Background
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1891, Lois Meek Stolz attended public schools, graduating from Washington Normal Schools in 1912.
She taught school in the primary grades and attended George Washington University, graduating with an A.B. cum laude in 1921.
Following that she earned her Ph.D. in 1925 at Columbia University, studying psychology under John Dewey among others. In
1924 she was recruited by the American Association of University Women to serve as Education Secretary and develop a national
program of adult education. In 1929, she returned to Columbia as Professor of Education at Teachers College and also as Associate
Director of the Child Development Institute, quickly becoming the Director. During this period Columbia Teachers College was
the pre-eminent center in the field of education. Many of her doctoral students rose to positions of leadership in the field
of child development. In 1938 she married Dr. Herbert Rowell Stolz and moved to Oakland, California. Herbert Stolz graduated
from Stanford Medical School in 1914. He held administrative positions for the state of California and at the University of
California, Berkeley where he was the first director of the Institute of Child Welfare. Lois joined the Institute in the late
1930s. They co-authored Somatic Development of Adolescent Boys, a classic in its field. During World War II, Lois worked for
Kaiser Shipyards in Portland as Director of Child Service Centers. In 1947, she came to Stanford as a professor of psychology
and started the doctoral program in child development in the School of Education. She authored Father Relations of War-Born
Children in 1954. She received many awards and was honored many times by her peers and students. After becoming emeritus in
1957, Dr. Stolz worked on the Communication and Child Care Project at Stanford, culminating in the book, Influences on Parent
Behavior, published in 1967. She died in Palo Alto on October 24, 1984 at the age of 93.
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