William James (psychologist) correspondence

Abstract: Primarily consists of originals and copies of handwritten letters, postcards, and one manuscript written by James. Correspondents include cousin Anne Edwards, Professor W. Lutoslawski, Susan Goldmark, Thomas Sergeant Perry, Guy Waring, and others. Topics include James' writing, his health, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (James and his family were at Stanford University when it happened), lecturing and travel, care of the insane, the change in Harvard University's presidency in 1910, and other topics. Also included is a letter from Alice James, William's wife, to Guy Waring after William's death; Karl Menninger's reading notes from James' San Francisco earthquake manuscript; and a 1970 article on James' life.

Biog. Sketch (Full): William James was born on 11 January, 1842 in New York City to Mary and Henry James, Sr. The eldest of five children, William's siblings included novelist Henry James and diarist Alice James, as well as brothers Garth Wilkinson and Robertson.

The James family traveled a great deal between the east coast of the United States and Europe, and the children were exposed to great thinkers, writers, and philosophers of the 19th century through the connections their father had made. William gained fluency in numerous languages and at an early age discovered a love of drawing. He briefly considered a career in painting but decided he did not have enough talent for it. He then attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University, eventually switching to the medical school.

He interrupted his studies on more than one occasion, to join two different natural history expeditions with Louis Agassiz in the Amazon and in Brazil. He also spent some time in Europe again, and only received his medical degree from Harvard at the age of 27. He had no interest in practicing medicine, though, studying psychology and struggling with depression.

At the age of 30, a former instructor, Harvard president Charles Eliot, offered William a teaching post at the university. A few years later in 1875 James started teaching psychology courses, the first such professor to do so in the United States. In 1878 he married Alice Howe Gibbens, with whom he had five children.

In 1890 William James published the two-volume Principles of Psychology, a work much heralded at the time. Thereafter he began giving lectures to teachers about psychology and how they could use psychology in their teaching. He served as president of both the American Philosophical Association and the American Psychological Association, as well as being a founding member of the American Society for Psychical Research. A functionalist and pragmatist, William was concerned with the usefulness of ideas (rather than their "truthfulness") and a holistic approach to events and environment, rather than breaking mental events down into their smallest elements. Throughout his life he was interested in both faith and science.

William James continued lecturing, writing, and traveling. The exertion from hiking in the Adirondacks in 1898 damaged his heart. This continued to trouble him, and finally on 26 August 1910, at the age of 68, William James died.