Herman Vandenburg Ames (/eɪmz/; August 7, 1865 – February 7, 1935) was an American legal historian, archivist, and professor of United States constitutional history at the University of Pennsylvania and, from 1907 to 1928, dean of its graduate school.

He received his doctorate from Harvard University, where he was the Ozias Goodwin Memorial Fellow in Constitutional and International Law, and studied under Albert Bushnell Hart.

[2][3] Ames' father, Marcus, was educated at Philips Andover Academy, where he graduated as valedictorian before studying medicine at Harvard Medical School.

[4][5][6] He was ordained in 1854, becoming in the words of David Ford a "brilliant, fervent, and impressive" Congregational preacher who ministered throughout Massachusetts, later serving as superintendent of the Lancaster Industrial School for Girls and chaplain of Rhode Island's asylum, prison, workhouse, and almshouse.

[2] At Harvard he received an A.M. in 1890 and a Ph.D. the following year for his dissertation The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which was done under the supervision of Albert Bushnell Hart.

[4] Between 1891 and 1894, Ames lectured in history at the University of Michigan under an appointment as acting assistant professor to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of J.H.T.

[19][a] Under his administration, the number of graduate students at Pennsylvania increased five-fold and, in 1923, he consulted with U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes — a fellow member of Delta Upsilon — on implementing a scholarship to fund the study of diplomacy at Pennsylvania using an $80,000 endowment from the late Frederic Courtland Penfield, which was among the largest university scholarship funds in existence at that time.

[27][d] As a scholar of legal history, his view of the United States Constitution was at once both liberal in its outlook while also guarded at attempts to meddle with its basic framework.

[3] In his view on history, Ames was both presentist and relativist; during a public lecture given at Muhlenberg College in 1909 he characterized the daily customs and behavior of early American settlers as "barbarous" compared to contemporary standards, and credited the growth of democracy with the development of more liberal social norms.

[15] Ames' administrative and teaching duties were an ongoing encumbrance on his research activity, limiting him to a small, albeit influential, body of work.

[17] According to Ames, he had returned from his travels in Europe too late in the year to find a teaching assignment and decided to spend the ensuing months writing and researching instead.

[36] Ames personally visited a large number of state and federal offices to record the details of the thousands of amending resolutions that had been proposed during the preceding hundred years.

The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States During the First Century of Its History earned Ames the American Historical Association's Justin Winsor Prize.

[3][40] At the turn of the 20th century, the American Historical Association (AHA) undertook a nationwide effort to examine repositories of manuscripts and archival documents, and make specific recommendations for their future preservation.

[18] The initiative was partly influenced by Ames' advocacy of German historical methodology, learned during his year in Europe, which placed special emphasis on primary documentary sources.

[43] In February 1912, Jameson wrote Ames to ask him to "lay before the committee whatever there has been in the practice or experience of states that deserves attention by persons who are planning a national building".

[43] Ames' prior commitment to attend the quasquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pittsburgh ultimately prevented him from traveling to Washington for the hearing.

[43] Still, Jameson continued to correspond with Ames seeking advice relating to the politics and impediments he had experienced in advocating for the creation of state archives.

[46] Ames had planned his retirement for 1936, and was intending to spend his final year at Pennsylvania laying the groundwork for two new research projects: a biography of Robert J. Walker, and a study of the presidential veto power.

[15] Neither of Ames' two planned projects bore fruit; he died at his home at 203 St. Mark's Square in Philadelphia on February 7, 1935, from a cerebral hemorrhage following a stroke.

[47][48][49] Funeral services were held at the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, with Thomas Sovereign Gates, Roland S. Morris, Emory Richard Johnson, Conyers Read, Roy Franklin Nichols, Lewis M. Stevens, Julian P. Boyd, H. Lamar Crosby, and Edward Cheyney serving as honorary pallbearers.

[15][51] A record of these speeches, along with letters contributed by those who could not attend—including his doctoral supervisor Albert Bushnell Hart—was compiled and edited by Edward Cheyney and Roy Franklin Nichols.