Bi-Weekly Newsletter January 4, 2025

Winthrop Ames

​Winthrop Ames (1870-1937)

After graduating from Harvard in 1895, Winthrop Ames went into the publishing business, as a career in the theater was strongly objected to by his family. His brother Hobart, who was five years older, would become president of the Shovel Works in Easton and was an outdoorsman who lived part time at his plantation in Grand Junction,Tennessee. Winthrop was considerably different, and his interests lay in the arts to which he was naturally drawn. By 1904 he was following his passion, leasing the Castle Square Theater in Boston where he focused on producing Shakespeare’s plays. 
After turning his attention to NYC, Ames worked as managing director of the New Theater in NYC and later, in 1912, opened the Little Theater. In 1913, he opened the Booth Theatre on West 45th St. with the Shuberts and worked as manager of both the Little Theater and the Booth Theater into the 1930's. During WWI he organized the Over There Theater League which sent actors overseas to entertain the troops. According to David Ames, Winthrop was a perfectionist and took a great interest in mentoring young people in the theater world. While he subsidized many, he expected nothing in return. “His satisfaction stemmed from them making good.” (David Ames)
Productions in the two theatres included The Philanderer (1913), by George Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy’s Old English (1924), George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly’s Beggar on Horseback (1924), an extremely successful series of Gilbert and Sullivan revivals at the Booth (1926–29), and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1913). This last was written by Ames under a pseudonym and was the first play specifically for children.
 Over the years Winthrop brought many famous guests to his home at Queset House in North Easton. These included George Arliss, Peggy Wood, Guthrie McClintic and author John Marquand.

George Arliss,
 British actor

​Peggy Wood,
American actress 

Guthrie McClintock, director, producer, performer and writer

 
 In 1981 Ames was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He was married to Lucy Fuller Cabot. They had two children. 
 
Anne Wooster Drury

[email protected]
 
Sources:
History of Easton, Vol. II
The New York Public Library archives, Winthrop Ames papers
Encyclopædia Britannica - American theatrical movement
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