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Dr. Naismith wrote speeches, essays and articles on a variety of topics including the interrelation of high school and college athletics, swimming, and the development of character through athletics. Here is an example of one of his publications.

Dr. Naismith’s faculty appointment cards from 1898 through 1939. Note the leave of absence from 1917 through 1919 for service in France during World War I. He was asked by the YMCA to study moral conditions among the troops and to develop a program…

Dr. Naismith kept careful records concerning the physical development of students at KU. This sheet shows detailed measurements of arms, legs, shoulders, etc.

A page from the James Naismith scrapbook compiled by University Library staff and located in the University Archives. Note the article on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The 1936 Olympics was the first time that basketball was played as an official…

James Naismith provided ocular tests to all students with the ocular set pictured. The set is now on loan from the University Archives to the Booth Family Hall of Athletics in Allen Field House.

Dr. Luther Gulick, the founder and first director of the physical department at Springfield College, is in the center holding calipers. Gulick’s philosophy of training the whole man, in body, mind and spirit, was one of the reasons that Naismith…

Luther Halsey Gulick is often referred to as the father of physical education and recreation in the United States. The founder and first director of the Springfield College physical department, it was Gulick who directed Naismith to create a winter…

During the early years of Basketball at Springfield College, interschool leagues were formed. The teams gave themselves colorful names, such as flappers, cowboys, otters, or, as is shown in this postcard, farmers and mermaids.

The School for Christian Workers building or the original Springfield College School building, located at the corner of State and Sherman streets in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Naismith invented the game of Basketball. Today a McDonald’s…