Special Collections
Milton S. Eisenhower Library
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
410-516-8348

Ames (Joseph Sweetman) 1864-1943
Papers (1888-1968)
Ms. 61

Size:          1 document box
               (.5 linear feet)

Processed:     Cynthia H. Requardt
By:            June 1989

Provenance:    The papers were donated at various times.

Access:        Access to this collection is unrestricted.

Permission:    Permission to publish material from this
               collection must be requested in writing
               from the Manuscripts Librarian at the
               address above.

Citation:      Joseph Sweetman Ames Papers Ms. 61
               Special Collections
               Milton S. Eisenhower Library
               The Johns Hopkins University

                   Joseph Sweetman Ames Papers
                             Ms. 61

Provenance

     The materials in this collection have been collected from
various sources. Most of the letters were transferred from the
University's Alumni Records Office in 1972. The letter from
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1939) was donated by Hans Mark of the Ames
Research Center in 1971.  The volume of notes Ames took in
Rowland's course on light in 1888 were given by Ames to a student
J. Kaplan who donated them to the University in 1972. Apparently
upon his retirement Ames gave some of his library to some of his
favorite students.  The copies of Ames's lectures were donated by
another former student Richard T. Cox in 1968. The reprint of
Ames's "Certain Aspects of Henry's Experiments on Electromagnetic
Induction" was donated by Dr. R.E. Gibson in 1977.

Biographical Sketch
    
     Joseph Sweetman Ames was born July 3, 1864 in Manchester,
Vermont the only child of George L. and Elizabeth L. Bacon Ames.
Ames attended the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minnesota from
1872 until 1883.  Ames took his B.A. from The Johns Hopkins
University in 1886 after which he studied in Helmholtz's
laboratory at the University of Berlin.

       Ames returned to Hopkins in 1887 to do work in
spectroscopy and took his Ph. D. in 1890.  During this period
(1888-1891) Ames held an assistantship in Henry A. Rowland's
laboratory.  Upon Rowland's death in 1901, Ames became Director
of the Physical Laboratory.  Ames became an associate professor
at Hopkins in 1891 rising to full professor in 1899.  He taught
until becoming provost of the University in 1926 and president
from 1929 to 1935.

     Although most of his time was taken up with teaching and
administration at The Johns Hopkins University, Ames was a long-
time member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
One of the original members from the Committee's creation in
1915, Ames served as chairman of either the executive committee
or the full committee from 1919 until his retirement in 1939.

     In 1899 Ames married Mrs. Mary B. Harrison.  Ames died in
1943.

     For a more detailed analysis of Ames's career and his
complete bibliography see Crew, Henry, "Biographical Memoir of
Joseph Sweetman Ames, 1864-1943."    National Academy of Sciences
Biographical Memoirs 23 (1944): 181-201.. A copy is filed with
the biographical material in this collection.
Scope and Content Note

     The material in this collection deals largely with Ames's
work at The Johns Hopkins University. There is only one item from
his student days the notebook of notes he took while attending
Henry A. Rowland's lectures on light in 1888.  The letters in
this collection are ones recommending Ames for various positions
at Hopkins.  There is Franklin D. Roosevelt's letter (1939)
accepting Ames's resignation from the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics.

     The 17 speeches (1931-35) in this collection are ones given
by Ames as President of Hopkins. Most were given on commencement
or Commemoration Day. Other speeches were ones to the P.L. Club
on "The Fringes of Science,"  the American Bible Society, and the
Maryland State Normal School and speeches on the re-opening of
Homewood House and on Dr. John H. Latan‚.

     The largest part of the collection is copies of class
lectures Ames delivered in the Physics Department at Hopkins.
According to a former student, Ames did not allow note-taking in
his classes.  He wrote out all of his lectures and reproduced
them for his students.  Included in this series are 5 sets of
Ames's lecture notes.  They date from 1918 to 1923 near the end
of Ames's teaching career.  These lectures were not published,
but the ones on Theoretical Mechanics are part of the text by the
same name which Ames published with Francis D. Murnaghan in 1929.

     Three of the lectures, the ones on thermodynamics, mechanics
and electricity, are from a three-year sequence which Dr. Ames
gave as a course in theoretical physics to graduate students.
These lectures along with Ames's two works Textbook of General
Physics (1904) and A Manual of Experiments in Physics (1896)
which he wrote with Hopkins colleague W.J.A. Bliss and R.W.
Wood's Physical Optics give a good view of the Hopkins physics
curriculum between 1915 and 1925.

     The lecture notes on relativity are the typescript of the
original. They are from a course Ames gave once or twice.  They
are interesting as constituting one of the first courses on
relativity given in the U.S.
    
     The fifth set of lecture notes are from lectures Ames
delivered at the Bureau of Standards in 1918-1919.

     There are 7 photographs of Ames in this collection. Two are
formal portraits, one shows Ames working at his desk and one is
of him after receiving an honorary degree from the University of
Pennsylvania. There is also a photograph taken in 1917 of Ames
and General William Mitchell taken in front of an airplane in
France. An undated photograph shows Ames seated around a
conference table with Hopkins colleagues  William H. Howell,
William Bullock Clark, William H. Welch, Basil L. Gildersleeve,
and Edward H. Griffin.
     Related Collections

     Ames's genealogical research files were donated to the
Maryland Historical Society.                              Ms. 61
                         Container List

Box 1     1937-1968 biographical material
          1888-1939 correspondence

          1917-33 photographs

          1931-35 speeches

          [1918-23] course lecture notes
               Relativity
               [Electricity]
                    electrostatics
                    electrokinetics
                    electrodynamics
                    notes on vector analysis

               Theoretical Mechanics
               [Thermodynamics]

               "Notes on Lectures Delivered at the Bureau
               of Standards by Prof. Joseph S. Ames"

          1890-1937 Ames reprints

          1888 notes on H.A. Rowland's lectures on light

                             Ms. 61
                              Index

Ames, Joseph Sweetman 1-3

Clark, William Bullock 2
Cox, Richard T. 1

educators 1,2
electricity--study and teaching 2

Gildersleeve, Basil L. 2
Griffin, Edward H. 2

Helmholtz, Hermann 1
Howell, William H. 2

Johns Hopkins University. Dept. of Physics 1,2
Johns Hopkins University. Physical Laboratory 1

Latan‚, John H. 2
light--study and teaching 2

Mitchell, William 2
Murnaghan, Francis D. 2

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 1,2

physicists 1,2
physics--study and teaching 1,2

relativity--study and teaching 2
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 2
Rowland, Henry A. 1,2

spectroscopy 1

theoretical mechanics--study and teaching 2
thermodymanics--study and teaching 2

Welch, William H. 2