Person of the Month: Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)

Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), the originator of gestalt psychology, was born in Prague, the second of two sons of Wilhelm and Rosa Zwicker Wertheimer. His interests reflect the activities of his home, where he came in contact with problems of science, politics, music, art, and education. His father was so successful in tutoring shorthand and bookkeeping that he resigned his position in a bank to devote full time to teaching these subjects. He devised new methods of teaching and eventually established and directed a school, the Handelsschule Wertheimer. The older son, Walter, was trained to succeed his father in the directorship (but died in early adulthood). Wertheimer also participated in discussions of the activities of the school and invented computational devices and a bookkeeping machine. This involvement broadened into an absorbing interest in mathematics as well as in methods of teaching.