Karl A. Menninger was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1883, the youngest of three children of a German-American Methodist minister. He graduated from Topeka High School in 1901, and in 1904 entered the University of Kansas, where he worked on the school newspaper, The Kansan. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1907, Menninger pursued graduate studies at the State University of Iowa, where he received an M.D
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degree in 1910. He practiced medicine for two years in Topeka before moving to New York City to work as an assistant physician at Bellevue Hospital. He became a professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1914 and later moved to Philadelphia.
In 1923, Menninger opened his own psychiatric clinic at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, which quickly became known as one of the world's most prestigious mental health institutions.