John Krom Rees

Background

John Krom Rees was born on October 27, 1851 in New York City. He was the son of Hans and Lucinda (Krom) Rees, a grandson of Iver Jensen and Lena Maria Rees and of Reuben and Mary (Dubois) Krom, and a descendant of Louis DuBois.

Education

He graduated from Columbia College in 1872, and from the Columbia School of Mines in 1875.

In 1895 he received the degree of Ph. D. from Columbia.

Career

He acted as assistant in mathematics in the School of Mines from 1873 to 1876. From 1876 to 1881 he was professor of mathematics and astronomy in Washington University, St. Louis, then returned to Columbia as director of the observatory and instructor in the newly formed department of geodesy and practical astronomy. He remained at Columbia for the rest of his life, was promoted to a professorship in 1884, and made head of an independent department of astronomy in 1892.

He acted as judge of instruments of precision at the Paris exposition in 1900, receiving the decoration of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his services. He was president of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1894-96; secretary of the American Metrological Society, 1882-96, and secretary of the Columbia University Council, 1892-98.

The Columbia Observatory to which Rees went in 1881 was a small wooden structure housing a small telescope and a transit. It served well enough for the instruction of college students and the instructive entertainment of city school children, but it was far from satisfying to the demands of the director's ambition to do real scientific work. Conditions were much improved by the removal in 1883 to a new building on Forty-ninth Street, although difficulties from smoke and railroad vibrations still set embarrassing limits to the kinds of research that could be undertaken.

Achievements

• Rees's principal observational research was a study of the variation of terrestrial latitudes and the constant of aberration. This was carried out at Columbia by Rees, Harold Jacoby, and H. S. Davis, in cooperation with the Royal Observatory at Naples, from 1893 to 1900, and the results published as Contributions from the Observatory of Columbia College, nos. 8 and 9 (1895 - 1906). The value of simultaneous observations at two or more stations in approximately the same latitude but in widely different longitudes has since been recognized in the establishment of several international latitude stations. It was also under Rees's direction that the reduction of Lewis Morris Rutherfurd's measures of his star plates was carried out at the Columbia Observatory and this great mass of valuable material made generally available by publication. As secretary of the American Metrological Society he did the nation a great service by his enthusiastic advocacy of the introduction of standard time. His most important contribution to educational development was his insistence on the importance of practical field work for students of civil engineering which resulted in the establishment of the Columbia summer school of geodesy, first at Cooperstown, New York, and later at Osterville, Massachussets

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Variation Of Latitude At New York City: Declinations And Proper Motions Of Fifty-six Stars. By Herman S. Davis...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • The Variations Of Latitude At New York City, Part 2...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Connections

In the latter year he married Louise, daughter of Nathaniel and Emma (Chambers) Sands of New York.

Father:

Hans Rees

Mother:

Lucinda (Krom) Rees

Spouse:

Louise