Julian Wheeler Curtiss (1858–1944) was president of the Spalding sports equipment company and a pioneering promoter of golf in the United States.

Among his siblings was older brother, Edwin Burr Curtiss, a lawyer and later, bookseller.

[2] He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

[5] Curtiss was affiliated with the Amateur Athletic Union and became treasurer of the American Olympic Committee.

He was one of the figures, together with Walter Camp and others, responsible at the turn of the twentieth century with popularizing sports in the U.S. and making it a central part of American culture.