David Ames Wells

David Ames Wells 1828-98, American economist, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Williams, 1847, and Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Mass., 1851. Early in life he wrote several popular books on science. In 1864 his pamphlet Our Burden and Our Strength, dealing with the financial problems of the Civil War, attracted considerable attention. While serving as special commissioner of the U.S. Revenue Commission he wrote a series of reports (1866-69) concerned particularly with indirect taxes. He favored free trade and opposed the federal income tax. He wrote many books and pamphlets, including Robinson Crusoe's Money (1876), Our Merchant Marine (1882), and The Theory and Practice of Taxation (1900).

Bibliography: See study by F. B. Joyner (1939).

Ames, Winthrop (1870–1937), producer, manager, and director. The scion of a wealthy New England family, he was born in North Easton, Massachusetts, and studied art and architecture at Harvard before turning to the theatre. Ames leased Boston's famous Castle Square Theatre in 1904, and for several seasons ran a stock company that changed bills weekly. After a protracted tour of European playhouses, he returned to America and was appointed manager of the ambitious New Theatre in New York, where he mounted a series of notable productions, mostly of the classics. For a number of reasons, the theatre was a failure, so Ames built two more centrally located and smaller houses, the Little Theatre in 1912 and the Booth in 1913. Among his most memorable productions were The Affairs of Anatol (1912), The Pigeon (1912), Prunella (1913), A Pair of Silk Stockings (1914), Pierrot the Prodigal (1916), The Green Goddess (1921), Will Shakespeare (1923), Beggar on Horseback (1924), Minick (1924), Old English (1924), White Wings (1926), and Escape (1927). During the 1920s, when Gilbert and Sullivan's popularity had waned, he rekindled interest with gorgeously mounted revivals of Iolanthe, The Mikado, and The Pirates of Penzance. Ames directed a number of the plays he produced and was considered by many critics to be a leading director of his day. A dignified, reticent man, he was in his demeanor and other respects remarkably different from most of his contemporary rivals. Ames retired in 1932; and when he died penniless, it was discovered that he had given not merely his time, his talent, and his love to the theatre, but his great fortune as well.