Sims
Sims names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Sims WILLIAM SOWDEN, an American naval officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM SOWDEN, an American naval officer; born at Port Hope, Canada, in 1858. He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy from Pennsylvania. Graduated in 1880, he ADMIRAL WILLIAM S. SIMS was promoted through the various grades to the rank of commander in 1907, of captain in 1911, of rear-admiral in January, 1917, and of vice-admiral in May, 1917. His various assignments included service with the North Atlantic Station (1880-1882 and 1885-1887); on the "Colo- 1882); at the New York Navy rado" ( Yard (1883-1885); on the nautical schoolship "Saratoga" (1889-1893); on the "Philadelphia," Pacific Station (1893- 1894); on the "Charleston," China Station tion (1894-1896); naval attaché of American embassies at Paris and Petrograd (1897-1900); various assignments with the Asiatic Fleet (1900-1902); inspector guilt and its penalty death pass to all of target practice, Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department (1902-1909); naval aide to the President (1907-1909); commanding officer of the "Minnesota" (1909-1911); Naval War College, Newport, R. I. (1911-1913); commanding officer of the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla (1913-15); commanding officer of the "Nevada" (1915-1917). During the World War he was in command of the naval operations of the United States in European waters. In 1920 he made an extensive report to the United States Senate sub-committee on Naval Affairs, alleging that grave errors had been committed by the United States Naval Board in connection with the management of the United States Naval operations during the World War. This report resulted in an extensive controversy between Admiral Sims and Secretary of the Navy Daniels. In 1919 Admiral Sims declined the D. S. M. which had been awarded to him. He received the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and held honorary degrees from Yale and Harvard universities and from Tufts and Juniata colleges.
Sims JAMES MARION, an American surgeon
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JAMES MARION, an American surgeon; born in Lancaster, S. C., Jan. 25, 1813; studied medicine at Charleston and Philadelphia, and having drawn to some of the special diseases of women, for which he gained a distinguished name, introducing new instruments and operations. He was instrumental in getting a woman's hospital established in New York; subsequently practiced for some years in Europe; and had charge of a large hospital at Sedan after the disaster to the French there in 1870. He died in New York City, Nov. 13, 1883.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921, William Sowden Sims was still a serving vice-admiral in the middle of his public quarrel with Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels; that same year his account of the war, "The Victory at Sea," written with Burton J. Hendrick, won the Pulitzer Prize for history. He retired in 1922 and died in 1936, and the destroyer class named for him fought in the Second World War. The reputation of the other Sims has moved much further: Collier's praise for the surgeon who treated "the special diseases of women" and "introduced new instruments and operations" leaves out that J. Marion Sims developed his fistula repair by operating repeatedly, without anaesthesia, on enslaved Black women, three of whom "Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy" are now named in most accounts of him. After years of protest his statue was removed from Fifth Avenue opposite the New York Academy of Medicine in April 2018 and relocated to his grave in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
Written for this edition, 2026.