James Francis Barker (1872 – 10 December 1950) was the second president of the Rochester Athenæum and Mechanics Institute, succeeding Carleton B. Gibson, from 1916–1919.

[1] He was born in 1872 in Keokuk, Iowa,[2] the son of a railroad ticketing agent and a New Orleanian of Spanish and French extraction.

He briefly worked at D. H. Burnham & Company and Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. before switching to education, becoming Superintendent of the Manual Training Department at East Division High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1897.

He came to the Rochester Athenæum and Mechanics Institute after his predecessor resigned to continue his work in the war relief effort.

He oversaw the Institute during World War I, but subsequently left to become Superintendent of Junior and Technical Education in the Rochester City School District.