as the lady principal of the Ladies' College, then as vice-principal of the institution. From 1914 until her retirement in 1928, she held a professorship in Psychology, Ethics and Economics at the Maryland College for Women in Lutherville, Maryland. Baker later returned to Toronto. She died on October 26, 1943, at age 87. She was buried in London, Ontario.