Ruth Sherman Tolman

Tolman was born in Indiana on 9 October 1893. Not much is known about her early life. For college, she went to the University of California, Los Angeles. At the University of California she studied psychology. During her graduate studies, also at UCLA, she studied how different groups of criminals varied psychologically. This is where she met her husband, Richard Tolman, the dean of the school at the time. Richard Tolman also served as vice chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, and a scientific advisor of the Manhattan Project.[1] They married in 1924 when she was thirty years old.[2][3]

During her career, Tolman was a prominent figure in the psychology field and the field of clinical psychology. After she received her doctorate, she went on to become the senior psychological examiner for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. While writing six books and helping to create an early treatment for PTSD, she was also the first woman ever to be elected to the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). There was much controversy that surrounded her being elected, as her husband's, Richard's, brother was the creator of the SPSSI.

Before the war, she was a clinical psychologist in the criminal justice system. At the end of World War II, she treated soldiers who were suffering from PTSD, which was known, at that time, as battle fatigue. This effort greatly advanced her career and made her a noteworthy figure.[1]

Tolman was very confident in her abilities and did not attribute her success to her connection to her brother-in-law. She was proactive in helping other women achieve the same goals as she had. During WWII, she served on a committee called the Service of Women Psychologists in the Emergency Committee on Psychology (ECP). The organization's purpose was to help prepare women psychologists to fill the role of male psychologists who were away, serving in the military, and to help address the discrimination felt by female psychologists.[2]

She went on to fill many more important roles in her field. During the war, Tolman was recruited by government agencies that were then hiring psychologists. Her last assignment was that of clinical psychologist with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the predecessor agency of the modern day CIA. This position required her to devise tests to assess the psychological stability of field agents.[1] During this time, she began an affair with J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Throughout her career she held many prominent positions, and remained one of the most important and significant clinical psychologist of her time.[2]

Her personal life was not as well known as was her professional life. Although married to Richard Chace Tolman, a well-known chemist, she was alleged to have had an ongoing affair with his good friend, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who created the atomic bomb. She was ten years older than Oppenheimer. The Tolmans bought a house in Washington DC during the war, where Oppenheimer often stayed when he was called to the capital.[4] Her husband died of a heart attack in 1948. Some people contend that he died of a broken heart. However, the authors of the book, "An Atomic Love Story", a chronicle of the lives of Robert Oppenheimer and the extraordinary women in his life, concluded: "it was not believed to have been sexual, only a close emotional bond and connection." After her husband died, she returned to be a professor of clinical psychology at UCLA.

Ruth Sherman Tolman died in California, at the age of 64, on September 18, 1957, and was later buried in Massachusetts.