Search this site

Would you like to join the Chapter?

Membership
Home‎ > ‎Past Events‎ > ‎

2012

February 9, 2012 - "Fortress of Finance: A History of the U.S. Treasury Building”

Lecture by Pamela Scott, Architectural Historian


The apparently “unified” exterior of the U.S. Treasury Building belies that it was created by five major Greek Revival architects and was built over four decades. Robert Mills won the 1836 competition and each of his successors—Thomas U. Walter, Ammi B. Young, Isaiah Rogers, and Alfred B. Mullett— changed the design of his predecessor. All of the architects faced similar problems to varying degrees:  politically motivated congressional investigations; labor unrest; and timely delivery of materials. Each explored how emerging technologies could be applied to facilitate the rapid and orderly construction of the largest federal building of its time.


At the same time, each architect expressed his individual interpretation of America’s foray into the revival of Greek architecture. Characteristic exterior and interior features associated with each of the architects and the draftsman J. Goldsborough Bruff will be clarified. Because the text of Fortress of Finance was cut by twenty percent, the lecture will

also include a longer discussion of the construction of Mullett’s Cash Room than appears in the book.


Pamela Scott is currently an independent scholar. Ms. Scott recently completed a major history of the U.S. Treasury Building, 1798-2005 titled Fortress of Finance, published in June 2010. 




March 29, 2012 - “The Springfield Gas Machine: Illuminating Industry and Leisure, 1860s–1920s” 

Lecture by Donald W. Linebaugh, PhD 


Developed just after the close of the Civil War, the Springfield Gas Machine was a unique commercial and domestic gas lighting system marketedfor use in homes and businesses beyond the infrastructure of a city’s gas supply system. The self-contained unit was perfectly suited to accommodate an expanding rural and suburban U.S. landscape as middle- and upper-class American families were looking to find simplicity in the countryside without losing any modern comforts of the city. Industries, too, were looking for a means to operate more efficiently and implement longer work hours for various consumer operations. Perhaps more important, owners of the Springfield system could retain controlof their light production during a time when corporations were reaping large benefits from their monopolistic hold over municipal gas works.

Dr. Linebaugh will explore the story of the Springfield Gas Machine from its invention through its replacement in the early twentieth century with less expensive and more accessible forms of lighting using electricity. His lecture will investigate how gas lighting was, for its time, a major innovation in domestic and commercial lighting, and how it changed daily life and social behaviors in the late nineteenth century as the comforts of home became a reality for suburban and rural Americans. 


Donald W. Linebaugh is an associate professor in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at the University of Maryland and director of the Historic Preservation Program. 




March 31, 2012 - Members-only study tour of the U.S. Treasury Building


Built over the course of thirty-three years, this familiar landmark is the product of some of the most important figures in nineteenth century American architecture. Many of you heard Pamela Scott’s recent lecture highlighting the complex story of its design and construction. This was a chance to see some of Treasury’s spectacular interiors and add to your understanding of the building. Tour highlights included the restored West dome and lobby and the Cash Room. 




May 19, 2012 - Members-only study tour of Two Baltimore Houses 
by McKim, Mead, and White:  The Winans Mansion and the Garrett Jacobs Mansion

What is now the largest house in a neighborhood of mansions began as individual 19th century row-houses combined into a single grand house in 1884 by Stanford White for Robert Garrett, the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1902, several years after Garrett’s death, his wife married Dr. Henry Jacobs and hired John Russell Pope to expand the house, absorbing a neighboring building to add a library and a theater.  Ross Winans, the second generation of a very wealthy Baltimore family hired McKim, Mead and White in 1882. Stanford white was the lead designer and Cass Gilbert was clerk-of-the works. The design owes much to White’s mentor HH. Richardson, but the firm’s own style typical of this period is unmistakable in the rich materials and inventive colonial details.