John Ripley Freeman

John Ripley Freeman
Born	July 27, 1855 West Bridgton, Maine
Died	October 6, 1932 (aged 77) Providence, Rhode Island
Residence	United States
Citizenship	American
Fields	Fire protection engineering Civil engineering Hydraulic engineering Aeronautics
Institutions	National Academy of Sciences National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics National Research Council National Bureau of Standards
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Notable awards	John Fritz Medal (1934) Posthumous J. James R. Croes Medal (1931) ASME Medal (1923) Norman Medal (1890, 1891)
Spouse	Elizabeth Farwell née Clark
Chairman of the NACA
In office 1918–1919
President	Woodrow Wilson
Preceded by	William F. Durand
Succeeded by	Charles Doolittle Walcott

John Ripley Freeman (1855–1932) was an American civil and hydraulic engineer. Freeman was born in West Bridgton, Maine and received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1876. He is noted for his efforts to design and build the Charles River Dam, advising the government on dam and lock foundations for the Panama Canal, and influencing the design of MIT's new campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was also the founder and president of Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He was a member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics during World War I, and served as chairman from 1918–1919.

Freeman was the design engineer for several water projects, including the Lake Spaulding Dam, the Holter Dam, the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct, the Charles River Dam, the Keokuk Dam, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the Panama Canal).^[1][2]

Degrees and Honors

• Bachelor of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, Boston, Mass., June, 1876.
• Elected Honorary Member Phi Beta Kappa at Brown University, 1901.
• Doctor of Science, Brown University, 1904.
• Doctor of Science, Tufts College, 1905.
• Member National Academy of Sciences, 1918
• Doktor Ingenieur, Ehrenhalber, der Sachsischen Technischen Hochschule, Dresden, Germany, June, 1925
• Honorary Member, Marsaryk Academy of Works, Czecho-Slovakia, 1926.
• Doctor of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 1927
• Ehrenbürger (Honorary Member) der Badischen Technischen Hochschule, Karlsruhe, Germany, January, 1929
• Doctor of Science, Yale University, 1931
• Mitglied des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats des Forschungs-Institutes in München und Walchcnsee, Bavaria, Germany, January, 1931.
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

References

1. Mount, Sci-Tech Archives and Manuscript Collections, 1989, p. 49; Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West, 2005, p. 285, fn. 33.
2. "Biographical Memoir of John Ripley Freeman, 1855–1932" (PDF). National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved November 15, 2014.

• Jarzombek, Mark (2004), Designing MIT: Bosworth's New Tech, Boston: Northeastern University Press
• "Freeman, John Ripley (1855-1932). Papers, 1827-1955.". Archived from the original on 2007-04-05. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
• "Theodore Roosevelt's Letter to J.P. Freeman". Retrieved 2007-04-11.

External links

• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
• Freeman's study of 1903 Chicago Iroquois Theatre fire.
• John R. Freeman Fund of the Boston Society of Civil Engineering