Ira N. Hollis
BiographyIra Nelson Hollis (March 7, 1856–August 25, 1930) was an American mechanical engineer for the U.S. Navy, Professor of engineering at Harvard University, 5th president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and he served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 1917–18.
He was born at Mooresville, Indiana, son of Ephriam Joseph Hollis, captain in the 59th Indiana Infantry Regiment, and Mary Kearns Hollis. He was raised in Louisville where he attended the local high school and after graduation was an apprentice in a machine shop and later a clerk with a railroad and a cotton commission house. In 1874 at the age of eighteen he was admitted to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, now United States Naval Academy, at the head of the list. He graduated with honors as Cadet-Engineer in 1878 as top of his class. After graduation Hollis served in the Navy for fifteen years at sea and on shore, the first three years on the USS Quinnebaug cruising the North Sea, Mediterranean, and coast of Africa. Subsequently he was Professor of Marine Engineer at Union College in Schenectady, New York, advisor in the Squadron of Evolution, supervisor at Union Iron Works, back at sea in charge of machinery of a vessel on the China Station, and lecturer at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island.
After resigning from the Navy, from 1893 to 1913 he was Professor of Engineering at Harvard University, at the Lawrence Scientific School. From 1913 to 1925 he served as President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Bibliography
The Frigate Constitution: The Central Figure of the Navy Under Sail (1900)
Other links
The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Wikipedia
Worcester Polytechnic Institute