Charles Frederick Menninger was born on July 11, 1862 in Tell City, Indiana. He was the son ofAugust Valentin Menninger, a Catholic immigrant from Germany who owned and operated a sawmill, and Katharine Schmidberger Menninger, who was of German Lutheran background. German was, therefore, his first language.
Menninger attended Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana, from 1879 to 1882 and at the age of twenty was valedictorian of his class. Because of his own poor health, he became interested in the manifestations of health and disease and decided to study medicine. Unaware of the difference between homeopathic and allopathic medicine, in 1887 he entered Hahnemann Medical School in Chicago, from which he received a degree in homeopathic medicine then less highly regarded than an M. D. degree two years later. He became aware of the limitations of his medical education immediately thereafter, and in 1908, after he had long been successfully engaged in the practice of general medicine, Menninger took the M. D. degree at the University of Kansas Medical School.
Following his graduation from the Central Normal College, Menninger accepted a teaching position at Campbell College in Holten, Kansas, where he taught German, zoology, botany, mineralogy, and physics, all subjects that continued to interest him throughout his life. Following his marriage, Menninger continued to teach at Campbell College and also assisted his wife in operating a boardinghouse. In 1908, he traveled to Rochester, Minnesota, to inspect the Mayo Clinic, which was to serve him and his physician sons as a model for the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans. Although the Menninger Clinic is generally associated with the practice of psychiatry, Menninger himself devoted most of his medical life to the practice of internal medicine with a special interest and competence in the treatment of diabetes. The specialization in psychiatry of the Menninger Clinic occurred only after two of his sons, Karl A. and William C. Menninger, had become physicians and had both decided to become psychiatrists. Each subsequently made a brilliant career, and the Menninger Clinic became one of the foremost psychiatric research and training centers in the United States. Menninger's collaboration with his sons remained successful and harmonious. After World War II, the clinic was transformed into the nonprofit Menninger Foundation and Menninger became chairman of the board of trustees.
Menninger is known as a co-founded the Menninger Foundation. The Charles Frederick Menninger Award is given by the American Psychoanalytic Association for original research in psycho-analysis. Menninger is honored together with William W. Mayo and their sons with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on March 6.
Although brought up a Roman Catholic, Menninger joined the Presbyterian church when he married one of his students.
Charles married Flora VestaKnisely, in 1885. They had three sons. Flora Menninger died in 1945, and in 1948 Menninger married Pearl May Boam, who had been both his and his wife's aide and companion. She survived him when he died in Topeka.
21 November 1826 - 28 February 1904
1 December 1828 - 2 March 1902
14 March 1865 - 22 September 1865
1860 - 1953
19 June 1869 - 11 April 1928
1855 - 1924
28 January 1851 - 8 March 1881
7 November 1858 - 29 January 1884
19 June 1869 - 6 March 1903
23 June 1853 - 4 March 1952
1887 - 3 June 1969
23 April 1863 - 9 February 1945
October 15, 1899 – September 6, 1966 Was a co-founder with his brother Karl and his father of The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, which is an internationally known center for treatment of behavioral disorders.
18 March 1896 - 17 February 1995
July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990 Was an American psychiatrist and a member of the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
