James (William) is born in New York City.

The son of Henry and Mary (Walsh) James and brother of Henry James, William James is educated privately, mostly in Europe, arrives in Boston in May of 1864, lives with his family, initially at 13 Ashburton Place and then in Cambridge, studies at the Lawrence Scientific School and graduates from Harvard Medical School. He goes on to teach physiology, psychology, and philosophy at Harvard (1872-1907) and become the country’s first and foremost psychologist. James dies in Chocura, N.H., on August 26, 1910, and is buried in the Cambridge Cemetery.