John Franklin Jameson (1859-1937)

John Franklin Jameson - A significant American historian, Professor at Johns Hopkins and Brown Universities, then later, head of the History Department at the University of Chicago. As chairman of the committee of management of the Dictionary of American Biography, he was largely responsible for the inauguration and completion of that monumental work. He was director (1905-28) of the department of historical research of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., and from 1928 to his death he was chief of the division of manuscripts in the Library of Congress and is often credited as the 'father' of what is now the United States National Archives. In these and other undertakings, Jameson exercised much influence in American historical scholarship. He wrote The History of Historical Writing in America (1891) and The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (1926) and edited Correspondence of John C. Calhoun (1900, repr. 1969). There is a residence hall (dorm) "Jameson House" named after him at Brown University, in Providence, RI. [1]

J. Franklin was born September 19, 1865 in Summerville, Massachusetts, just north of Boston and adjacent to Cambridge. He was the second child and eldest son of John and Marietta (Thompson) Jameson, a teacher and school master of the Boylston School, in Boston, Massachusetts, then later a Lawyer in Boston. He prepared for college at Roxbury Latin School, entered Harvard College in 1874, with honors in the classics and mathematics; remained out a year; entered Amherst College in 1875, a graduated in 1879. He taught a year; studied at Johns Hopkins University two years, then was an instructor in that institution for six years 1882-1888. He was elected to the professorship of History in Brown University, R. I., in 18S8, which position he still held, 1900, when he received and accepted a call to become a " Professor in the University of Chicago and Head of the Department of History."

Professor Jameson was the managing editor of The American Historical Review since its establishment in 1895. He is the chairman of the American Historical Manuscript Commission, under the auspices of the American Historical Association, whose reports are published by the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C. In 1896 he was invited by the Venezuelan Boundary Commission to visit Washington for prolonged research and historical study along the lines of their investigations. He received from Amherst College. June 29, 1898, the degree of LL. D. He has edited and published a valuable Dictionary of United States History, which has been highly commended.[2] As director of the historical research department at the Carnegie Institution, he worked tirelessly for the establishment of a National Archives building, which was completed just three years before his death. He subsequently served as chief of the manuscripts division at the Library of Congress from 1928 to 1937.[3]

Professor Jameson married Sarah Elizabeth Ewell, April 13, 1893, in Grace Church, Grace court, Brooklyn, N. Y. She was the daughter of John and Catherine (Dyryea) Ewell. They had two children, Katherine and Francis. John Franklin Jameson died September 28, 1937 and Sarah Jameson February 25, 1943. They are both buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Y-DNA test, associated with this family,[a] #: 201202 (cd)