APA was founded in July 1892, at Clark University. Its first president was G. Stanley Hall and it began with 31 members. After World War II, it expanded and grew quickly. Today, APA is the world's largest association of psychologists, with 54 divisions and nearly 130,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members.

Joseph “Joe” McVicker Hunt joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois in 1951. Hunt was already a productive contributor to American psychology by this time, but the years at Illinois were the peak years of his intellectual and professional life. Just one year after arriving at Illinois, he served as APA president and by the end of his first decade there had authored one of the most important volumes on child development, “Intelligence and Experience” (1961).