ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the start of William James’s lifelong connection with Harvard University. In 1858, the James family returned to the US after one of their European sojourns, but Henry Sr. would refused to reside New York City, and re-settled his family in Newport, Rhode Island. Soon after, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and the Civil War began, but neither William James nor his closest brother, Henry James Jr., enlisted in the military. Instead, in 1861, William took up the study of science at Harvard. Important historical differences between New York, where William was raised, and Boston, where he would spend most of the rest of his life, are explored. When the military draft went into effect in 1863, William’s father’s purchased an exemption for him. By contrast, the two youngest James brothers, Wilky and Bob, enlisted. Wilky was seriously wounded in the war. William entered medical school and, in 1865, joined a naturalist expedition to Brazil led by the famed anatomist Louis Agassiz. Soon after William returned home, in 1866, he entered a period of intense emotional turmoil. He traveled to Europe for relief, but found little solace there. On his return, he completed his medical degree, but continued to suffer great mental distress.
