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Harlow
Harlow Water Gardens, (The recently renovated part of the town centre)
Shown within Essex
Country	United Kingdom
Const Country	England
Region	East of England
Ceremonial County	Essex
Government
• Leadership	Alternative - Sec.31
• Control	Labour
• MP	Robert Halfon
Area
• District	11.79 sq mi (30.54 km2)
Population
• District	Ranked 285th 81,700
• Density	6,930/sq mi (2,675/km2)
• Ethnicity[1]	92.5% White 2.5% Asian 1.8% Black 1.6% Chinese or Other 1.5% Mixed
ONS code	22UJ
Website	http://www.harlow.gov.uk/

Harlow is a new town and local government district in Essex, England. It is located in the west of the county and on the border with Hertfordshire, on the Stort Valley, The town is near the M11 motorway and forms part of the London commuter belt.The district has a current population of 78,889 (2010 estimate).^[2]

History[link]

Etymology[link]

There is some dispute as to where the placename Harlow derives from. One theory is that it derives from the Anglo-Saxon words 'here' and 'hlaw', meaning "army hill", probably to be identified with Mulberry Hill, which was used as the moot or meeting place for the district.

The other theory is that it derives from the words 'here' and 'hearg', meaning "temple hill/mound", probably to be identified with an Iron Age burial mound, later a Roman temple site on River Way.

The original village, mentioned in the Norman Domesday Book, developed as a typical rural community around what is now known as Old Harlow, with many of its buildings still standing.

Early history[link]

The earliest deposits are of a Mesolithic (circa 10,000 BC) hunting camp excavated by Davey in Northbrooks in the 1970s(Unpublished) closely followed by the large and unexcavated deposits of Neolithic flint located at Gilden Way. These deposits are mostly known of due to the large numbers of surface bound worked flint ; indeed there is substanital amounts to speculate on organised working of flint in the area. Large amounts of debetage litter the area and tools found include Axeheads, hammers, blades, dowles and other boring tools and multipuprpose flints such as scrapers. An organised Field Walk in the late 1990s by Bartlett(Unpublished)indicates that most of the area, some 80 hectares, produces worked flint from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age with a smattering of Mesolithic ; so basically it indicates organised industry from 5000 BC to 2000 BC. Indeed the deposits are so large and dispersed that any major archaeological work in the area will have to take this into consideration before any ground work is started.

The New Town[link]

The new town was built after World War II to ease overcrowding in London at the same time as the similar orbital developments of Basildon, Stevenage, and Hemel Hempstead. The master plan for the new town was drawn up in 1947 by Sir Frederick Gibberd.^[3][4] The development incorporated the market town of Harlow, now a neighbourhood known as Old Harlow, and the villages of Great Parndon, Latton, Tye Green, Potter Street, Churchgate Street, Little Parndon, and Netteswell. The town is divided into neighbourhoods, each self supporting with their own shopping precincts, community facilities and pub. Gibberd invited many of the country's leading post-war architects to design buildings in the town, including Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, Leonard Manasseh, Michael Neylan, E C P Monson, Gerard Goalen, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Graham Dawbarn and William Crabtree. Harlow has one of the most extensive cycle track networks in the country, connecting all areas of the town to the town centre and industrial areas. The cycle network is composed mostly of the original pre-new town roads.

The town is notable being the location of Britain's first pedestrian precinct,^[5] and first modern-style residential tower block, The Lawn,^[6][7] constructed in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. Gibberd's tromp-l'oeil terrace in Orchard Croft and Dawbarn's maisonette blocks at Pennymead are also notable, as is Michael Neylan's pioneering development at Bishopsfield. The first neighbourhood, Mark Hall, is a conservation area. From 1894 to 1955, the Harlow parish formed part of the Epping Rural District of Essex.^[8] From 1955 to 1974, Harlow was an urban district.^[9]

The town centre, and many of its neighbourhood shopping facilities have undergone major redevelopment, along with many of the town's original buildings. Subsequently, many of the original town buildings, including most of its health centres, the Staple Tye shopping centre, and many industrial units have been rebuilt. GIbberd's original town hall, a landmark in the town, has been demolished and replaced by a new civic centre and shopping area.

Redevelopment[link]

The town has already experienced expansion. The first of which was the "mini expansion" that was created by the building of the Sumners and Katherines estates in the mid to late seventies to the west of the existing town. Since then Harlow has further expanded with the Church Langley estate completed in 2005, and its newest neighbourhood Newhall nearing completion. The Harlow Gateway Scheme is currently underway, with the relocation of the Harlow Football Stadium to Barrow's Farm in early 2006, and the building of a new hotel, apartments, and a restaurant adjacent to the railway station being complete. The next stage of this scheme involves the completion of the 530 eco-homes being built on the former sports centre site, and the centre's relocation to the nearby former college playing field site.

Other major developments under consideration include both a northern and southern bypass of the town, and significant expansion to the north, following the completed expansion to the east. The Harlow North^[10] plans, currently awaiting permission, involve an extension of the town across the floodplains on the town's northern border, into neighbouring Hertfordshire. The plan was supported by former MP Bill Rammell, all three political groups on Harlow Council, and the East of England Regional Assembly. It is opposed by Hertfordshire Council Council, East Herts Council, Mark Prisk, MP for Hertford, and Stortford in whose constituency the development would be and all the parishes concerned. The opposition is coordinated by a local group based in neighbouring East Hertfordshire.^[11] An attempt to have Harlow North designated an "Eco Town" was rejected by the Minister for Housing, Caroline Flint, MP in April 2008

The south of the town centre also underwent major regeneration, with the new civic centre being built and the town's famous Water Gardens being redeveloped, a landscape listed by English Heritage. Their intended effect is somewhat spoiled by the abutment of a range of new shops, a major superstore, and several restaurants and cafés. It is likely that this development will be continued throughout the rest of the shopping district, with plans awaiting planning permission to be granted.

Economy[link]

Harlow was originally expected to provide a majority of employment opportunities in manufacturing, with two major developments of The Pinnacles and Templefields providing the biggest employers in the region; as with the rest of the country, this manufacturing base has declined and Harlow has had to adjust.

The original manufacturing took the form of a biscuit factory, on the Pinnacles. Owned and run as a Co-Op, it provided employment to the town for over 50 years, before closing in 2002. It has since been demolished and the site is now small industrial units. At its peak, the factory employed over 500 people. At the time of its closure, the owner was Burton's Foods Ltd. An £8million production line – installed in 1999 – was left to rust in the car park upon the closure of the factory.

Raytheon and GlaxoSmithKline both have large premises within the town. Nortel also had a large site on the eastern edge of the town, acquired when STC was bought in 1991, and it was here that Charles K. Kao developed optical fibre data transmission. Nortel still has a presence, but it is much reduced. One of Europe's leading online golf stores, Onlinegolf, is also based in Harlow.

Unemployment is frequently around 10%, higher than the national average in the UK. Harlow also has a large number of people in social housing, almost 30%^[2] of dwellings being housing association and local authority owned, and many more privately rented.

Politics[link]

See also: Harlow (UK Parliament constituency), Harlow local elections

Labour MP Bill Rammell was reelected in the 2005 general election, with a majority of only 97 after considerable gains by the Conservative Party since the 1997 and 2001 elections but lost to Robert Halfon, Conservative, in the 2010 general election. Prior to the 2008 Council elections, no party had overall control of the local authority, which was run by a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Labour Party councillors. However, since the elections, the authority is under Conservative control.

Transport[link]

Rail[link]

A WAGN EMU travels through Harlow station in 2001.

Harlow is served by two railway stations, Harlow Town railway station and Harlow Mill railway station. There is also a bus service to Epping tube station on the London Underground.

Road[link]

Harlow is reached from junction 7 of the M11 motorway, which runs from London to Cambridge, placing it within a short distance of Stansted Airport and the A120 and the orbital M25 motorway. Running through the town is the A414, a major road from Hertford to Chelmsford and linking the town with the A10 to the west. This road is often a cause of major congestion to the town and is awaiting a decision of both a southern and northern bypass to the town, with the Harlow North proposal including the latter as part of its bid to secure planning permission for 8,000 homes to the North of the town. It is unlikely to be built in the near future however. Another major road running from Harlow is the A1184, which also leads to the nearby town of Bishop's Stortford.

Air[link]

Bishop's Stortford is the closest large town to London Stansted Airport, though Harlow is only 10 miles from this major transport hub, and therefore provides several hundred airport employees. BAA , the airport operator, withdrew a planning application for a second runway after the General Election of 2010, when all major political parties opposed it. .

Bus[link]

Harlow bus station

Harlow has an extensive bus network and serves as a regional hub for the local area, with operators such as Arriva East Herts & Essex, SM Coaches, Roadrunner Coaches, Centrebus, and TWH Bus & Coach.

Future transport plans[link]

Harlow First Avenue Multi-Modal Corridor[link]

Harlow First Avenue Multi-Modal Corridor

Developments in and around Harlow.
Location	Essex
Proposer	Essex County Council
cost estimate	£4.4 million (2008)
completion date	February 2010
Geometry	KML

Essex County Council is involved in development to Harlow's First Avenue, which is intended to reduce congestion and create better transport connections between the Newhall housing developments. The scheme was implemented in two phases, each phase focusing on developing First Avenue on either side of Howard Way. Phase two has an estimated cost of £4.4 million and is due to be completed in early 2010, phase one is already complete and is listed as having had £3.6 million of funding from the Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF).^[12] The scheme includes construction of a shared use cycleway and development to the bus service along first avenue and into the Newhall development site where 'high quality bus' services between Harlow town centre and Harlow Town Railway station are listed as part of the development.

Healthcare[link]

Harlow is served by the NHS Princess Alexandra Hospital, situated on the edge of The High, which is the main Town Centre area of Harlow. This hospital has a 24 hour Accident & Emergency and Urgent Care Centre.

There is also a private hospital called The Rivers, which is located on the outskirts of Harlow. It is run by the Capio group alongside the Jacobs Centre which serves neurological patients.

Education[link]

Harlow contains six secondary schools, most of which now have specialist status, and one College.

• Mark Hall Specialist Sports College - Sports College^[13]
• St Mark's Catholic School - Business & Enterprise Specialist^[14] (Also has a sixth form as part of the school)
• Burnt Mill Academy - Performing arts College^[15]
• Stewards Academy - Science Specialist^[16]
• Passmores Academy - Technology College^[17]
• Harlow College - College^[18]
• Saint Nicholas School

Brays Grove School closed down in 2008 due to falling numbers of school aged students in the town. Passmores School and Technology College moved into a brand new £23 million school in September 2011 on the site of the old Brays Grove School.^[19]

In the 1980s a further two secondary schools were closed, Latton Bush (now a commercial centre and recreational centre) and Netteswell (now forms part of the Harlow College Campus)^[20] is a major further educational centre, covering GCSE's, A-Levels, and many vocational subjects including Hair & Beauty Therapy, Construction, Mechanics, ICT, and a new centre for Plumbing due to open. The college is currently under major regeneration and is due to open a new university centre in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University, covering mostly Foundation degrees in a variety of subjects relevant to local employers needs.

Memorial University of Newfoundland also has a small international campus located in Old Harlow.

Sport and leisure[link]

Harlow Rugby Football Club play their home games at Ram Gorse in the town. The first team plays in the London & South East Division II North East league.

Harlow has 4 cricket clubs.

Harlow Town Cricket Club was formed in 1960 as Stort Cricket Club and used the new Sportcentre ground but now plays at Ash Tree Field.[22] The club now competes in Shepherad neame League and runs 5 league, 7 colts sides and 3 veterans teams making it the biggest cricket club in Harlow in terms of size.http://stort.play-cricket.com/content/view.asp?id=10173577&cid=202</ref>

Harlow Cricket Club traces its history back to 1774.^[21] The club plays league cricket in the Essex Shepherd Neame League from its Old Harlow ground of Marigolds. Near neighbour Potter Street & Church Langley Cricket Club play in the Herts & Essex League. Netteswell & Burnt Mill Cricket Club dates back to 1889 and plays friendly cricket against local clubs.

The town's football team Harlow Town F.C. play in the Ryman Division One North. In October 2006 they moved into their new stadium at Barrows Farm, and their old ground at the Harlow Sportcentre has been demolished to make way for new housing facilities as part of the Gateway Scheme, which will also see a brand new sports centre complex built in the centre of the town, on the former Harlow College playing field.

The town was the site of the UK's first purpose-built sports centre, Harlow Sports Centre, in 1960. The building is due to be replaced on 1 July 2010 [2] by the state-of-the-art Harlow Leisure Park, built near Harlow College as part of the Gateway Project. Harlows 'Leisurezone' opened on 23 June 2010, with new dry and wet sports facilities, including Tennis, gym, football, martial arts, swimming and UFC

There has recently been a new skatepark built in Harlow next to Burnt Mill School the project has been funded by investment of over £300,000, largely coming from Harlow Council with £57,500 coming from Sport England. The park also has many security features such as 24/7 CCTV coverage, and is floodlit at night. The 650sq metre park is made entirely from concrete, and has a bowl as well as a street course which contains quarter pipes, flat banks, rails and steps. It is suitable for people of all ages as well as skateboards, inline skates, scooters and BMXs.

Harlow can also lay claim to the 2010 Bowls England Singles Champion when Harlow resident Steve Mitchinson won the final against Scott Edwards from Sussex.

Art and culture[link]

Harlow is the home to a major collection of public sculptures (over 100 in total) by artists ranging from Auguste Rodin to Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Many of these are owned by the Harlow Art Trust, an organisation set up in 1953 by the lead architect of Harlow Frederick Gibberd. Gibberd had idealist notions of the New Town as a place where people who might not normally have access to art could enjoy great sculptures by great artists on every street corner. Consequently almost all of Harlow's sculpture collection is located in the open air, in shopping centres, housing estates and parks around the town.^[22]

In 2009 Harlow Council voted to celebrate Harlow's collection of sculpture by branding Harlow as 'Harlow Sculpture Town - The World's First Sculpture Town'. Harlow Sculpture Town began as an initiative from Harlow Art Trust, this will see Harlow present itself to the world as 'Sculpture Town', in a similar way to Hay-on-Wye's presentation of itself as Booktown.^[23][24]

As part of the 'Sculpture Town' branding, Harlow is also home to the Gibberd Garden, the former home of Frederick and Elizabeth Gibberd, which is a managed twentieth-century garden, and home to some of the Gibberd's private sculpture collection.^[25]

Harlow is also the location of the Playhouse Theatre,^[26] and an art gallery, called the Gibberd Gallery, located in the Civic Centre, containing a collection of twentieth-century watercolours and temporary exhibitions.^[27] There are many dance schools in harlow, many of the west end performers trained at the facilities in Harlow.

Environment[link]

A major feature to the new town is its green wedges, with over 1/3 of the town being parkland or open space. Harlow Town Park is one of the largest urban parks in Britain, and occupies a large area of the central town. Each estate is also separated by open space.

The town is in a very dry area of the UK, with nearby Maldon being the driest area in the country.^{[citation needed]} In 2006 the entire South East of England was affected by drought, with Harlow covered by a water restriction order, preventing unnecessary use of water. The area is generally much milder than most other parts of the UK.

The summer of 2006 also saw flash floods hit many parts of the town, causing major roads through the town to become temporarily impassable, and severe damage to many properties around the town. As a result, the council is reviewing its flood defences and drainage systems.^{[citation needed]}

People from Harlow[link]

For a full list, see Category:People from Harlow

Twin towns[link]

• Havířov, Czech Republic
• Stavanger, Norway
• Vélizy-Villacoublay, France
• Tingalpa, Australia

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Harlow

• Visit Harlow - a website from Harlow District Council

v t e Districts of the East of England Essex Basildon Braintree Brentwood Castle Point Chelmsford Colchester Epping Forest Harlow Maldon Rochford Southend-on-Sea Tendring Thurrock Uttlesford Hertfordshire Broxbourne Dacorum East Hertfordshire Hertsmere North Hertfordshire St Albans Stevenage Three Rivers Watford Welwyn Hatfield Bedfordshire Bedford Central Bedfordshire Luton Cambridgeshire Cambridge East Cambridgeshire Fenland Huntingdonshire Peterborough South Cambridgeshire Norfolk Breckland Broadland Great Yarmouth King's Lynn and West Norfolk North Norfolk Norwich South Norfolk Suffolk Babergh Forest Heath Ipswich Mid Suffolk St Edmundsbury Suffolk Coastal Waveney

Coordinates: 51°46′44″N 0°07′41″E / 51.779°N 0.128°E / 51.779; 0.128

Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which demonstrated the importance of care-giving and companionship in social and cognitive development. He conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow worked for a time with him.

Harlow's experiments were controversial; they included rearing infant macaques in isolation chambers for up to 24 months, from which they emerged severely disturbed.^[1] Some researchers cite the experiments as a factor in the rise of the animal liberation movement in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Biography[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010)

Born Harry Israel on October 31, 1905 to Mabel Rock and Alonzo Harlow Israel, Harlow grew up in Fairfield, Iowa, the second youngest of four brothers. After a year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Harlow obtained admission to Stanford University on a special aptitude test. After a semester as an English major with nearly disastrous grades, he declared himself as a psychology major.

Harlow studied largely under Lewis Terman, the developer of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test, who helped shape Harlow's future. After receiving a Ph.D. in 1930, Harlow changed his name from Israel to Harlow. The change was made at Terman's behest for fear of the negative consequences of having a seemingly Jewish last name - although the family was not Jewish.^[2]

Directly after completing his doctoral dissertation, Harlow accepted a professorship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Harlow was unsuccessful in persuading the Department of Psychology to provide him with adequate laboratory space. As a result, Harlow acquired a vacant building down the street from the University, and he and his graduate students renovated the building into what became the Primate Laboratory,^[3] one of the first of its kind in the world. Under Harlow's direction, it became a place of cutting-edge research at which some 40 students earned their Ph.D.s.

Harlow received numerous awards and honors, including the Howard Crosby Warren Medal (1956), the National Medal of Science (1967), and the Gold Medal from the American Psychological Foundation (1973). He served as head of the Human Resources Research branch of the Department of the Army from 1950–1952, head of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research Council from 1952–1955, consultant to the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, and president of the American Psychological Association from 1958-1959.

Harlow's personal life was complicated. He first married Clara Mears in 1932. One of the select children with an IQ above 150 whom Terman studied at Stanford, Clara was Harlow's student before becoming romantically involved with him. The couple had two children, Robert and Richard. Harlow and Mears divorced in 1946. That same year, Harlow married child psychologist Margaret Kuenne. The marriage produced another two children, Pamela and Jonathan. Margaret died in 1970 after a prolonged struggle with cancer. In 1971, Harlow remarried Clara Mears. The couple lived together in Tucson, Arizona until Harlow's death in 1981.

Monkey studies[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009)

In a well-known series of experiments conducted between 1957 and 1963 in his laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harlow removed baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers and arranged for them to be "raised" by two kinds of surrogate monkey mother machines, both equipped to dispense milk. One device was made out of bare mesh wire. The other was fashioned from wire and covered with soft terrycloth. He later modified the experiment by separating the infants into two groups, giving them no choice between the two types of mothers.

The studies were motivated by John Bowlby's World Health Organization-sponsored study and report, "Maternal Care and Mental Health" in 1950, in which Bowlby reviewed previous studies on the effects of institutionalization on child development such as René Spitz's^[4] and his own surveys on children raised in a variety of settings. In 1953, his colleague, James Robertson, produced a short and controversial documentary film titled A Two-Year-Old Goes to Hospital demonstrating the almost immediate effects of maternal separation. Bowlby's report, coupled with Robertson's film, demonstrated the importance of the primary caregiver in human and non-human primate development. Bowlby de-emphasized the mother's role in feeding as a basis for the development of a strong mother-child relationship. However, his conclusions generated much debate. It was the debate concerning the reasons behind the demonstrated need for maternal care that Harlow addressed in his studies with surrogates.

In Harlow's classic experiment, two groups of baby rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers. In the first group, a terrycloth mother provided no food, while a wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, a terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.

Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food. This response decreased as the monkeys grew older.

When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother, as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.

Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods, they were separated from their cloth mothers for three days. When they were reunited with their mothers, they clung to them and did not venture off to explore as they had in previous situations. Harlow concluded from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore.

The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow's interpretation of this behavior, which is still widely accepted, was that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful to the monkeys.

The importance of these findings is that they contradicted both the then common pedagogic advice of limiting or avoiding bodily contact in an attempt to avoid spoiling children and the insistence of the then dominant behaviorist school of psychology that emotions were negligible. Feeding was thought to be the most important factor in the formation of a mother-child bond. Harlow concluded, however, that nursing strengthened the mother-child bond because of the intimate body contact that it provided. He described his experiments as a study of love. He also believed that contact comfort could be provided by either mother or father. Though widely accepted now, this idea was revolutionary at the time.^{[citation needed]}

Critics of Harlow's research have observed that clinging is a matter of survival in young rhesus monkeys, but not in humans, and have suggested that his conclusions, when applied to humans, overestimate the importance of contact comfort and underestimate the importance of nursing.^[5]

Harlow first reported the results of these experiments in "The Nature of Love", the title of his address to the sixty-sixth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 31, 1958.

Partial and total isolation of infant monkeys[link]

From around 1960 onwards, Harlow and his students began publishing their observations on the effects of partial and total social isolation. Partial isolation involved raising monkeys in bare wire cages that allowed them to see, smell, and hear other monkeys, but provided no opportunity for physical contact. Total social isolation involved rearing monkeys in isolation chambers that precluded any and all contact with other monkeys.

Harlow et al. reported that partial isolation resulted in various abnormalities such as blank staring, stereotyped repetitive circling in their cages, and self-mutilation. These monkeys were then observed in various settings. For the study, some of the monkeys were kept in solitary isolation for 15 years.^[6]

In the total isolation experiments baby monkeys would be left alone for three, six, 12, or 24^[7][8] months of "total social deprivation." The experiments produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed. Harlow wrote:

No monkey has died during isolation. When initially removed from total social isolation, however, they usually go into a state of emotional shock, characterized by ... autistic self-clutching and rocking. One of six monkeys isolated for 3 months refused to eat after release and died 5 days later. The autopsy report attributed death to emotional anorexia. ... The effects of 6 months of total social isolation were so devastating and debilitating that we had assumed initially that 12 months of isolation would not produce any additional decrement. This assumption proved to be false; 12 months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially ...^[1]

Harlow tried to reintegrate the monkeys who had been isolated for six months by placing them with monkeys who had been reared normally.^[9][10] The rehabilitation attempts met with limited success. Harlow wrote that total social isolation for the first six months of life produced "severe deficits in virtually every aspect of social behavior."^[11] Isolates exposed to monkeys the same age who were reared normally "achieved only limited recovery of simple social responses."^[11] Some monkey mothers reared in isolation exhibited "acceptable maternal behavior when forced to accept infant contact over a period of months, but showed no further recovery."^[11] Isolates given to surrogate mothers developed "crude interactive patterns among themselves."^[11] Opposed to this, when six-month isolates were exposed to younger, three-month-old monkeys, they achieved "essentially complete social recovery for all situations tested."^[12] The findings were confirmed by other researchers, who found no difference between peer-therapy recipients and mother-reared infants, but found that artificial surrogates had very little effect.^[13]

Since Harlow's pioneering work in touch research in development, recent work in rats have found evidence that touch during infancy have resulted in a decrease in corticosteroid, a steroid hormone involved in stress, and an increase in glucocorticoid receptors in many regions of the brain.^[14] Schanberg and Field found that even short-term interruption of mother-pup interaction in rats markedly affected several biochemical processes in the developing pup: a reduction in ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity, a sensitive index of cell growth and differentiation; a reduction in growth hormone release (in all body organs, including the heart and liver and throughout the brain, including the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem); an increase in corticosterone secretion; and suppressed tissue ODC responsivity to administered growth hormone.^[15] Additionally, it has been found that these animals who were touch deprived had weakened immune systems. Investigators have measured a direct, positive relationship between the amount of contact and grooming an infant monkey receives during its first six months of life and its ability to produce antibody titer (IgG and IgM) in response to an antibody challenge (tetanus) at a little over one year of age.^[16] Trying to identify a mechanism for the "immunology of touch," some investigators point to modulations of arousal and associated CNS-hormonal activity. Touch deprivation may cause stress-induced activation of the pituitary-adrenal system, which, in turn, leads to increased plasma cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone. Likewise, researchers suggest, regular and "natural" stimulation of the skin may moderate these pituitary-adrenal responses in a positive and healthful way.^[17]

Pit of despair[link]

Harlow was well known for refusing to use conventional terminology, and instead chose deliberately outrageous terms for the experimental apparatus he devised. The tendency arose from an early conflict with the conventional psychological establishment in which Harlow used the term "love" in place of the popular and archaically correct term, "attachment." Such terms and respective devices included a forced-mating device he called the "rape rack," tormenting surrogate mother devices he called "Iron maidens," and an isolation chamber he called the "pit of despair" developed by him and a graduate student, Stephen Suomi, now director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Comparative Ethology Laboratory, at the National Institutes of Health.

In the latter of these devices, alternatively called the "well of despair," baby monkeys were left alone in darkness for up to one year from birth, or repetitively separated from their peers and isolated in the chamber. These procedures quickly produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed and declared to be valuable models of human depression.^[18]

Harlow tried to rehabilitate monkeys that had been subjected to varying degrees of isolation using various forms of therapy. "In our study of psychopathology, we began as sadists trying to produce abnormality. Today we are psychiatrists trying to achieve normality and equanimity." (p. 458)^[19]

Criticism[link]

While many of his experiments would be considered unethical today, their nature and Harlow's descriptions of them heightened awareness of the treatment of laboratory animals and thus paradoxically contributed somewhat to today's ethics regulations. Gene Sackett of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was one of Harlow's doctoral students, has stated that he believes the animal liberation movement in the U.S. was born as a result of Harlow's experiments.^[3]

Willam Mason, another of Harlow's students who continued deprivation experiments after leaving Wisconsin,^[20] has said that Harlow "kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive. It's as if he sat down and said, 'I'm only going to be around another ten years. What I'd like to do, then, is leave a great big mess behind.' If that was his aim, he did a perfect job."^[21]

Timeline[link]

Early papers[link]

• The effect of large cortical lesions on learned behavior in monkeys. Science. 1950.
• Retention of delayed responses and proficiency in oddity problems by monkeys with preoccipital ablations. Am J Psychol. 1951.
• Discrimination learning by normal and brain operated monkeys. J Genet Psychol. 1952.
• Incentive size, food deprivation, and food preference. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1953.
• Effect of cortical implantation of radioactive cobalt on learned behavior of rhesus monkeys. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1955.
• The effects of repeated doses of total-body x radiation on motivation and learning in rhesus monkeys. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1956.

Theatrical portrayal[link]

A theatrical play, The Harry Harlow Project, based on the life and work of Harlow, has been produced in Victoria and performed nationally in Australia.^[22]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Nature of Love (1958) - Harry Harlow, American Psychologist, 13, 573-685
• Harry Harlow: Monkey Love Experiments - Adoption History
• Harry Harlow - A Science Odyssey: People and Experiments
• Harlow et al. "Total social isolation in monkeys." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1965 July; 54(1): 90–97.
• Film footage of Harry Harlow - demonstrates his wire mother and cloth mother experiment
• "A History of Primate Experimentation at the University of Wisconsin, Madison".
• Blum, Deborah. Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Perseus Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0278-9
• Monkey love - article about Harlow's work in the Boston Globe

Jean Harlow
circa 1930
Born	Harlean Harlow Carpenter (1911-03-03)March 3, 1911 Kansas City, Missouri
Died	June 7, 1937(1937-06-07) (aged 26) Los Angeles, California
Cause of death	kidney failure
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1928-1937
Spouse	Charles McGrew (m.1927-1929; divorced) Paul Bern (m.1932; his death) Harold Rosson (m.1933-1934; divorced)

Jean Harlow (March 3, 1911 - June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s.^[1] Known as the "blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" (owing to her platinum blonde hair), Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute. Harlow starred in several films, mainly designed to showcase her magnetic sex appeal and strong screen presence, before making the transition to more developed roles and achieving massive fame under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Harlow's enormous popularity and "laughing vamp" image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, and ultimately her sudden death from renal failure at the age of 26.

Early life[link]

Harlow was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter^[2][3] in Kansas City, Missouri. The name is sometimes incorrectly spelled Carpentier,^[4] which came from later studio press releases in an attempt to sound more aristocratic, and the inaccuracy has been frequently repeated.^[2] Her father, Mont Clair Carpenter (1877–1974), was a dentist who came from a working-class background and attended dental college in Kansas City. Her mother, Jean Poe Carpenter (née Harlow), was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker, Skip Harlow, and his wife Ella Harlow (née Williams). The marriage was arranged by Skip Harlow in 1908 and Jean, an intelligent and strong-willed woman, was resentful and became very unhappy in the marriage. The couple lived in Kansas City in a house owned by Skip Harlow.^[5]

Harlean was nicknamed "The Baby", a name that would stick with her for the rest of her life. She did not learn that her name was actually Harlean and not "Baby" until the age of five, when she began to attend Miss Barstow's Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City.^[6] Harlean and Mother Jean, as she became known when Harlean became a film star, remained very close as the relationship eased Mother Jean's empty existence and unhappy marriage. "She was always all mine," she said of her daughter.^[7] Harlean's mother was extremely protective and coddling, instilling a sense that her daughter owed everything she had to her.

With her daughter at school, Mother Jean became increasingly frustrated and filed for divorce, which was finalized, uncontested, on September 29, 1922. She was granted sole custody of Harlean, who loved her father but would rarely see him for the rest of her life.^[8]

Mother Jean moved with Harlean to Hollywood in 1923 with hopes of becoming an actress. Harlean attended the Hollywood School for Girls and met some of Hollywood's future figures, including Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joel McCrea and Irene Mayer Selznick. Mother Jean's dream of stardom did not come true as she was too old, at age 34, to begin a film career in an era when major roles were usually assigned to teenage girls.^[9] Facing dwindling finances, the pair returned to Kansas City within two years after Skip Harlow issued the ultimatum that they return or he would disinherit her. Harlean dropped out of school in Hollywood in the spring of 1925.^[10] Several weeks later, Skip Harlow sent her to a summer camp called Camp Cha-Ton-Ka in Michigamme, Michigan, where Harlean became ill with scarlet fever. Mother Jean traveled to Michigan to care for Harlean, rowing herself across the lake to the camp when she was told that she could not see her daughter.^[11]

Marriage[link]

Harlean attended the Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy) in Lake Forest, Illinois. Mother Jean had ulterior motives for Harlean's attendance at the school, as it was close to the Chicago home of Mother Jean's beau, Marino Bello.^[12] Freshmen were paired with a "big sister" from the senior class and Harlean's big sister introduced her to Charles "Chuck" McGrew, heir to a large fortune, in the fall of 1926. And soon, the two began to date.^[13] On January 18, 1927, Mother Jean married Bello, although Harlean was not present.^[14]

Sixteen-year-old Harlean and twenty-year-old McGrew eloped on September 21, 1927. McGrew turned 21 two months after the marriage and received part of his large inheritance. The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1928, settling into a home in Beverly Hills, where Harlean thrived as a wealthy socialite. McGrew hoped to distance Harlean from her mother with the move. Neither McGrew nor Harlean worked, and both, especially McGrew, were thought to drink heavily.

Career beginnings[link]

In Los Angeles, Harlean befriended Rosalie Roy, a young aspiring actress. Lacking a car, Roy asked Harlean to drive her to Fox Studios for an appointment. It was there that Harlean was noticed by Fox executives sitting in the car waiting for her friend. Harlean was approached by the executives, but stated that she was not interested. She was given dictated letters of introduction to Central Casting. Recounting this story a few days later, Rosalie Roy made a wager with Harlean that she did not have the nerve to go back and audition for roles. Unwilling to lose a wager and pressed by her enthusiastic mother, Harlean drove to Central Casting and signed in under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow.^[15]

After several calls from Central Casting, who had called for "Miss Harlow", and a number of rejected job offers, Harlean was pressured by her mother, now relocated to Los Angeles, into accepting work. Harlow then appeared in her first film, Honor Bound, as an unbilled extra for $7 a day.^[16] This led to bit parts in silent films such as Moran of the Marines (1928), Chasing Husbands, Why Is a Plumber? (1927) and Unkissed Man. In December 1928, she signed a five-year contract with Hal Roach Studios for $100 per week.^[17] She had more substantial roles in Laurel and Hardy's short Double Whoopee, and appeared in two other films alongside the double act. In March 1929, however, she parted with Roach, who tore up her contract after Harlow told him, "It's breaking up my marriage; what can I do?"^[18] In June 1929, Harlow separated from her husband and moved-in with her mother and Bello.^[18]

After her separation, Harlow worked as extra in several movies, and was cast as an extra in The Love Parade (1929), followed by small roles in This Thing Called Love and The Saturday Night Kid (1929), a Clara Bow movie. Her next extra work was in Weak But Willing (1929). During filming of Weak But Willing in 1929, she was spotted by James Hall, an actor filming a Howard Hughes film called Hell's Angels. Hughes, re-shooting the film from silent into sound, needed a new actress because the original actress, Greta Nissen, had a Norwegian accent that proved undesirable for a talkie. Harlow made a test and got the part.^[19]

Hughes signed Harlow to a five-year, $100 per week contract on October 24, 1929. Hell's Angels premiered in Hollywood on May 27, 1930 at Grauman's Chinese Theater. During the shooting, Harlow met MGM executive Paul Bern. The movie made Harlow an international star and a sensation with audiences, but critics were less than enthusiastic.^[20] Variety was a bit more charitable in remarking, "It doesn't matter what degree of talent she possesses ... nobody ever starved possessing what she's got."^[20] The New Yorker called Harlow "plain awful." She was again an uncredited extra, in the 1931 Chaplin film City Lights.^{[citation needed]}