1) 95 Irving Street - William James House
The house at 95 Irving Street was built in 1889 for William
James and designed by architect William Ralph Emerson in
conjunction with James, who lived there with his family from
1889 to his death in 1910.
This tour was written by Natalie Moravek. It was produced by the Cambridge Historical Society.
William James lived in Cambridge for more than fifty years, but
it is this home on Irving Street that was most special. Letters
to friends and family are full of praise for the house, especially
its grand library-study--which is 22 feet wide and 27 feet long
with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and has been preserved, along
with the principle rooms of the first and second floor, through
recent renovations.
William James’
Cambridge
2) 103 Irving Street - Josiah Royce House
Just like the James home, the Royce home was built in 1889.
For nearly 30 years, Josiah Royce and William James were
colleagues in the same department of philosophy at Harvard.
During most of that time, they lived as neighbors where, on
returning from class, they often entered into lengthy and sometimes heated philosophical discussions. Royce and James had
always disagreed deeply concerning the proper understanding
of religious phenomena in human life. Their friendly longstanding dispute was known as the Battle for the Absolute.
Note: The property was later home to Julia Child and her
taped cooking shows. Child sold the house and spent her last
years in California, but in 2001 the kitchen in its entirety was
removed and sent to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of
American History.
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3) 107 Irving Street - Eliza Gibbens’ House
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As the story goes, Henry Sr. returned home from a Boston
Radical club meeting one night in 1876 to announce that he
had caught a glimpse of the woman who was to be William’s
wife, a Boston school teacher. Her name was Alice Howe
Gibbens (1849-1922) and this was the home of her widowed
mother, Eliza Gibbens. William’s wife Alice Howe Gibbens
James is much attributed with creating emotional stability in
the James family, for not only William, but also for Henry.
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4) American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Address____________________________
During the American Revolution, charter members including John Adams and John Hancock founded the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences to provide a forum for scholars
and all those working on behalf of democratic interests of
the republic. During the 19th century, the elected membership
included Daniel Webster, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louis
Agassiz, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alexander Graham Bell, and
William James, who was inducted in 1875. James’s eldest son
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Henry, a writer, was inducted in 1931, followed the next year by
another son William, a painter.
5) William James Hall
Designed in 1963 by Minoru Yamasaki, famous for his design of
the World Trade Center, William James Hall houses the Department of Psychology, which William James was instrumental in
establishing. The 15th floor has a William James conference room,
in which hang portraits of the professor and his father and grandfather.
he was not seasick, homesick, and sick with smallpox, James, a
trained painter under William Morris Hunt, longed to paint the
scenery and returned fluent in Portuguese.
students to write out criticisms of the course and make suggestions
for improvements, and is thought to be the first college teacher in
America to do so.
8) Memorial Hall
11) 20 Quincy Street
Erected in honor of Harvard students who fought for the Union
in the Civil War, fundraising for Memorial Hall began in 1865 and
raised a sum of 1/12 of the University endowment.
In 1866 the James family moved into a house here at 20 Quincy
Street. The house was demolished in 1930 to make way for the
Harvard Faculty Club. Here William’s parents would live for almost
the remainder of their lives, and William himself for the next
decade. Living in this house placed the James near the people who
would soon become some of the closest family associates. Half
a block away the Agassiz family built a three-story home. A few
blocks further lived Charles Eliot Norton. Charles Peirce, Oliver
Wendell Holmes Jr., and Chauncey Wright were frequent visitors,
as their philosophical discussions with William at the house turned
into the Metaphysical Club, a club that was never mentioned by any
member other than Peirce, but became the subject of a PulitzerPrize-winning book by Louis Menand.
In 1875 James taught one of the university’s first courses in psychology, “The Relations between Physiology and Psychology.” He
joked that “the first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the
first I ever gave.” James also established the first U.S. experimental
psychology laboratory, and oversaw Harvard’s first doctorate in
psychology, earned by G. Stanley Hall in 1878. In 1890 James published his highly influential, two-volume synthesis and summary of
psychology, Principles of Psychology. The books were widely read
in North America and Europe, gaining attention and praise from
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in Vienna
William’s younger brother Garth Wilkinson “Wilky” was the most
committed abolitionist of the James family and served in Col.
Robert Gould Shaw’s 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first of
two racially integrated in the state and the first black regiment
recruited in any free state. During the futile assault on Fort Wagner,
Wilky saw Shaw killed, and was himself shot in the side and foot.
In 1897, William gave the oration at the dedication of the monument to Col. Shaw that stands at the edge of the Boston Common.
Robertson “Bob” James also enlisted for the Civil War, in the 55th
Massachusetts Regiment, the second of the two integrated regiments formed in the state. However he did not distinguish himself
in battle as his brother did.
6) Swedenborg Chapel
9) Sever Hall
Though this chapel, constructed in 1901, went up after Henry
James Sr.’s death, and there is no clear record of the James as part
of this congregation, it is important to note the influence of Swedenborg on Henry Sr. and subsequently William.
Sever Hall, built from 1878-1880, was designed by famed American
architect H.H. Richardson. James sometimes taught in this building, and his graduate student Dickinson S. Miller remembers a class
with James in one of the tower rooms of the hall.
In 1844, while living in England, Henry James Sr. was sitting
alone one evening when he had the defining spiritual experience
of his life, which he would come to interpret as a Swedenborgian
“vastation,” a stage in the process of spiritual regeneration. James’s
“vastation” initiated a spiritual crisis that lasted two years, and was
finally resolved through exploring the work of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist turned mystic. William
neither adopted his father’s spirituality nor did he regard it as a
foil to his own secularity. However, William did promise his father
that one day he would deal with religion, and his The Varieties of
Religious Experience provided a wide-ranging account of religious
experiences, including his father’s mysticism, interpreted according
to his pragmatic leanings.
Indeed, James did not look or talk or think like a professor. His
restless energy and desire to explore, examine and experiment
stood in contrast to other contemporaries. His unorthodox methods are also exemplified in the infamous story of Gertrude Stein’s
final examination. After reading the questions, Stein wrote in her
examination book: “Dear Professor James, I am so sorry but really
I do not feel like an examination paper in philosophy today.” Then
she left the classroom. Next day she received the reply: “Dear Miss
Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel. I often feel like that
myself.” Then he gave her the highest mark of the class.
7) Museum of Comparative Zoology
The Museum of Comparative Zoology was founded in 1859
primarily through the efforts of Professor Louis Agassiz, a lecturer
and scholar from Switzerland who had made his reputation with a
book on Brazilian fish. In 1865, William James accompanied Agassiz on an Amazonian expedition. This museum houses material
collected by Agassiz and James on their trip.
Though James ultimately looked back on his time in the Amazon
fondly, he soon discovered that collecting was not his forte. When
10) Emerson Hall
James resigned his Harvard professorship just before his 65th
birthday in 1907. He gave his last lecture here, at Emerson Hall,
on January 22. His wife Alice and several colleagues were in attendance as he ended his lecture to ovation. His graduate students
presented him with a silver-mounted inkwell and his undergrads
gave a loving cup.
William James was a favorite of many students. He was one of
the few professors of the period who permitted students to ask
questions. More than that, they could stop him on campus or walk
home with him to Irving Street discussing or arguing statements
he had made in class. At the end of the term he would even ask
12) Houghton Library
The Houghton Library is home to the William James papers. The
collection, a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry James III, includes personal and professional correspondence of William James, including
over 1300 letters to his wife Alice which were originally legally
sealed to the public until the year 2023 by their son Henry, but have
since been released by later executors removing the restrictions.
There are also over 400 letters to his brother Henry, manuscripts,
drafts, and notes on psychology, philosophy, and religion, diaries,
1865-1910 (with gaps), notes James took as a student, and James’s
Brazilian diary and sketch book.
13) Linden Street Boarding House
In 1861 William enrolled in the Lawrence Scientific School which
was then only loosely associated with Harvard. Since he was not
enrolled in the college, he did not participate in undergraduate
social life or room in the Yard. Instead he rented rooms in this
building from Mr. and Mrs. John Pasco. He found the rooms he
stayed in uncomfortable and was homesick for his family then in
Newport.
14) Site of Appleton Chapel, where James’ memorial service took place
William James died of heart disease at his family’s summer home in
New Hampshire on August 26, 1910. Of the autopsy, Alice wrote
in her journal “acute enlargement of the heart. He had worn himself out.” After a private memorial at Irving Street, his funeral was
held on August 30 at Appleton Chapel which used to stand here.
Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell served as one of the
pall bearers. William James was cremated at Mt. Auburn Cemetery
and buried in the James family plot in Cambridge Cemetery.