McKim, Mead & White

**McKim, Mead & White** was a prominent American architectural firm that thrived at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm's founding partners were Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928) and Stanford White (1853–1906). They hired many other architects, partners, associates, designers and draftsmen, who came to prominence during or after their time at the firm.

The firm's New York City buildings include Manhattan's former Pennsylvania Station, the Brooklyn Museum, and the main campus of Columbia University. Elsewhere in New York State and New England, the firm designed college, library, school and other buildings such as the Boston Public Library and Rhode Island State House. In Washington, D.C., the firm renovated the West and East Wings of the White House, and designed Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair and the National Museum of American History. Across the United States, the firm designed buildings in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin. Other examples are in Canada, Cuba and Italy.

## History

McKim and Mead joined forces in 1872. They were joined in 1879 by White, who, like McKim, had worked for architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Their work applied the principles of Beaux-Arts architecture, the adoption of the classical Greek and Roman stylistic vocabulary as filtered through the Parisian École des Beaux-Arts, and the related City Beautiful movement after 1893 or so. Its vision was to clean up the visual confusion of American cities and imbue them with a sense of order and formality during America's Gilded Age.

According to one scholar, "Running through the world of McKim, Mead & White was a sense of the exploration of life's pleasures. A circle of bisexual and homosexual entertainment can be traced within the office. The circle included Stanford White, [Augustus] Saint Gaudens, Joseph M. Wells, Frank Millet, Whitney Warren, Thomas Hastings and probably [William R.] Mead, and many others."

The firm retained its name long after the deaths of founding partners White (1906), McKim (1909), and Mead (1928).

Among the firm's final works under the name McKim, Mead & White was the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Designed primarily by partner James Kellum Smith, it opened in 1964.

Smith died in 1961, and the firm was soon renamed **Steinmann, Cain and White**. In 1971, it became **Walker O. Cain and Associates**.

## Notable architects of McKim, Mead & White

* Henry Bacon – worked at the firm from about 1886 through 1897; left with fellow employee James Brite to open their own office.
* William A. Boring – worked at the firm in 1890 before forming a separate partnership with Edward Lippincott Tilton.
* Charles Lewis Bowman – a draftsman at the firm until 1922, noted for his large number of private residences throughout Westchester County, New York including Bronxville, Pelham Manor, Mamaroneck and New Rochelle.
* A. Page Brown - worked with the firm beginning in the 1880s; went to California, where he was known for the San Francisco Ferry Building.
* Walker O. Cain – worked at the firm; he took it over in 1961 and renamed it several times.
* J.E.R. Carpenter – worked at the firm for several years before designing much of upper Fifth and Park Avenues, including 907 Fifth Avenue, 825 Fifth Avenue, 625 Park Avenue, 550 Park Avenue and the Lincoln Building on 42nd Street.
* John Merven Carrère (1858–1911) – worked with McKim, Mead & White from 1883 through 1885, then joined Thomas Hastings to form the firm Carrère and Hastings.
* Thomas Harlan Ellett (1880–1951).
* Cass Gilbert – worked with the firm until 1882, when he went to work with James Knox Taylor; later designed many notable structures, among them the George Washington Bridge and the Woolworth Building.
* Arthur Loomis Harmon – later of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon.
* Thomas Hastings (1860–1929) – of Carrère and Hastings, worked with McKim, Mead & White from 1883 through 1885.
* John Galen Howard (1864-1931)
* John Mead Howells (1868-1959)
* William Mitchell Kendall (1856 – 1941), worked with the firm from 1882 until his death.
* Harrie T. Lindeberg – started at the firm in 1895 as an assistant to Stanford White and remained with the firm until White's death in 1906.
* Austin W. Lord – worked with the firm in 1890-94 on designs for Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Metropolitan Club, and buildings at Columbia University
* Harold Van Buren Magonigle (1867-1935)
* Albert Randolph Ross
* Philip Sawyer (1868-1949)
* James Kellum Smith (1893–1961) – a member of the firm from 1924 to 1961; full partner in 1929, and the last surviving partner of MM&W. He primarily designed academic buildings, but his last major work was the National Museum of American History.
* Egerton Swartwout of Tracy and Swartwout – both Tracy and Swartwout worked together for the firm on multiple projects prior to starting their own practice.
* Edward Lippincott Tilton – helped design the Boston Public Library in 1890 before leaving with Boring.
* Robert von Ezdorf – took over much of the firm's business after White's death.
* Joseph M. Wells (1853–1890) – worked as firm's first Chief Draftsman from 1879–90; often considered to be the firm's "fourth partner", and largely responsible for its Renaissance Revival designs in 1880s.
* William M. Whidden – worked at the firm from at least 1882 until 1888; projects included the Tacoma and Portland hotels in Washington and Oregon, respectively; moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1888 to finish the hotel and established his own firm with Ion Lewis
* York and Sawyer – Edward York (1863–1928) and Philip Sawyer (1868–1949) worked together for the firm before starting their own partnership in 1898.

## References

**Notes**

1. ↑ Broderick, Mosette "Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age", Knopf, page vii"
2. ↑ "[Mead's] widow receives all the estate of about $250,000"], *New York Times* (November 27, 1928); "Mrs. Olga Kilenyi Mead, widow,... bequeathed her entire estate to the trustees of Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts" in *New York Times* (April 23, 1936). The money was used to build the Mead Art Building, which was designed by James Kellum Smith of McKim, Mead and White.
3. ↑ Mission & History. *National Museum of American History*. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved on 2018-02-14.
4. ↑ Blackwell, D. and The Naugatuck Historical Society 1996 "Images of Naugatuck". Arcadia Publishing
5. ↑ Charles J. Osborn Residence
6. ↑ Piermont Historical Society (en).
7. ↑ "Big Old Houses: I Love This House", *New York Social Diary*, 2013-01-08. (in en)
8. ↑ "McKelvy House" on the Council of Independent Colleges Historic Campus Architecture Project website

**Bibliography**

* Baker, Paul R. *Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White*. New York: Free Press, 1989. ISBN 0-02-901781-5
* Broderick, Mosette. *Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age* New York: Knopf, 2010. ISBN 0-394-53662-2
* McKim, Mead & White. *A Monograph of the Work of McKim, Mead & White, 1879-1915*. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1915-1920, 4 volumes. Reprinted as *The Architecture of McKim, Mead & White in Photographs, Plans and Elevations,* with an introduction by Richard Guy Wilson (New York: Dover Publications, 1990). ISBN 0486265560
* Roth, Leland M. *The Architecture of McKim, Mead & White, 1870-1920: A Building List* (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities). Garland Publishing (September 1, 1978). 978-0824098506
* Roth, Leland M. *McKim, Mead and White, Architects*. Harper & Row; First edition (October 1985). 978-0064301367

## External links

* McKim, Mead & White Selected Works 1879 to 1915, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2018
* McKim, Mead and White flickr group
* Randall's Lost New York City Cable Building is included as a special resource.
* McKim, Mead & White in Buffalo
* McKim, Mead, and White
* McKim, Mead, and White
* FindaGrave site with photos of gravestone of William and Olga Mead in Rome, Italy
* FindaGrave site with photos of Joseph M. Wells and his gravestone in Massachusetts
* McKim, Mead & White Architectural Records Collection at the New-York Historical Society
* Brooklyn Museum Building Online Exhibition
* McKim, Mead & White architectural records and drawings, circa 1879-1958, held by the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University