1.
Purcell & Elmslie
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Purcell & Elmslie, as it was most widely known, was a progressive American architectural practice. P&E was the second most commissioned firm of the Prairie School, the firms consisted of three partnerships, Purcell and Feick, Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie, and Purcell and Elmslie. M. C. A. in Hunan, China. The two principals of the firm, William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie both eventually received Fellowships in the College of the American Institute of Architects, George Feick, Jr. who was son of George Feick, an Ohio contractor, was the original partner with Purcell. Purcell and Feick had been together at Cornell University. They rejoined to tour in Europe together during 1906-1907 and then came to Minneapolis to open their partnership, the firm had offices in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis. A number of works by each of the partnerships are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, C and A West Bismarck, ND, NRHP-listed, specifically the Prairie School residences at 120 Avenue A West, at 610 Raymond Street, and at 402 Avenue B West. The Patrick E. Byrne House was built in 1912, the Timothy R. Atkinson House was built c.1910. Minneapolis, MN, NRHP-listed Windego Park Auditorium/Open Air Theater, between S. Ferry St. and Rum River Anoka, MN, NRHP-listed Woodbury County Courthouse, 7th, sioux City, IA, NRHP-listed Brooks, H. Allen, The Prairie School, W. W
2.
Woodbury County Courthouse
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The Woodbury County Courthouse is located at 620 Douglas Street in Sioux City, the county seat of Woodbury County, Iowa. It is regarded as one of the finest Prairie School buildings in the United States and has declared a National Historic Landmark for its architecture. It is used for legal proceedings in the county, though Sioux City was made the county seat in 1858, the first permanent Woodbury County courthouse was not finished until 1878. It was designed by Des Moines architect William L. Foster and built by brothers Charles E. Hedges, in 1914, the county determined that the courthouse was too small for the city and they decided to build a new one. This building is the current courthouse, located at the southeast corner of Douglas and it is a nearly square four story structure, built out of Roman brick, with granite and terra cotta trim elements. It has a 157-foot eight-story tower, and features work by Alfonso Iannelli over its doors. The northern entrance features metal grillwork designed by Elmslie, the interior floors are marble, and the central rotunda features a glass mosaic drinking fountain in one wall. The interior murals were painted by John Norton of Chicago, in 1973, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1996
3.
Prairie School
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Prairie School was a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the prairie landscape. The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicagos rebirth. But many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek, in reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie. The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echoes the wide, flat, treeless expanses of the mid-Western United States. The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright, although the Prairie School originated in Chicago, some Prairie School architects moved away spreading the influence well beyond the Midwest. A partial list of Prairie School architects includes, The Prairie School houses were related to the American Arts and Crafts movement, an alternative to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style. Some firms, like Purcell & Elmslie, however, consciously rejected the term Arts and Crafts for their work, the Prairie School was also heavily influenced by the Idealistic Romantics and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In turn, the Prairie School architects influenced subsequent architectural idioms, particularly the Minimalists and Bauhaus, architectural historians have debated the reasons why the Prairie School went out of favor by the mid-1920s. Perhaps a serious consideration of one of its own members would be worth their serious attention. Mahonys and Griffins work in Australia and India, notably the collection of homes at Castlecrag, isabel Roberts Veterans Memorial Library in St. Cloud, Florida, is another. The House at 8 Berkley Drive at Lockport, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the Oak Circle Historic District is a historic district in Wilmette, Illinois, United States. It primarily consists of fifteen single-family homes representative of the Prairie School, the Oak Circle Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21,2001, it was the first historic district to be designated in Wilmette. Several not-for-profit organizations and on-line communities have formed to educate people about the Prairie School movement
4.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, also known as U of I, University of Illinois, UIUC, or simply Illinois, is a public research-intensive university in the U. S. state of Illinois. Founded in 1867 as a land-grant institution in the cities of Champaign and Urbana, it is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system. In fiscal year 2015, total research expedentures at Illinois totaled $640 million, the campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus, the university comprises 17 colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study. Additionally, the university operates an extension that offers programs to more than 1.5 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois. The university holds 647 buildings on 4,552 acres and its operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. Even though Illinois is a university, only about 12% of the budget comes from the state. Between several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school, the University opened for classes on March 2,1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students. Gregory is largely credited with establishing the University as it is today, Gregorys grave is on the Urbana campus, between Altgeld Hall and the Henry Administration Building. His headstone reads, If you seek his monument, look about you, the Library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James, in a speech to the Board of Trustees in 1912 and it is now one of the worlds largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a farmhouse for the schools experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus, the original University Hall was the fourth building built, it stood where the Illini Union stands today. During the Presidency of Edmund J. James, James is credited for building the foundation of the large Chinese international student population on campus, on June 11,1929, the Alma Mater statue was unveiled. The Alma Mater was established by donations by the Alumni Fund, the University replaced the original university hall with Gregory Hall and the Illini Union. After World War II, the university experienced rapid growth, the enrollment doubled and the academic standing improved. This period was marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific. During the 1950s and ’60s the university experienced the turmoil common on many American campuses, among these were the water fights of the fifties and sixties
5.
Louis Sullivan
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Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the father of skyscrapers and father of modernism. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of the trinity of American architecture. Form follows function is attributed to him although he credited the origin of the concept to an ancient Roman architect, in 1944, he was the second architect in history to posthumously receive the AIA Gold Medal. Louis Henry Sullivan was born to a Swiss-born mother, née Andrienne List, and he learned that he could both graduate from high school a year early and bypass the first two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by passing a series of examinations. Entering MIT at the age of sixteen, he studied architecture there briefly, after one year of study, he moved to Philadelphia and took a job with architect Frank Furness. The Depression of 1873 dried up much of Furnesss work, at that point Sullivan moved on to Chicago in 1873 to take part in the building boom following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. He worked for William LeBaron Jenney, the architect credited with erecting the first steel frame building. After less than a year with Jenney, Sullivan moved to Paris and he returned to Chicago and began work for the firm of Joseph S. Johnston & John Edelman as a draftsman. Johnston & Edleman were commissioned for the design of the Moody Tabernacle, in 1879 Dankmar Adler hired Sullivan. A year later, Sullivan became a partner in the firm and this marked the beginning of Sullivans most productive years. Adler and Sullivan initially achieved fame as theater architects, while most of their theaters were in Chicago, their fame won commissions as far west as Pueblo, Colorado, and Seattle, Washington. After 1889 the firm known for their office buildings, particularly the 1891 Wainwright Building in St. Louis. Prior to the century, the weight of a multistory building had to be supported principally by the strength of its walls. The development of cheap, versatile steel in the half of the nineteenth century changed those rules. America was in the midst of social and economic growth that made for great opportunities in architectural design. A much more urbanized society was forming and the society called out for new, the mass production of steel was the main driving force behind the ability to build skyscrapers during the mid-1880s. By assembling a framework of steel girders, architects and builders suddenly could create tall, slender buildings with a strong, the rest of the building elements—walls, floors, ceilings, and windows—were suspended from the skeleton, which carried the weight. This new way of constructing buildings, so-called column-frame construction, pushed them up rather than out, the steel weight-bearing frame allowed not just taller buildings, but permitted much larger windows, which meant more daylight reaching interior spaces
6.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
7.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
8.
Sioux City, Iowa
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Sioux City is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U. S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, which makes it the fourth largest city in Iowa, the bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, of which it is the county seat, though a small portion is in Plymouth County. Sioux City is the city of the five-county Sioux City, IA–NE–SD Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a population of 168,825 in 2010. The Sioux City–Vermillion, IA–NE–SD Combined Statistical Area had a population of 182,675 as of 2010 and has grown to a population of 183,052 as of 2012. Sioux City is at the head, or the most upstream point to which general cargo ships can travel, of the Missouri River. Sioux City and the areas of northwestern Iowa, northeastern Nebraska and southeastern South Dakota are sometimes referred to as Siouxland. Money recognized Sioux City in its August 2010 issue of the Best Places To Live, Sioux City was also ranked 1st in regards to Metro Populations between 50,000 and 200,000. Forbes placed the Sioux City metro in the Top 15 Best Small Places for Businesses and Careers, the Daily Beast, an American news reporting website, placed Sioux City on their list of The Top 40 Drunkest Cities in America, with a ranking of 14th. Iowa is in the prairie of the North American Great Plains. The area of Sioux City was inhabited by Yankton Sioux when it was first reached by Spanish, the first documented US citizens to record their travels through this area were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during the summer of 1804. Sergeant Charles Floyd, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, died here on August 20,1804, Sioux City was laid out in the winter of 1854-55. It became a major Entrepôt to the western Plains, including Mormons heading to Salt Lake City, however, the system fell into bankruptcy and closed within a decade. The city gained the nickname Little Chicago during the Prohibition era due to its reputation for being a purveyor of alcoholic beverages, Sioux City is located at 42°29′53″N 96°23′45″W. Sioux City is at an altitude of 1,135 feet above sea level. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 58.49 square miles. Typical of Iowa, Sioux City has a continental climate, with very warm, humid summers, cold, dry winters. The normal monthly mean ranges from 20.4 °F in January to 74.3 °F in July. On average, there are 25 days that reach 90 °F or higher,52 days that do not climb above freezing, the average window for freezing temperatures is October 1 thru April 26, allowing a growing season of 157 days
9.
Iowa
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Iowa is a U. S. state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska and South Dakota to the west, in colonial times, Iowa was a part of French Louisiana and Spanish Louisiana, its state flag is patterned after the flag of France. After the Louisiana Purchase, people laid the foundation for an economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in area and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city by population is Des Moines, Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Its nickname is the Hawkeye State, Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east, the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west, Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed entirely by rivers. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two, the state capital, Des Moines, is in Polk County. Iowas bedrock geology generally increases in age from west to east, in northwest Iowa, Cretaceous bedrock can be 74 million years old, in eastern Iowa Cambrian bedrock dates to c.500 million years ago. Iowa is generally not flat, most of the consists of rolling hills. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, Loess hills lie along the western border of the state, some of which are several hundred feet thick. Northeast Iowa along the Mississippi River is part of the Driftless Zone, consisting of steep hills, several natural lakes exist, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa. To the east lies Clear Lake, man-made lakes include Lake Odessa, Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, and Rathbun Lake. The states northwest area has remnants of the once common wetlands. Iowas natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands cover 30%, as of 2005 Iowa ranked 49th of U. S. states in public land holdings. Endangered or threatened plants include western prairie fringed orchid, eastern prairie fringed orchid, Meads milkweed, prairie bush clover, the explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality. Iowa has a continental climate throughout the state
10.
Omaha, Nebraska
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Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, Omaha is the anchor of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, which includes Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the Missouri River from Omaha. According to the 2010 census, Omahas population was 408,958, according to the 2014 Population Estimates, Omahas population was 446,599. Including its suburbs, Omaha formed the 60th-largest metropolitan area in the United States in 2013, the Omaha-Council Bluffs-Fremont, Nebraska-IA Combined Statistical Area is 931,667, according to the U. S. Census Bureaus 2013 estimate. There are nearly 1.3 million residents within the Greater Omaha area, comprising a 50-mile radius of Downtown Omaha, Omahas pioneer period began in 1854, when the city was founded by speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The city was founded along the Missouri River, and a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earned the city its nickname, Omaha introduced this new West to the world in 1898, when it played host to the Worlds Fair, dubbed the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. During the 19th century, Omahas central location in the United States spurred the city to become an important national transportation hub, throughout the rest of the 19th century, the transportation and jobbing sectors were important in the city, along with its railroads and breweries. In the 20th century, the Omaha Stockyards, once the worlds largest, Omaha is also the home to five Fortune 1000 headquarters, Green Plains Renewable Energy, TD Ameritrade, Valmont Industries, Werner Enterprises, and West Corporation. And Leo A Daly, the Gallup Organization, of Gallup Poll fame, Enron began in Omaha as Northern Natural Gas in 1930, before taking over a smaller Houston company in 1985 to form InterNorth, which Kenneth Lay moved permanently to Houston, in 1987. The modern economy of Omaha is diverse and built on skilled knowledge jobs, in 2009, Forbes identified Omaha as the nations number one Best Bang-For-The Buck City and ranked it number one on Americas Fastest-Recovering Cities list. Also, Omaha hosted the U. S. Olympic swim trials in 2008,2012 and 2016, the word Omaha means Dwellers on the bluff. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by the riverbanks where the city of Omaha would be built, there was fierce competition among fur traders until John Jacob Astor created the monopoly of the American Fur Company. The Mormons built a town called Cutlers Park in the area in 1846, while it was temporary, the settlement provided the basis for further development in the future. Through 26 separate treaties with the United States federal government, Native American tribes in Nebraska gradually ceded the lands comprising the state. The treaty and cession involving the Omaha area occurred in 1854 when the Omaha Tribe ceded most of east-central Nebraska, Logan Fontenelle, an interpreter for the Omaha and signatory to the 1854 treaty, played an essential role in those proceedings. Before it was legal to claim land in Indian Country, William D. Brown was operating the Lone Tree Ferry to bring settlers from Council Bluffs, Brown is generally credited as having the first vision for a city where Omaha now sits. The passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 was presaged by the out of claims around the area to become Omaha by residents from neighboring Council Bluffs. On July 4,1854, the city was established at a picnic on Capital Hill
11.
Thomas Rogers Kimball
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Thomas Rogers Kimball was an American architect in Omaha, Nebraska. S. President Theodore Roosevelt to evaluate all plans for buildings, monuments. Born April 19,1862 in Linwood, Cincinnati, Ohio, he moved to Omaha, after graduating from high school in 1878, he attended the University of Nebraska for two years, but did not graduate. He next went to Boston, where he worked with a tutor for another two years. Kimball then entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied architecture until 1887 and he did not graduate, but was later given an affiliation with the School of Architecture. Kimball then moved to Paris, where he spent a year studying art at LEcole des Beaux Arts, returning to Boston in 1888, he began working for a publishing company. The following year, Kimball married Annie McPhail in Boston, in 1891, Kimball formed an architectural firm with MIT instructor C. Howard Walker and architect Herbert Best. Walker remained in Boston to run the office there, Kimball moved back to Omaha, both operated under the name Walker and Kimball. In 1892, Kimball was commissioned to design a library building in Omaha. Although Kimball had been able to get the job through connections established by his father, railroad executive Thomas Lord Kimball, the younger Kimball was in fact well qualified for the work. He was also something of a curiosity in 1890s Omaha, since he had educated in the East and had studied architecture both in the United States and in France. Kimball began attracting many high-profile projects in Omaha, including St. Frances Cabrini Church, in 1893, some of his architectural plans were shown in Chicago at the World Columbian Exposition. The 1898 Trans Mississippi and International Exposition was a Worlds Fair-like event that required the construction of many buildings, Kimball and Walker were named co-architects-in-chief for the event. The two men were responsible for the site development, including perimeter buildings. They designed several buildings, some smaller structures and the Arch of States. The other name architects who were there did a main building and nothing else, the buildings were constructed of strips of wood covered with staff, which was a mixture of plaster and horsehair. They were temporary by design, built at half the cost of permanent buildings. The lower cost allowed the construction of larger structures, Kimball was already successful, but his Exhibition work made him even more so
12.
George Grant Elmslie
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George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States. He worked with Louis Sullivan and later with William Gray Purcell as a partner in the firm Purcell & Elmslie, Elmslie began his apprenticeship in the office of William LeBaron Jenney, who originated the steel frame skeleton used in modern building construction. In 1887, Elmslie joined Frank Lloyd Wright and George Maher in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee, after Wright left to go to work for Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan in 1887, he recommended Elmslie to Sullivan. In 1888, Elsmlie joined Wright at Adler & Sullivan, which led to a 20-year association between Elmslie and Sullivan, Wright and Elmslie shared an office next to Sullivans. Elmslie was Sullivan’s chief draftsman and ornamental designer and he detailed the ornamentation for Sullivan’s Wainwright Building in St. Louis, the Schlesinger & Mayer Department store in Chicago and the National Farmers Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota. The architectural practice most widely known as Purcell & Elmslie consisted of three partnerships, in 1909, Elmslie joined the office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the name of the firm changed to Purcell, Feick, & Elmslie in 1910. Feick left the partnership in 1912, and the name of the practice became Purcell & Elmslie until being dissolved in 1921. Over the course of the partnership, Purcell & Elmslie became one of the most commissioned firms among the Prairie School architects, in private practice Elmslie concentrated primarily on commercial designs. As his commission work decreased, he work with William S. Elmslie was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1947. A curious historical note, Elmslie claimed to have born in 1871. The apparent reason for this was due to his status in 1885. Had Elmslie divulged his true age, he would have ineligible to enter the United States as a dependent family member. Elmslie died on April 23,1952 and is interred at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago
13.
William Gray Purcell
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William Gray Purcell was a Prairie School architect in the Midwestern United States. He partnered with George Grant Elmslie, and briefly with George Feick, the firm of Purcell & Elmslie produced designs for buildings in twenty-two states, Australia, and China. The firm had offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Purcell was born in Wilmette, Illinois on July 2,1880. His parents, Charles A. and Anna Cora Purcell lived first with William Cunningham and Catherine Garns Gray, Annas parents, in Oak Park, Illinois. Although the Purcells eventually moved into their own home, except for brief periods the young boy remained with his grandparents over the five years. In 1886, William Gray Purcell began living permanently with them at his own request and his father was an important grain trader, and his grandfather was editor of The Interior, and a writer of national repute. Gray had taken fishing vacations on the peninsula of upper Michigan, in 1885, however, he was saddened to realize the extent to which the environment had been despoiled by destructive logging and mining practices. Every following summer from 1887 until his death in 1901, Gray brought his family, friends, Purcell received his first camera from W. C. Gray in 1888, a Kodak model given to The Interior office just before release of the product. When Purcell was fifteen, Frank Lloyd Wright built his Oak Park studio on the block where Charles A. Purcell lived. In Chicago, where Purcell went frequently to visit his grandfather at The Interior offices, after graduation from Cornell in 1903, Purcell returned to Oak Park, Illinois. Purcell considered applying to Frank Lloyd Wright for a position in his architectural practice, instead, Purcell took a clerking position with Ezra E. Roberts, a stable and prosperous architect of whom Charles A. Purcell thought well. During a dinner party in Oak Park, Purcell met George Grant Elmslie, the two men liked one another immediately, not least because of their shared interest in progressive architecture. When Purcell complained of his situation with Roberts, Elmslie offered to secure Purcell a position in the Sullivan office, however, there was not a great deal of work to be done in the office. Purcell spent five months there, from August to December 1903, in 1904, Purcell ventured to the West Coast by way of an extended journey through the southwestern United States. He eventually arrived at Los Angeles and applied for work at the office of Myron Hunt, on the recommendation of those with whom he interviewed, Purcell left southern California for San Francisco. Hired by John Galen Howard, Purcell became clerk of the works for the construction of California Hall, in 1905 Purcell moved farther up the coast to Seattle, Washington, where he worked for several months in the office of A. Warren Gould. Purcells father, who was afraid of the effects of the weather on the health of his son
14.
Frank Lloyd Wright
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Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures,532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment and this philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater, which has been called the best all-time work of American architecture. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home and his creative period spanned more than 70 years. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and he often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a lecturer in the United States. His colorful personal life made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as the greatest American architect of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright in the farming town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, in 1867. His father, William Carey Wright, was an orator, music teacher, occasional lawyer, William Wright met and married Anna Lloyd Jones, a county school teacher, the previous year when he was employed as the superintendent of schools for Richland County. Originally from Massachusetts, William Wright had been a Baptist minister, Anna was a member of the large, prosperous and well-known Lloyd Jones family of Unitarians, who had emigrated from Wales to Spring Green, Wisconsin. One of Annas brothers was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who would become an important figure in the spread of the Unitarian faith in the Western United States, both of Wrights parents were strong-willed individuals with idiosyncratic interests that they passed on to him. According to his biography, his mother declared when she was expecting that her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings and she decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals torn from a periodical to encourage the infants ambition. In 1870 the family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where William ministered to a small congregation, in 1876, Anna visited the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where she saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel. The blocks, known as Froebel Gifts, were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum, Anna, a trained teacher, was excited by the program and bought a set with which young Wright spent much time playing. The blocks in the set were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions, the Wright family struggled financially in Weymouth and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones clan could help William find employment. They settled in Madison, where William taught music lessons and served as the secretary to the newly formed Unitarian society, although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children. Soon after Wright turned 14, his parents separated, Anna had been unhappy for some time with Williams inability to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized in 1885 after William sued Anna for lack of physical affection, William left Wisconsin after the divorce and Wright claimed he never saw his father again. At this time he changed his name from Lincoln to Lloyd in honor of his mothers family
15.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
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Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital
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Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital, also known as Walthill Hospital or Dr. Susan Picotte Memorial Hospital, is a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska, on the Omaha Indian Reservation. The hospital was developed by Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte, the first female Native American medical doctor, built with money raised by Picotte from various sources, it was the first hospital for any Indian reservation not funded by government money. The building was designed by architect William L. Steele in 1912, set on a concrete foundation on a hill overlooking Walthill, the one-and-one-half-story hospital was built in the American Craftsman style of architecture. Typical of Craftsman style, it features a low-pitched, shingled roof, wide eaves with large braces beneath, exposed rafter tails. A prominent screened porch runs the length of the front of the structure. The building was a hospital until the late 1940s, after which it served a variety of functions since. As of 2013, it housed MiJhuWi Ministries, a nonprofit providing services to the people of the Omaha Reservation, the hospital was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. Picotte Memorial Hospital, from a National American Indian Heritage Month feature at the National Park Service
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National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
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Hartington City Hall and Auditorium
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The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, also known as the Hartington Municipal Building, is a city-owned, brick-clad, 2-story center in Hartington, Nebraska. It was designed between 1921 and 1923 in the Prairie School style by noted architect William L. Steele, the building originally housed city offices, a fire house, an armory, and an auditorium. It is currently used for events, meetings, sports, recreation and this paved the way for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway to build westward to Cedar County, which in turn led to the founding of Hartington in 1883. As the railroad reached Cedar County, it first founded Coleridge as one of the locations needed every seven to ten miles for trains to take on water and fuel. After laying down seven more miles of track, the railroad founded Hartington as its stop, naming it after the English statesman Spencer Cavendish. In a hotly contested election on January 20,1885, just less than a year after incorporation, Hartington wrested the county seat from St. Helena,16 miles north on the banks of the Missouri River, for over 35 years, Hartington had no large indoor venue. When that amount proved insufficient, a bond issue of $25,000 was approved in 1920. In 1921, the city council selected William L. Steele to be the architect for the building, by the time Hartington chose him, he was the most prominent architect in the region. Known to work in a number of styles, Steele had recently been concentrating on the Prairie School style of architecture developed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Upon first arriving in the region, Steele had been unable to convince any of his clients to try his progressive designs, however, beginning with his Prairie-influenced Ben and Harriet Schulein House, he had begun tentatively moving in the Prairie School direction. With Elmslie as principal designer and with assistance from Elmslies partner William Gray Purcell. About 100 miles northwest in Lake Andes, South Dakota, Steele had designed the Charles Mix County Courthouse, the leaders of Hartington would have been familiar with these and other Steele-designed Prairie School style buildings, there would be no surprise in what they were getting. What is surprising is that they agreed to the progressive design, there was considerable public outcry against the Woodbury County Courthouse just five years earlier, but no record of dissent in Hartington. This design “as compared to other known civic buildings in the counties, stands as a progressive building in an otherwise conservative community. ”Steele drew up initial plans in 1921. The council accepted the plans in January 1922, including space for the auditorium, city offices, fire house. Guarantee Construction Company of Sioux City obtained the contract and began work in the spring of 1922, henry Mahlsted served as Guarantee’s superintendent of construction, hiring local labor to do most of the work. The building was completed in January at a cost of $65,000, and this was followed on January 30 by the official dedication ceremonies, featuring speeches, displays of local talent, and a free dance. On February 1, the Hartington Herald gushed that it had been a “most important event…attended by thousands of people…, the new building is one of the finest of its kind in the state
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
