Sociologist and educator Helen Merrell Lynd (1896-1982) was a coauthor of the classic sociological study "Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture". With her husband, Robert S. Lynd, she studied the beliefs and practices of the residents of a small industrial town to provide a unique portrait of American life in the 1920s. They returned to the town during the Great Depression of the 1930s to observe changes in the community, a study which was published as "Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts".

Helen Merrell Lynd, with her husband, Robert S. Lynd, coauthored the classic sociological work Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture. A study of the lives of the citizens of an average American town in the 1920s, the book became a best-seller and a standard text for sociology students. The Lynds followed up on Middletown residents in the 1930s, producing the volume Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts. In addition to these collaborative works with her husband, Lynd also had a successful independent career in academia. A longtime member of the staff of Sarah Lawrence College, she wrote a number of books on education, history, philosophy, and sociology.