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Title
A name given to the resource
An Architect of the Restoration: The Pencil Sketches of Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A.
Description
An account of the resource
BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS MOTT SHAW, F.A.I.A.
Thomas Mott Shaw is best known as one of the founding partners and principal architects of the prominent Boston architectural firm Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, which John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired in 1928 to design, plan, and supervise the groundbreaking historical restoration of Williamsburg, the former eighteenth-century capitol of Virginia.
Born in 1878 in Newport, Rhode Island, Thomas Mott Shaw received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1900 and continued his education at the atelier (workshop) of Jean-Louis Pascal at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1900 to 1905.[1] After graduation in 1905, he began working in Boston as a draftsman in the office of Guy Lowell, a prominent American architect and landscape architect who designed the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous other public, commercial, academic, and private buildings and spaces, including many distinguished estates and gardens.[2] Shaw’s connections to Lowell were presumably academic in nature, as Lowell was a former Harvard alumnus who also studied under Pascal at the Ècole, where he graduated just one year before Shaw.[3] In 1908, Shaw left Lowell’s employ and opened his own architectural practice, which he pursued until 1916.[4] During the First World War, he served as a first lieutenant in the 489th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).[5] He was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Air Service Production center at Romorantin, France, where he worked with the Air Service Construction Division #2. During this time, he helped design and build air fields, assembly plants for the fabrication of American aircraft, and barracks for military personnel.[6]
After the war, Shaw returned to the United States and partnered with Andrew H. Hepburn, an MIT graduate and practicing architect who had also worked under Guy Lowell.[7] The two men founded an architectural firm under the name of Shaw and Hepburn, which they managed together from 1918 to 1923.[8] When architect William G. Perry (another alumnus of Harvard, MIT, and the Ècole, as well as a former WWI Army Air Corps captain[9]) joined the partnership in 1923, the firm’s name changed to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[10]
In January 1927, William Perry (representing his partners Shaw and Hepburn) was invited by Reverend William A. R. Goodwin (the rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg) to produce drawings of Williamsburg as it may have looked in the eighteenth century.[11] Goodwin planned to submit the renderings to an unnamed donor who was interested in restoring the town to its former eighteenth-century appearance.[12] Shaw noted: “I worked on those drawings. We all did. We all worked on them (just like a projet in the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) to get them out.” [13] In late November 1927, after spending eleven months working pro bono[14] on a series of illustrations detailing the prospective restoration of the town and the College of William and Mary’s Wren Building, Perry submitted the firm’s drawings to Reverend Goodwin to deliver to his anonymous benefactor for consideration.[15] Soon after reviewing the architects’ work, Goodwin’s patron decided to begin funding the restoration of Williamsburg, and by early December 1927, the firm of Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn was approved “'to proceed with work on [the] Wren Building’ and reconstruction of the colonial Capitol and Governor’s Palace.”[16] It was not until April 1928, however, that the architects finally learned the identity of the secretive individual funding the endeavor.[17] The three men were summoned to New York for a meeting, where Goodwin introduced them to the wealthy businessman and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller Jr.[18] After meeting the architects in person and discussing the project with them over lunch, Rockefeller decided that he liked what he had seen and heard. On 1 April 1928,[19] he “assigned overall ‘authority and responsibility’” of Williamsburg’s building and restoration to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[20] Soon thereafter, the architects set up a small office in Williamsburg near Bruton Parish Church to manage the project.[21]
The architects “soon found that drawing plans was only a minor part of the [project]. The hard part was finding out what kind of plans should be drawn.”[22] Consequently, they organized a staff of historical researchers to assist them in their efforts to restore and rebuild Williamsburg’s eighteenth-century structures as authentically as possible. “Very early in the project, [the architects] decided to establish the highest possible standards for the job. ‘Nothing was ever done without a good reason,’ Shaw once stated. ‘If there were no documented reasons for doing a particular thing, we didn’t do it.’”[23]
Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn’s dedication to the ideals of historic preservation at Williamsburg also paralleled a larger “preservation fever” that was sweeping the nation in the 1920s, called the Colonial Revival.[24] “Historic preservation formed the core of the Colonial Revival, a social and stylistic mindset that peaked during the 1920s [25]…fueled by the usual turmoil – a world war, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Red Scare, and another spike in immigration, all of which increased the nostalgia for the good old colonial days.[26] ….Creating museums from historic buildings became a preferred philanthropy for the wealthy…and John D. Rockefeller Jr. launched the single largest preservation project the country had seen: Colonial Williamsburg.” [27]
In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent national economic collapse of the Great Depression, the fervor of the movement waned, as “only the wealthiest could afford to indulge in antiques, art, and architectural restoration.”[28] As one of the wealthiest men in the country, however, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was one of the few people who could indeed afford to finance his interests in the Colonial Revival. Despite the economic strife of the times, Rockefeller’s infusion of funds into Williamsburg not only helped support the research and restoration of this sleepy southern town back to its former eighteenth-century appearance as the colonial capitol of Virginia, but also provided Williamsburg with much-needed jobs during the worst years of the Depression. By the late 1930s, Rockefeller’s restoration had positioned the town as an architectural and cultural cornerstone of the Colonial Revival movement, fueled Colonial Revival sentiments in spite of the nation’s social and economic woes, and established Williamsburg as a pioneering example of historical preservation relating to the nation’s colonial and revolutionary past.
In time, Thomas Mott Shaw was eventually “placed on [a] consulting basis” with Williamsburg’s Restoration “when an architectural department was established by Colonial Williamsburg” on 1 October 1934.[29] In 1938, Shaw was recognized by the American Institute of Architects for his work on the Williamsburg Inn, “chosen for its excellency of design wedded to the sensitive appreciation of location.”[30] He was awarded the Institute’s Bronze Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a practicing architect in the country.[31] In 1939, Shaw was placed on an annual retainer with the Restoration, though he continued working as a consultant for Colonial Williamsburg on various design and restoration projects.
After a long and accomplished career, Thomas Mott Shaw died on 17 February 1965.[32]
THE THOMAS MOTT SHAW COLLECTION
This collection consists of thirty-four graphite and mixed media sketches drawn by architect Thomas Mott Shaw during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg from the late 1920s through 1930s, depicting various architectural exteriors and interiors of historic buildings in and around Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. It is not known precisely why these drawings were created – whether for in-house or external purposes by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, for Colonial Williamsburg’s staff or other interested parties, or perhaps even for Shaw’s own personal use – but they have since become historically important artifacts and images of Williamsburg’s Restoration period. These illustrations take us back in time to the early days of Williamsburg as a reconstructed historic site and living history museum, capturing views that offer interesting opportunities for insight and reflection into the early research, planning, design, building, and restoration of the town’s landscape, architecture, and character as Virginia’s eighteenth-century colonial capitol.
The earliest sketch in this collection, drawn in 1928, features the Bracken Tenement (also known as the Bracken House) on Francis Street, which was one of the first buildings to be restored in Williamsburg by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn[33] in 1928.[34] The latest sketch, drawn in 1938, depicts a proposed addition to the Williamsburg Inn which was never built. Otherwise, the majority of the drawings – thirty-two in number – were completed in 1933.
In the fall of 1944, Shaw offered this collection of thirty-four sketches to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation “for use in connection with publicity or any other purpose you would like to use them for.”[35] Upon review of the sketches, Colonial Williamsburg’s staff accepted them, stating: “These sketches are something which we definitely should have in our archives….Mr. Shaw has done them from photographs and that in this respect they are not such creative work as might be done on location without the use of photographs….We have not undertaken to determine how best they can be utilized but there are several possibilities which we should like to explore further.”[36]
Though the sketches were thought to be “very good” and might be used in various ways,[37] Colonial Williamsburg’s staff chiefly appreciated the drawings for their “sentimental appeal by virtue of Mr. Shaw’s connection with Colonial Williamsburg”[38] and “the fact that they are the handiwork of Mr. Shaw, which…will make them quite valuable to Colonial Williamsburg in the future.”[39]
Shaw’s sketches were purchased and accepted into the research archives of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Department between November 1945 and January 1946. These drawings are now part of the Architectural Drawings Collection in the Special Collections wing of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. While a separate collection of Shaw’s personal papers and drawings also reside within the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.,[40] the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is proud to possess the majority of Mr. Shaw’s drawings and correspondence associated with his meticulous and pioneering work on Williamsburg’s restoration.
ENDNOTES
[1] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965” unpublished biography, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects [Deceased] (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970), 381-382.
[4] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[5] George H. Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers (in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Sarah Quinan Shaw Johnson, Concord, Ma., 1975), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[6] Ibid.; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet on Thomas Mott Shaw, dated 15 March 1947, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[7] George H. Yetter, “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 58.
[8] Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[9] Will Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Autumn 2004), 61.
[10] “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[11] Fred Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun,’” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.), 21 May 1956, page number unknown, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[12] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[13] Ibid. (T.M. Shaw quote excerpted from “Reminiscences of Thomas Mott Shaw,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives, Oral History Collection, 11), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[14] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[15] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[16] Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg,” 63.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[20] Molineux, 63; see also Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[21] Molineux, 63.
[22] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[23] Ibid.
[24] Mary Miley Theobald, “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002), 81.
[25] Ibid., 81.
[26] Ibid., 84.
[27] Ibid., 81.
[28] Ibid., 84.
[29] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[30] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[31] Ibid.
[32] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[33] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[34]Carl Lounsbury, “Bracken Tenement: Block 2, Building 52,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation website, n.d., http://research.history.org/Architectural_Research/Research_Articles/ThemeBldgs/Bracken.cfm (accessed 5 May 2014).
[35] Letter from Thomas Mott Shaw to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 25 October 1944, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[36] Staff memo from B.W. Norton to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 1 November 1945, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[37] Staff memo from J.A. Upshur to Kenneth Chorley of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 12 January 1946, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Letter from Michael A. Grimes (archivist, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art) to George H. Yetter (Associate Curator of Architectural Drawings, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), 2 August 1989, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Chappell, Edward A. “Architects of Colonial Williamsburg” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles
Reagan Wilson, William R. Ferris, and Ann J. Adadie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 59-61.
Greenspan, Anders. Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia’s Eighteenth-Century Capitol. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Hosmer, Charles Bridgham, and National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926-1949, Vol. 1. Charlottesville: Published for the Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by the University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Kimball, Fiske, et al. The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. New York: F.W. Dodge
Corporation, 1935.
Molineux, Will. “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (August 2004): 58-65.
Theobald, Mary Miley. “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002): 81-85.
Yetter, George Humphrey. “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 54-60.
Yetter, George Humphrey. Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia's Colonial Capital. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988.
Still Image
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Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Graphite on paper
Physical Dimensions
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51 x 48 cm
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brick Making (Clay Molds)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Block 41.
Brickmakers – Virginia – Williamsburg
Brickmaking – Virginia – Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
<p>View of a Colonial Brickyard Company workman filling brick molds with clay at the Todd and Brown Brickyard, located behind the Williamsburg Inn, 1933. Clay bricks were then removed from their brick molds (also known as clay molds) and set in the sun to dry. After a thorough drying process, bricks were fired in a brick kiln. This brickyard was set up as a temporary location for making bricks for use in the early historic restoration of Williamsburg. Today, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's colonial Brickyard is located on Nicholson Street, in the area behind the Peyton Randolph House and Cabinetmaker's Shop.</p>
<p>In the eighteenth century, "bricks used for buildings of the town were burned on or near the site and were laid in a coarse oyster-shell lime mortar. The gray-green glaze seen on some headers was imparted by burning the bricks in a kiln fired with oakwood. Only those bricks nearest the heat acquired the glazed surface. The use of bricks rubbed down to a smooth surface or to a molded profile was a favorite means of imparting finish to a building."</p>
<p>(Source: A. Lawrence Kocher and Howard Dearstyne, <em>Colonial Williamsburg: Its Buildings and Gardens</em>, rev. ed. [Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1961], 16).</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shaw, Thomas Mott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1933
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1933
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
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jpeg
Type
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Image
Identifier
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D2008-COPY-1014-1011
Rights Holder
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Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
African Americans
Brick Molds
Brickmakers
Brickmaking
Bricks
Brickyards
Clay
Clay Molds
Colonial Architecture
Colonial Brickyard Company
Men
Pug Mills
Thomas Mott Shaw
Todd and Brown Brickyard
Virginia
Williamsburg
Williamsburg Inn
Workers
Workmen
-
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Omeka Image File
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
An Architect of the Restoration: The Pencil Sketches of Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A.
Description
An account of the resource
BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS MOTT SHAW, F.A.I.A.
Thomas Mott Shaw is best known as one of the founding partners and principal architects of the prominent Boston architectural firm Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, which John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired in 1928 to design, plan, and supervise the groundbreaking historical restoration of Williamsburg, the former eighteenth-century capitol of Virginia.
Born in 1878 in Newport, Rhode Island, Thomas Mott Shaw received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1900 and continued his education at the atelier (workshop) of Jean-Louis Pascal at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1900 to 1905.[1] After graduation in 1905, he began working in Boston as a draftsman in the office of Guy Lowell, a prominent American architect and landscape architect who designed the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous other public, commercial, academic, and private buildings and spaces, including many distinguished estates and gardens.[2] Shaw’s connections to Lowell were presumably academic in nature, as Lowell was a former Harvard alumnus who also studied under Pascal at the Ècole, where he graduated just one year before Shaw.[3] In 1908, Shaw left Lowell’s employ and opened his own architectural practice, which he pursued until 1916.[4] During the First World War, he served as a first lieutenant in the 489th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).[5] He was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Air Service Production center at Romorantin, France, where he worked with the Air Service Construction Division #2. During this time, he helped design and build air fields, assembly plants for the fabrication of American aircraft, and barracks for military personnel.[6]
After the war, Shaw returned to the United States and partnered with Andrew H. Hepburn, an MIT graduate and practicing architect who had also worked under Guy Lowell.[7] The two men founded an architectural firm under the name of Shaw and Hepburn, which they managed together from 1918 to 1923.[8] When architect William G. Perry (another alumnus of Harvard, MIT, and the Ècole, as well as a former WWI Army Air Corps captain[9]) joined the partnership in 1923, the firm’s name changed to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[10]
In January 1927, William Perry (representing his partners Shaw and Hepburn) was invited by Reverend William A. R. Goodwin (the rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg) to produce drawings of Williamsburg as it may have looked in the eighteenth century.[11] Goodwin planned to submit the renderings to an unnamed donor who was interested in restoring the town to its former eighteenth-century appearance.[12] Shaw noted: “I worked on those drawings. We all did. We all worked on them (just like a projet in the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) to get them out.” [13] In late November 1927, after spending eleven months working pro bono[14] on a series of illustrations detailing the prospective restoration of the town and the College of William and Mary’s Wren Building, Perry submitted the firm’s drawings to Reverend Goodwin to deliver to his anonymous benefactor for consideration.[15] Soon after reviewing the architects’ work, Goodwin’s patron decided to begin funding the restoration of Williamsburg, and by early December 1927, the firm of Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn was approved “'to proceed with work on [the] Wren Building’ and reconstruction of the colonial Capitol and Governor’s Palace.”[16] It was not until April 1928, however, that the architects finally learned the identity of the secretive individual funding the endeavor.[17] The three men were summoned to New York for a meeting, where Goodwin introduced them to the wealthy businessman and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller Jr.[18] After meeting the architects in person and discussing the project with them over lunch, Rockefeller decided that he liked what he had seen and heard. On 1 April 1928,[19] he “assigned overall ‘authority and responsibility’” of Williamsburg’s building and restoration to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[20] Soon thereafter, the architects set up a small office in Williamsburg near Bruton Parish Church to manage the project.[21]
The architects “soon found that drawing plans was only a minor part of the [project]. The hard part was finding out what kind of plans should be drawn.”[22] Consequently, they organized a staff of historical researchers to assist them in their efforts to restore and rebuild Williamsburg’s eighteenth-century structures as authentically as possible. “Very early in the project, [the architects] decided to establish the highest possible standards for the job. ‘Nothing was ever done without a good reason,’ Shaw once stated. ‘If there were no documented reasons for doing a particular thing, we didn’t do it.’”[23]
Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn’s dedication to the ideals of historic preservation at Williamsburg also paralleled a larger “preservation fever” that was sweeping the nation in the 1920s, called the Colonial Revival.[24] “Historic preservation formed the core of the Colonial Revival, a social and stylistic mindset that peaked during the 1920s [25]…fueled by the usual turmoil – a world war, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Red Scare, and another spike in immigration, all of which increased the nostalgia for the good old colonial days.[26] ….Creating museums from historic buildings became a preferred philanthropy for the wealthy…and John D. Rockefeller Jr. launched the single largest preservation project the country had seen: Colonial Williamsburg.” [27]
In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent national economic collapse of the Great Depression, the fervor of the movement waned, as “only the wealthiest could afford to indulge in antiques, art, and architectural restoration.”[28] As one of the wealthiest men in the country, however, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was one of the few people who could indeed afford to finance his interests in the Colonial Revival. Despite the economic strife of the times, Rockefeller’s infusion of funds into Williamsburg not only helped support the research and restoration of this sleepy southern town back to its former eighteenth-century appearance as the colonial capitol of Virginia, but also provided Williamsburg with much-needed jobs during the worst years of the Depression. By the late 1930s, Rockefeller’s restoration had positioned the town as an architectural and cultural cornerstone of the Colonial Revival movement, fueled Colonial Revival sentiments in spite of the nation’s social and economic woes, and established Williamsburg as a pioneering example of historical preservation relating to the nation’s colonial and revolutionary past.
In time, Thomas Mott Shaw was eventually “placed on [a] consulting basis” with Williamsburg’s Restoration “when an architectural department was established by Colonial Williamsburg” on 1 October 1934.[29] In 1938, Shaw was recognized by the American Institute of Architects for his work on the Williamsburg Inn, “chosen for its excellency of design wedded to the sensitive appreciation of location.”[30] He was awarded the Institute’s Bronze Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a practicing architect in the country.[31] In 1939, Shaw was placed on an annual retainer with the Restoration, though he continued working as a consultant for Colonial Williamsburg on various design and restoration projects.
After a long and accomplished career, Thomas Mott Shaw died on 17 February 1965.[32]
THE THOMAS MOTT SHAW COLLECTION
This collection consists of thirty-four graphite and mixed media sketches drawn by architect Thomas Mott Shaw during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg from the late 1920s through 1930s, depicting various architectural exteriors and interiors of historic buildings in and around Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. It is not known precisely why these drawings were created – whether for in-house or external purposes by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, for Colonial Williamsburg’s staff or other interested parties, or perhaps even for Shaw’s own personal use – but they have since become historically important artifacts and images of Williamsburg’s Restoration period. These illustrations take us back in time to the early days of Williamsburg as a reconstructed historic site and living history museum, capturing views that offer interesting opportunities for insight and reflection into the early research, planning, design, building, and restoration of the town’s landscape, architecture, and character as Virginia’s eighteenth-century colonial capitol.
The earliest sketch in this collection, drawn in 1928, features the Bracken Tenement (also known as the Bracken House) on Francis Street, which was one of the first buildings to be restored in Williamsburg by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn[33] in 1928.[34] The latest sketch, drawn in 1938, depicts a proposed addition to the Williamsburg Inn which was never built. Otherwise, the majority of the drawings – thirty-two in number – were completed in 1933.
In the fall of 1944, Shaw offered this collection of thirty-four sketches to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation “for use in connection with publicity or any other purpose you would like to use them for.”[35] Upon review of the sketches, Colonial Williamsburg’s staff accepted them, stating: “These sketches are something which we definitely should have in our archives….Mr. Shaw has done them from photographs and that in this respect they are not such creative work as might be done on location without the use of photographs….We have not undertaken to determine how best they can be utilized but there are several possibilities which we should like to explore further.”[36]
Though the sketches were thought to be “very good” and might be used in various ways,[37] Colonial Williamsburg’s staff chiefly appreciated the drawings for their “sentimental appeal by virtue of Mr. Shaw’s connection with Colonial Williamsburg”[38] and “the fact that they are the handiwork of Mr. Shaw, which…will make them quite valuable to Colonial Williamsburg in the future.”[39]
Shaw’s sketches were purchased and accepted into the research archives of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Department between November 1945 and January 1946. These drawings are now part of the Architectural Drawings Collection in the Special Collections wing of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. While a separate collection of Shaw’s personal papers and drawings also reside within the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.,[40] the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is proud to possess the majority of Mr. Shaw’s drawings and correspondence associated with his meticulous and pioneering work on Williamsburg’s restoration.
ENDNOTES
[1] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965” unpublished biography, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects [Deceased] (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970), 381-382.
[4] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[5] George H. Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers (in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Sarah Quinan Shaw Johnson, Concord, Ma., 1975), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[6] Ibid.; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet on Thomas Mott Shaw, dated 15 March 1947, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[7] George H. Yetter, “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 58.
[8] Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[9] Will Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Autumn 2004), 61.
[10] “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[11] Fred Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun,’” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.), 21 May 1956, page number unknown, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[12] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[13] Ibid. (T.M. Shaw quote excerpted from “Reminiscences of Thomas Mott Shaw,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives, Oral History Collection, 11), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[14] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[15] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[16] Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg,” 63.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[20] Molineux, 63; see also Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[21] Molineux, 63.
[22] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[23] Ibid.
[24] Mary Miley Theobald, “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002), 81.
[25] Ibid., 81.
[26] Ibid., 84.
[27] Ibid., 81.
[28] Ibid., 84.
[29] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[30] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[31] Ibid.
[32] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[33] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[34]Carl Lounsbury, “Bracken Tenement: Block 2, Building 52,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation website, n.d., http://research.history.org/Architectural_Research/Research_Articles/ThemeBldgs/Bracken.cfm (accessed 5 May 2014).
[35] Letter from Thomas Mott Shaw to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 25 October 1944, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[36] Staff memo from B.W. Norton to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 1 November 1945, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[37] Staff memo from J.A. Upshur to Kenneth Chorley of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 12 January 1946, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Letter from Michael A. Grimes (archivist, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art) to George H. Yetter (Associate Curator of Architectural Drawings, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), 2 August 1989, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Chappell, Edward A. “Architects of Colonial Williamsburg” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles
Reagan Wilson, William R. Ferris, and Ann J. Adadie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 59-61.
Greenspan, Anders. Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia’s Eighteenth-Century Capitol. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Hosmer, Charles Bridgham, and National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926-1949, Vol. 1. Charlottesville: Published for the Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by the University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Kimball, Fiske, et al. The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. New York: F.W. Dodge
Corporation, 1935.
Molineux, Will. “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (August 2004): 58-65.
Theobald, Mary Miley. “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002): 81-85.
Yetter, George Humphrey. “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 54-60.
Yetter, George Humphrey. Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia's Colonial Capital. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988.
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Physical Dimensions
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57 x 43 cm
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Title
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Brick Making (Pug Mill)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Block 41.
Brickmakers - Virginia - Williamsburg
Brickmaking - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
<p class="MsoListParagraph">View of Colonial Brickyard Company workmen filling brick molds with clay at the Todd and Brown Brickyard, located behind the Williamsburg Inn, 1933.<span> </span>In the colonial period, clay was mixed and made pliant for brickmaking by adding water to clay pits and treading on it by foot.<span> </span>During the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, however, clay was mixed in a “pug mill,” an industrial technology that came into use by the mid-nineteenth century.<span> </span>The pug mill (pictured as the tall, square, wood-paneled box under the lean-to) was powered by a horse or mule. The animal was harnessed and tethered to a long wooden lever, which connected to a vertical shaft within the pug mill.<span> </span>As the animal circled around the mill, the rotation of the wooden lever turned the vertical shaft within the mill, which was outfitted with blades and served as a mixing paddle.<span> </span>The paddle stirred and mixed the clay, while workmen periodically added water to the mixture to keep it at the right consistency for packing into brick molds (also known as clay molds).<span> </span>Once packed into molds, the clay bricks were then removed and set in the sun to dry.<span> </span>After a thorough drying process, bricks were fired in a brick kiln and allowed to cool, after which time they were ready for use.<span> </span>This Todd and Brown Brickyard was set up in an open area behind the Williamsburg Inn, where bricks were fashioned for use for the early restoration and building of Williamsburg.<span> </span>Today, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's colonial Brickyard is located on Nicholson Street, in the area behind the Peyton Randolph House and Cabinetmaker's Shop.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">In the eighteenth century, "bricks used for buildings of the town were burned on or near the site and were laid in a coarse oyster-shell lime mortar. The gray-green glaze seen on some headers was imparted by burning the bricks in a kiln fired with oakwood. Only those bricks nearest the heat acquired the glazed surface. The use of bricks rubbed down to a smooth surface or to a molded profile was a favorite means of imparting finish to a building."</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">(Source: <span> </span>A. Lawrence Kocher and Howard Dearstyne, <em>Colonial Williamsburg: Its Buildings and Gardens</em>, rev. ed. [Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1961], 16).</p>
Creator
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Shaw, Thomas Mott
Date
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1933
Date Created
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1933
Rights
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This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
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jpeg
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Image
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D2008-COPY-1014-1008
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Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
African Americans
Brick Molds
Brickmakers
Brickmaking
Bricks
Brickyards
Clay
Clay Molds
Colonial Architecture
Colonial Brickyard Company
Horses
Men
Mules
Pug Mills
Thomas Mott Shaw
Todd and Brown Brickyard
Virginia
Williamsburg
Williamsburg Inn
Workers
Workmen
-
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Omeka Image File
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Title
A name given to the resource
An Architect of the Restoration: The Pencil Sketches of Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A.
Description
An account of the resource
BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS MOTT SHAW, F.A.I.A.
Thomas Mott Shaw is best known as one of the founding partners and principal architects of the prominent Boston architectural firm Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, which John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired in 1928 to design, plan, and supervise the groundbreaking historical restoration of Williamsburg, the former eighteenth-century capitol of Virginia.
Born in 1878 in Newport, Rhode Island, Thomas Mott Shaw received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1900 and continued his education at the atelier (workshop) of Jean-Louis Pascal at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1900 to 1905.[1] After graduation in 1905, he began working in Boston as a draftsman in the office of Guy Lowell, a prominent American architect and landscape architect who designed the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous other public, commercial, academic, and private buildings and spaces, including many distinguished estates and gardens.[2] Shaw’s connections to Lowell were presumably academic in nature, as Lowell was a former Harvard alumnus who also studied under Pascal at the Ècole, where he graduated just one year before Shaw.[3] In 1908, Shaw left Lowell’s employ and opened his own architectural practice, which he pursued until 1916.[4] During the First World War, he served as a first lieutenant in the 489th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).[5] He was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Air Service Production center at Romorantin, France, where he worked with the Air Service Construction Division #2. During this time, he helped design and build air fields, assembly plants for the fabrication of American aircraft, and barracks for military personnel.[6]
After the war, Shaw returned to the United States and partnered with Andrew H. Hepburn, an MIT graduate and practicing architect who had also worked under Guy Lowell.[7] The two men founded an architectural firm under the name of Shaw and Hepburn, which they managed together from 1918 to 1923.[8] When architect William G. Perry (another alumnus of Harvard, MIT, and the Ècole, as well as a former WWI Army Air Corps captain[9]) joined the partnership in 1923, the firm’s name changed to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[10]
In January 1927, William Perry (representing his partners Shaw and Hepburn) was invited by Reverend William A. R. Goodwin (the rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg) to produce drawings of Williamsburg as it may have looked in the eighteenth century.[11] Goodwin planned to submit the renderings to an unnamed donor who was interested in restoring the town to its former eighteenth-century appearance.[12] Shaw noted: “I worked on those drawings. We all did. We all worked on them (just like a projet in the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) to get them out.” [13] In late November 1927, after spending eleven months working pro bono[14] on a series of illustrations detailing the prospective restoration of the town and the College of William and Mary’s Wren Building, Perry submitted the firm’s drawings to Reverend Goodwin to deliver to his anonymous benefactor for consideration.[15] Soon after reviewing the architects’ work, Goodwin’s patron decided to begin funding the restoration of Williamsburg, and by early December 1927, the firm of Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn was approved “'to proceed with work on [the] Wren Building’ and reconstruction of the colonial Capitol and Governor’s Palace.”[16] It was not until April 1928, however, that the architects finally learned the identity of the secretive individual funding the endeavor.[17] The three men were summoned to New York for a meeting, where Goodwin introduced them to the wealthy businessman and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller Jr.[18] After meeting the architects in person and discussing the project with them over lunch, Rockefeller decided that he liked what he had seen and heard. On 1 April 1928,[19] he “assigned overall ‘authority and responsibility’” of Williamsburg’s building and restoration to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[20] Soon thereafter, the architects set up a small office in Williamsburg near Bruton Parish Church to manage the project.[21]
The architects “soon found that drawing plans was only a minor part of the [project]. The hard part was finding out what kind of plans should be drawn.”[22] Consequently, they organized a staff of historical researchers to assist them in their efforts to restore and rebuild Williamsburg’s eighteenth-century structures as authentically as possible. “Very early in the project, [the architects] decided to establish the highest possible standards for the job. ‘Nothing was ever done without a good reason,’ Shaw once stated. ‘If there were no documented reasons for doing a particular thing, we didn’t do it.’”[23]
Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn’s dedication to the ideals of historic preservation at Williamsburg also paralleled a larger “preservation fever” that was sweeping the nation in the 1920s, called the Colonial Revival.[24] “Historic preservation formed the core of the Colonial Revival, a social and stylistic mindset that peaked during the 1920s [25]…fueled by the usual turmoil – a world war, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Red Scare, and another spike in immigration, all of which increased the nostalgia for the good old colonial days.[26] ….Creating museums from historic buildings became a preferred philanthropy for the wealthy…and John D. Rockefeller Jr. launched the single largest preservation project the country had seen: Colonial Williamsburg.” [27]
In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent national economic collapse of the Great Depression, the fervor of the movement waned, as “only the wealthiest could afford to indulge in antiques, art, and architectural restoration.”[28] As one of the wealthiest men in the country, however, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was one of the few people who could indeed afford to finance his interests in the Colonial Revival. Despite the economic strife of the times, Rockefeller’s infusion of funds into Williamsburg not only helped support the research and restoration of this sleepy southern town back to its former eighteenth-century appearance as the colonial capitol of Virginia, but also provided Williamsburg with much-needed jobs during the worst years of the Depression. By the late 1930s, Rockefeller’s restoration had positioned the town as an architectural and cultural cornerstone of the Colonial Revival movement, fueled Colonial Revival sentiments in spite of the nation’s social and economic woes, and established Williamsburg as a pioneering example of historical preservation relating to the nation’s colonial and revolutionary past.
In time, Thomas Mott Shaw was eventually “placed on [a] consulting basis” with Williamsburg’s Restoration “when an architectural department was established by Colonial Williamsburg” on 1 October 1934.[29] In 1938, Shaw was recognized by the American Institute of Architects for his work on the Williamsburg Inn, “chosen for its excellency of design wedded to the sensitive appreciation of location.”[30] He was awarded the Institute’s Bronze Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a practicing architect in the country.[31] In 1939, Shaw was placed on an annual retainer with the Restoration, though he continued working as a consultant for Colonial Williamsburg on various design and restoration projects.
After a long and accomplished career, Thomas Mott Shaw died on 17 February 1965.[32]
THE THOMAS MOTT SHAW COLLECTION
This collection consists of thirty-four graphite and mixed media sketches drawn by architect Thomas Mott Shaw during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg from the late 1920s through 1930s, depicting various architectural exteriors and interiors of historic buildings in and around Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. It is not known precisely why these drawings were created – whether for in-house or external purposes by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, for Colonial Williamsburg’s staff or other interested parties, or perhaps even for Shaw’s own personal use – but they have since become historically important artifacts and images of Williamsburg’s Restoration period. These illustrations take us back in time to the early days of Williamsburg as a reconstructed historic site and living history museum, capturing views that offer interesting opportunities for insight and reflection into the early research, planning, design, building, and restoration of the town’s landscape, architecture, and character as Virginia’s eighteenth-century colonial capitol.
The earliest sketch in this collection, drawn in 1928, features the Bracken Tenement (also known as the Bracken House) on Francis Street, which was one of the first buildings to be restored in Williamsburg by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn[33] in 1928.[34] The latest sketch, drawn in 1938, depicts a proposed addition to the Williamsburg Inn which was never built. Otherwise, the majority of the drawings – thirty-two in number – were completed in 1933.
In the fall of 1944, Shaw offered this collection of thirty-four sketches to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation “for use in connection with publicity or any other purpose you would like to use them for.”[35] Upon review of the sketches, Colonial Williamsburg’s staff accepted them, stating: “These sketches are something which we definitely should have in our archives….Mr. Shaw has done them from photographs and that in this respect they are not such creative work as might be done on location without the use of photographs….We have not undertaken to determine how best they can be utilized but there are several possibilities which we should like to explore further.”[36]
Though the sketches were thought to be “very good” and might be used in various ways,[37] Colonial Williamsburg’s staff chiefly appreciated the drawings for their “sentimental appeal by virtue of Mr. Shaw’s connection with Colonial Williamsburg”[38] and “the fact that they are the handiwork of Mr. Shaw, which…will make them quite valuable to Colonial Williamsburg in the future.”[39]
Shaw’s sketches were purchased and accepted into the research archives of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Department between November 1945 and January 1946. These drawings are now part of the Architectural Drawings Collection in the Special Collections wing of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. While a separate collection of Shaw’s personal papers and drawings also reside within the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.,[40] the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is proud to possess the majority of Mr. Shaw’s drawings and correspondence associated with his meticulous and pioneering work on Williamsburg’s restoration.
ENDNOTES
[1] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965” unpublished biography, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects [Deceased] (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970), 381-382.
[4] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[5] George H. Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers (in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Sarah Quinan Shaw Johnson, Concord, Ma., 1975), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[6] Ibid.; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet on Thomas Mott Shaw, dated 15 March 1947, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[7] George H. Yetter, “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 58.
[8] Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[9] Will Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Autumn 2004), 61.
[10] “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[11] Fred Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun,’” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.), 21 May 1956, page number unknown, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[12] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[13] Ibid. (T.M. Shaw quote excerpted from “Reminiscences of Thomas Mott Shaw,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives, Oral History Collection, 11), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[14] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[15] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[16] Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg,” 63.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[20] Molineux, 63; see also Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[21] Molineux, 63.
[22] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[23] Ibid.
[24] Mary Miley Theobald, “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002), 81.
[25] Ibid., 81.
[26] Ibid., 84.
[27] Ibid., 81.
[28] Ibid., 84.
[29] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[30] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[31] Ibid.
[32] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[33] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[34]Carl Lounsbury, “Bracken Tenement: Block 2, Building 52,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation website, n.d., http://research.history.org/Architectural_Research/Research_Articles/ThemeBldgs/Bracken.cfm (accessed 5 May 2014).
[35] Letter from Thomas Mott Shaw to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 25 October 1944, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[36] Staff memo from B.W. Norton to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 1 November 1945, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[37] Staff memo from J.A. Upshur to Kenneth Chorley of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 12 January 1946, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Letter from Michael A. Grimes (archivist, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art) to George H. Yetter (Associate Curator of Architectural Drawings, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), 2 August 1989, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Chappell, Edward A. “Architects of Colonial Williamsburg” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles
Reagan Wilson, William R. Ferris, and Ann J. Adadie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 59-61.
Greenspan, Anders. Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia’s Eighteenth-Century Capitol. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Hosmer, Charles Bridgham, and National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926-1949, Vol. 1. Charlottesville: Published for the Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by the University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Kimball, Fiske, et al. The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. New York: F.W. Dodge
Corporation, 1935.
Molineux, Will. “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (August 2004): 58-65.
Theobald, Mary Miley. “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002): 81-85.
Yetter, George Humphrey. “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 54-60.
Yetter, George Humphrey. Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia's Colonial Capital. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Graphite on paper
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
31.5 x 45.5 cm
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Governor's Palace, Entrance Gate
Subject
The topic of the resource
Governor's Palace (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 20. Building 03A.
Historic Buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public Buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Architecture, Colonial – Virginia – Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Exterior of the Governor's Palace, looking out through the front gate at the arrival of a carriage and costumed interpreters, 1933. “The Governor’s Palace was an important element in [Williamsburg’s] great civic design. Sited at the end of a broad, imposing green, the governor’s residence terminated in the primary north-south axis of the town. The high visibility and symmetrical formality of this complex did much to reinforce the importance of the governorship in the eyes of Virginians.” Construction began on the Governor’s Palace in 1706 under Governor Edward Nott, and finished in 1722 under Governor Alexander Spotswood. In the early 1750s, Governor Robert Dinwiddie commissioned the construction of a Ballroom Wing addition behind the Palace.</p>
<p>(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, <em>Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg</em> [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 88-89).</p>
Creator
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Shaw, Thomas Mott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1933
Date Created
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1933
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D2008-COPY-1014-1024
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Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Brick Walls
Brickwork
Carriages
Chimneys
Coachmen
Colonial Architecture
Costumed Interpreters
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
F.S. Lincoln
Gates
Historic Buildings
Hitching Posts
Hostesses
Lions
Men
Palace Street
Public Buildings
Thomas Mott Shaw
Unicorns
Virginia
Williamsburg
Women
Wrought Iron
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Omeka Image File
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Title
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An Architect of the Restoration: The Pencil Sketches of Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A.
Description
An account of the resource
BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS MOTT SHAW, F.A.I.A.
Thomas Mott Shaw is best known as one of the founding partners and principal architects of the prominent Boston architectural firm Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, which John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired in 1928 to design, plan, and supervise the groundbreaking historical restoration of Williamsburg, the former eighteenth-century capitol of Virginia.
Born in 1878 in Newport, Rhode Island, Thomas Mott Shaw received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1900 and continued his education at the atelier (workshop) of Jean-Louis Pascal at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1900 to 1905.[1] After graduation in 1905, he began working in Boston as a draftsman in the office of Guy Lowell, a prominent American architect and landscape architect who designed the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous other public, commercial, academic, and private buildings and spaces, including many distinguished estates and gardens.[2] Shaw’s connections to Lowell were presumably academic in nature, as Lowell was a former Harvard alumnus who also studied under Pascal at the Ècole, where he graduated just one year before Shaw.[3] In 1908, Shaw left Lowell’s employ and opened his own architectural practice, which he pursued until 1916.[4] During the First World War, he served as a first lieutenant in the 489th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).[5] He was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Air Service Production center at Romorantin, France, where he worked with the Air Service Construction Division #2. During this time, he helped design and build air fields, assembly plants for the fabrication of American aircraft, and barracks for military personnel.[6]
After the war, Shaw returned to the United States and partnered with Andrew H. Hepburn, an MIT graduate and practicing architect who had also worked under Guy Lowell.[7] The two men founded an architectural firm under the name of Shaw and Hepburn, which they managed together from 1918 to 1923.[8] When architect William G. Perry (another alumnus of Harvard, MIT, and the Ècole, as well as a former WWI Army Air Corps captain[9]) joined the partnership in 1923, the firm’s name changed to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[10]
In January 1927, William Perry (representing his partners Shaw and Hepburn) was invited by Reverend William A. R. Goodwin (the rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg) to produce drawings of Williamsburg as it may have looked in the eighteenth century.[11] Goodwin planned to submit the renderings to an unnamed donor who was interested in restoring the town to its former eighteenth-century appearance.[12] Shaw noted: “I worked on those drawings. We all did. We all worked on them (just like a projet in the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) to get them out.” [13] In late November 1927, after spending eleven months working pro bono[14] on a series of illustrations detailing the prospective restoration of the town and the College of William and Mary’s Wren Building, Perry submitted the firm’s drawings to Reverend Goodwin to deliver to his anonymous benefactor for consideration.[15] Soon after reviewing the architects’ work, Goodwin’s patron decided to begin funding the restoration of Williamsburg, and by early December 1927, the firm of Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn was approved “'to proceed with work on [the] Wren Building’ and reconstruction of the colonial Capitol and Governor’s Palace.”[16] It was not until April 1928, however, that the architects finally learned the identity of the secretive individual funding the endeavor.[17] The three men were summoned to New York for a meeting, where Goodwin introduced them to the wealthy businessman and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller Jr.[18] After meeting the architects in person and discussing the project with them over lunch, Rockefeller decided that he liked what he had seen and heard. On 1 April 1928,[19] he “assigned overall ‘authority and responsibility’” of Williamsburg’s building and restoration to Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.[20] Soon thereafter, the architects set up a small office in Williamsburg near Bruton Parish Church to manage the project.[21]
The architects “soon found that drawing plans was only a minor part of the [project]. The hard part was finding out what kind of plans should be drawn.”[22] Consequently, they organized a staff of historical researchers to assist them in their efforts to restore and rebuild Williamsburg’s eighteenth-century structures as authentically as possible. “Very early in the project, [the architects] decided to establish the highest possible standards for the job. ‘Nothing was ever done without a good reason,’ Shaw once stated. ‘If there were no documented reasons for doing a particular thing, we didn’t do it.’”[23]
Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn’s dedication to the ideals of historic preservation at Williamsburg also paralleled a larger “preservation fever” that was sweeping the nation in the 1920s, called the Colonial Revival.[24] “Historic preservation formed the core of the Colonial Revival, a social and stylistic mindset that peaked during the 1920s [25]…fueled by the usual turmoil – a world war, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Red Scare, and another spike in immigration, all of which increased the nostalgia for the good old colonial days.[26] ….Creating museums from historic buildings became a preferred philanthropy for the wealthy…and John D. Rockefeller Jr. launched the single largest preservation project the country had seen: Colonial Williamsburg.” [27]
In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent national economic collapse of the Great Depression, the fervor of the movement waned, as “only the wealthiest could afford to indulge in antiques, art, and architectural restoration.”[28] As one of the wealthiest men in the country, however, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was one of the few people who could indeed afford to finance his interests in the Colonial Revival. Despite the economic strife of the times, Rockefeller’s infusion of funds into Williamsburg not only helped support the research and restoration of this sleepy southern town back to its former eighteenth-century appearance as the colonial capitol of Virginia, but also provided Williamsburg with much-needed jobs during the worst years of the Depression. By the late 1930s, Rockefeller’s restoration had positioned the town as an architectural and cultural cornerstone of the Colonial Revival movement, fueled Colonial Revival sentiments in spite of the nation’s social and economic woes, and established Williamsburg as a pioneering example of historical preservation relating to the nation’s colonial and revolutionary past.
In time, Thomas Mott Shaw was eventually “placed on [a] consulting basis” with Williamsburg’s Restoration “when an architectural department was established by Colonial Williamsburg” on 1 October 1934.[29] In 1938, Shaw was recognized by the American Institute of Architects for his work on the Williamsburg Inn, “chosen for its excellency of design wedded to the sensitive appreciation of location.”[30] He was awarded the Institute’s Bronze Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a practicing architect in the country.[31] In 1939, Shaw was placed on an annual retainer with the Restoration, though he continued working as a consultant for Colonial Williamsburg on various design and restoration projects.
After a long and accomplished career, Thomas Mott Shaw died on 17 February 1965.[32]
THE THOMAS MOTT SHAW COLLECTION
This collection consists of thirty-four graphite and mixed media sketches drawn by architect Thomas Mott Shaw during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg from the late 1920s through 1930s, depicting various architectural exteriors and interiors of historic buildings in and around Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. It is not known precisely why these drawings were created – whether for in-house or external purposes by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, for Colonial Williamsburg’s staff or other interested parties, or perhaps even for Shaw’s own personal use – but they have since become historically important artifacts and images of Williamsburg’s Restoration period. These illustrations take us back in time to the early days of Williamsburg as a reconstructed historic site and living history museum, capturing views that offer interesting opportunities for insight and reflection into the early research, planning, design, building, and restoration of the town’s landscape, architecture, and character as Virginia’s eighteenth-century colonial capitol.
The earliest sketch in this collection, drawn in 1928, features the Bracken Tenement (also known as the Bracken House) on Francis Street, which was one of the first buildings to be restored in Williamsburg by Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn[33] in 1928.[34] The latest sketch, drawn in 1938, depicts a proposed addition to the Williamsburg Inn which was never built. Otherwise, the majority of the drawings – thirty-two in number – were completed in 1933.
In the fall of 1944, Shaw offered this collection of thirty-four sketches to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation “for use in connection with publicity or any other purpose you would like to use them for.”[35] Upon review of the sketches, Colonial Williamsburg’s staff accepted them, stating: “These sketches are something which we definitely should have in our archives….Mr. Shaw has done them from photographs and that in this respect they are not such creative work as might be done on location without the use of photographs….We have not undertaken to determine how best they can be utilized but there are several possibilities which we should like to explore further.”[36]
Though the sketches were thought to be “very good” and might be used in various ways,[37] Colonial Williamsburg’s staff chiefly appreciated the drawings for their “sentimental appeal by virtue of Mr. Shaw’s connection with Colonial Williamsburg”[38] and “the fact that they are the handiwork of Mr. Shaw, which…will make them quite valuable to Colonial Williamsburg in the future.”[39]
Shaw’s sketches were purchased and accepted into the research archives of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Department between November 1945 and January 1946. These drawings are now part of the Architectural Drawings Collection in the Special Collections wing of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. While a separate collection of Shaw’s personal papers and drawings also reside within the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.,[40] the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is proud to possess the majority of Mr. Shaw’s drawings and correspondence associated with his meticulous and pioneering work on Williamsburg’s restoration.
ENDNOTES
[1] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965” unpublished biography, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects [Deceased] (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970), 381-382.
[4] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[5] George H. Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers (in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Sarah Quinan Shaw Johnson, Concord, Ma., 1975), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[6] Ibid.; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet on Thomas Mott Shaw, dated 15 March 1947, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[7] George H. Yetter, “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 58.
[8] Yetter, handwritten notes compiled from Thomas Mott Shaw Papers; see also “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[9] Will Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Autumn 2004), 61.
[10] “Colonial Williamsburg Logbook” biographical sheet.
[11] Fred Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun,’” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.), 21 May 1956, page number unknown, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[12] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[13] Ibid. (T.M. Shaw quote excerpted from “Reminiscences of Thomas Mott Shaw,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives, Oral History Collection, 11), Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[14] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[15] George H. Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
[16] Molineux, “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg,” 63.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[20] Molineux, 63; see also Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[21] Molineux, 63.
[22] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[23] Ibid.
[24] Mary Miley Theobald, “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002), 81.
[25] Ibid., 81.
[26] Ibid., 84.
[27] Ibid., 81.
[28] Ibid., 84.
[29] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw” typewritten research notes.
[30] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[31] Ibid.
[32] Yetter, “Thomas Mott Shaw, F.A.I.A., 1878-1965.”
[33] Frechette, “Work on Restoration Started as ‘Bit of Fun.’”
[34]Carl Lounsbury, “Bracken Tenement: Block 2, Building 52,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation website, n.d., http://research.history.org/Architectural_Research/Research_Articles/ThemeBldgs/Bracken.cfm (accessed 5 May 2014).
[35] Letter from Thomas Mott Shaw to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 25 October 1944, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[36] Staff memo from B.W. Norton to Vernon Geddy of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 1 November 1945, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[37] Staff memo from J.A. Upshur to Kenneth Chorley of Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 12 January 1946, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Letter from Michael A. Grimes (archivist, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art) to George H. Yetter (Associate Curator of Architectural Drawings, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), 2 August 1989, Thomas Mott Shaw research folder, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Chappell, Edward A. “Architects of Colonial Williamsburg” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles
Reagan Wilson, William R. Ferris, and Ann J. Adadie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 59-61.
Greenspan, Anders. Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia’s Eighteenth-Century Capitol. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Hosmer, Charles Bridgham, and National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926-1949, Vol. 1. Charlottesville: Published for the Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by the University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Kimball, Fiske, et al. The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. New York: F.W. Dodge
Corporation, 1935.
Molineux, Will. “The Architect of Colonial Williamsburg: William Graves Perry,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (August 2004): 58-65.
Theobald, Mary Miley. “The Colonial Revival: The Past that Never Dies,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Summer 2002): 81-85.
Yetter, George Humphrey. “Designers of Beauty: Academic Training and Williamsburg’s Architectural Restoration,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2012): 54-60.
Yetter, George Humphrey. Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia's Colonial Capital. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988.
Still Image
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Original Format
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Graphite on paper
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31 x 45 cm
Dublin Core
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Title
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Ludwell-Paradise Stable
Subject
The topic of the resource
Ludwell-Paradise House (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 18-1. Building 07.
Architecture, Domestic - Virginia - Williamsburg
Architecture, Colonial - Virginia - Williamsburg
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Outbuildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior of the Ludwell-Paradise Stable, viewed from Nicholson Street, 1933. A dovecote is visible in the gable-end roof of the stable, with holes for pigeons to roost in (though the holes have recently been covered over). The Cooper's Shop is now located in the Ludwell-Paradise Stable, where hogsheads, barrels, casks, buckets, and pails of all sizes are constructed.
The Ludwell-Paradise Stable is behind the Ludwell-Paradise House (not pictured here), one of the eighty-eight original eighteenth-century buildings at Colonial Williamsburg. The Ludwell-Paradise house played an important role in the museum's founding, as it was the first property purchased by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in the early days of Williamsburg's restoration. Members of the Ludwell family resided here in the eighteenth century, and Lucy Ludwell Paradise, one of their more eccentric offspring, became a well-known socialite in both London and Virginia. She also became a namesake for this home that is a cornerstone of Williamsburg's restoration.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shaw, Thomas Mott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1933
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1933
Rights
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This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
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jpeg
Type
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Image
Identifier
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D2008-COPY-1014-1042
Rights Holder
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Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Carts
Colonial Architecture
Costumed Interpreters
Dovecotes
Fences
Historic Buildings
Lampposts
Ludwell-Paradise House
Ludwell-Paradise Stable
Men
Outbuildings
Stables
Thomas Mott Shaw
Virginia
Visitors
Weatherboarding
Williamsburg
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Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, East Elevation
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
Oblique view of the East elevation of the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary. Begun in 1695, the construction of the Wren Building marked the birth of an academic center in colonial Virginia. A series of fires in 1705, 1859, and 1862 damaged parts of the structure but never completely destroyed exterior walls.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P18
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Balconies
Belt Courses
Benches
Bull's-Eye Windows
Chimneys
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
East Elevation
F.S. Lincoln
Fences
Lampposts
Men
Oculus Windows
Pediments
People
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Williamsburg
Women
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
768
Width
971
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, East Elevation
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
View of East elevation of the Wren Building, College of William & Mary, taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. Begun in 1695, the construction of the Wren Building marked the birth of an academic center in colonial Virginia. A series of fires in 1705, 1859, and 1862 damaged parts of the structure but never completely destroyed exterior walls
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P20
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Balconies
Belt Courses
Benches
Bull's-Eye Windows
Chimneys
Clock Towers
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
F.S. Lincoln
Fences
Lampposts
Men
Oculus Windows
Pediments
People
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Weather Vanes
Williamsburg
Women
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
1
Height
768
Width
617
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, East Elevation
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
Close-up view of East entrance of Wren Building, College of William & Mary, taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. Begun in 1695, the construction of the Wren Building marked the birth of an academic center in colonial Virginia. A series of fires in 1705, 1859, and 1862 damaged parts of the structure but never completely destroyed exterior walls
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P23
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Balconies
Belt Courses
Benches
Chimneys
Clock Towers
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
F.S. Lincoln
Lampposts
Men
Pediments
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Williamsburg
Women
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
1
Height
768
Width
543
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, Exterior
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
View of the East elevation of the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. The wheel of a cannon in the foreground offers a unique perspective towards the statue of Lord Botetourt and the restored façade of one of the earliest academic structures in America.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P12
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Balconies
Belt Courses
Bull's-Eye Windows
Cannons
Clock Towers
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
East Elevation
F.S. Lincoln
Gun Carriages
Lord Botetourt
Men
Oculus Windows
Pediments
People
Statues
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Weather Vanes
Williamsburg
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
1
Height
768
Width
550
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, Exterior
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
View of the East elevation of the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. The wheel of a cannon in the foreground offers a unique perspective towards the statue of Lord Botetourt and the restored façade of one of the earliest academic structures in America.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P13
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Belt Courses
Bull's-Eye Windows
Cannons
Chimneys
Clock Towers
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
East Elevation
F.S. Lincoln
Gun Carriages
Historic Buildings
Lord Botetourt
Men
Oculus Windows
Pediments
People
Public Buildings
Statues
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Weather Vanes
Williamsburg
Women
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
1
Height
768
Width
569
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
The actual physical size of the original image.
8x10 inches
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Building, Exterior
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
View of the East elevation of the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. The wheel and muzzle of a cannon in the foreground offers a unique perspective towards the statue of Lord Botetourt and the restored façade of one of the earliest academic structures in America.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lincoln, F.S.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LC329P14
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Balconies
Belt Courses
Bull's-Eye Windows
Cannons
Clock Towers
Clocks
College of William and Mary
Cupolas
Dormer Windows
Dormers
East Elevation
F.S. Lincoln
Gun Carriages
Lord Botetourt
Men
Oculus Windows
Pediments
People
Statues
Stringcourses
Students
Virginia
Weather Vanes
Williamsburg
Women
Wren Building
-
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
768
Width
969
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F.S. Lincoln Photography Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The FS Lincoln Collection
Biographical Sketch
Mr. Fay S. Lincoln (known professionally as F.S. Lincoln) operated a photography studio in New York City from the 1930s until the mid 1960s. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1894 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he received training as an engineer, Mr. Lincoln chose to become a professional photographer in 1929, when he opened the firm of Nyholm & Lincoln in conjunction with another photographer, Peter Nyholm, in New York City. A few years later, he opened his own studio at 114 East 32nd St.1
In 1932, Lincoln began corresponding with Kenneth Chorley, President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, about the possibility of contracting with the Foundation to photograph the completed restoration work at Williamsburg. Lincoln had learned that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was looking for someone to create a master collection of photos of Williamsburg through Arthur S. Vernay, an acquaintance of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In his correspondence, Lincoln noted he had completed photographic assignments for many of the top architects and designers in New York, including Arthur S. Vernay, Joseph Urban, James Gamble Rogers, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, McKim, Mead, & White, Robert Locher, and Eugene Schoen. He also pointed out that he had sold architectural photos to many prominent magazines, including "Architectural Record," "National Geographic," "Country Life," "Architectural Forum," and "Spur."2
Lincoln's credentials, along with sample photographs and recommendations from magazine editors, enabled him to secure a contract with Colonial Williamsburg on April 22, 1935. According to the terms of the contract, Lincoln was hired to prepare a master collection of photographs and negatives that Colonial Williamsburg could sell to tourists and residents of Williamsburg, as well as use for promotional purposes. Lincoln retained the right to sell copies of his photographs at his New York studio, provided he consulted with the Foundation regarding the proposed use of the photographs. He also retained title to all negatives and copyright for all photos until the termination of his business. Plans for a traveling exhibition of Lincoln's photographs of Williamsburg were also mentioned in the contract.3
During 1935, F.S. Lincoln traveled to Williamsburg at seasonal intervals to photograph views requested by the Foundation. A panel of Colonial Williamsburg employees reviewed each series of photos and selected a group to be added to the master collection. F.S. Lincoln photos illustrated two portfolios about Colonial Williamsburg published in the "Architectural Record" in December 1935 and November 1936. Full-page black and white photos of restored buildings and gardens accompanied articles on the restoration written by Kenneth Chorley, Fiske Kimball, William G. Perry, and Arthur Shurcliff. Thus, Lincoln's photos gave the American public their first introduction to the completed restoration.
Lincoln had also been hired by Colonial Williamsburg to create a group of photographs of Williamsburg that could be exhibited. Correspondence between staff members indicates that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hoped to mount a traveling exhibit of Williamsburg photographs. An exhibit of a selection of Lincoln's views of Williamsburg, along with photos he took for "Harper's Bazaar," "House and Garden," "House Beautiful," "Vanity Fair," "National Geographic," and "Town and Country," was held at the Rabinovitch Gallery in New York City from October 4-17, 1935.
Although Foundation employees were satisfied with the quality of Lincoln's photographs, they were dismayed by the cost of individual prints and enlargements. Memos exchanged between members of the marketing staff indicate that employees were having a hard time convincing distributors to purchase enlargements of the Lincoln photos for display in shop windows. As a result, the Foundation's agreement with F.S. Lincoln was terminated on April 21, 1936.4
Despite this setback, F.S. Lincoln secured contracts for many other architectural photography projects in the 1930s. He received numerous commissions to photograph buildings in New York City and also traveled abroad on several assignments. In 1934, he completed a portfolio of photos of Mont St. Michel and in 1938 he toured the deep South and photographed examples of antebellum architecture. Lincoln's photos were widely published in the 1930s and 1940s in such magazines as "Architectural Record," "House Beautiful," "National Geographic," "Country Life," and "Architectural Forum." In addition, he published a book of his photographs in 1946 entitled "Charleston: Photographic Studies by F.S. Lincoln."5
F.S. Lincoln continued to operate a photography studio in New York City until 1965, when he retired and moved to Center Hall, Pennsylvania to live with his sister. He forwarded all of his negatives of Williamsburg buildings to the Foundation in 1972, along with a letter stating that “the copyright of the photographs has run out, so you are free to use them as desired.”6 Upon his death in 1976, the remainder of Lincoln's archive of prints and negatives, as well as some business papers, were donated to the Pennsylvania State University Archives.
Scope and Contents
The F.S. Lincoln collection consists of black and white negatives and prints taken by Mr. Lincoln in preparation for the publication of "The Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia," a series of articles appearing in the December 1935 and November 1936 issues of "The Architectural Record." Both issues featured a portfolio of buildings and gardens in the newly restored historic area of Williamsburg.
In order to produce a large pool of photos for use in these portfolios, Mr. Lincoln created comprehensive visual documentation of the work completed during the initial phases of the restoration (1927-1935.) He photographed the exteriors and interiors of thirty restored buildings, including the exhibition buildings open to the public, such as the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, Bruton Parish Church, the Wren Building, and the Powder Magazine. In addition, he captured exterior views of some of the shops open on Merchant's Square and restored buildings adapted for public use, such as the Public Library. He also photographed many of the gardens and garden ornaments throughout the restored area.
The collection is organized into series by format. Series included in the collection are negatives; bound matted and signed prints; unbound matted and signed prints; and small albums. Within each format, items are organized according to the numbering system assigned by Mr. Lincoln. The first three digits of numbers assigned to the images correspond to a particular building or subject category. For example, all images of the Capitol have numbers beginning with 325 and all miscellaneous views have numbers beginning with 365. After these first three digits, Lincoln added a P for print and then a successive number for each view. For example, the first view of the Capitol is number 325P1. An “LC” prefix has been added to all image numbers by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to identify the images as coming from the Lincoln Collection.
Endnotes
1 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17, (Spring 1993): 127-128.
2 F.S. Lincoln to B.W. Norton, October 18, 1933. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
3 Agreement dated April 22, 1935 between Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. and F.S. Lincoln, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
4 Mr. Norton to Mr. Darling, February 22, 1937; Kenneth Chorley to F.S. Lincoln, April 6, 1937, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
5 Champagne, Anne, “Fay S. Lincoln Collection,” History of Photography 17 (Spring 1993): 128.
6 F.S. Lincoln to James R. Short, May 15, 1972, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives.
Still Image
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Original Format
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Gelatin or collodian printing out paper with platinum toning, mounted on board.
Physical Dimensions
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8x10 inches
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Wren Triangle
Subject
The topic of the resource
Wren Building (Williamsburg, Va.)
Block 16. Building 3.
Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg
Description
An account of the resource
View of the Wren Triangle, College of William & Mary, taken by F.S. Lincoln in 1935. The Wren Building, one of the oldest academic structures in America, is flanked by the Brafferton on the left and the President's House on the right.
Creator
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Lincoln, F.S.
Date
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1935
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1935
Rights
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This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: <a href="http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm">Rights and reproductions</a>
Format
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jpeg
Type
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Image
Identifier
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LC330P1
Rights Holder
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Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Brafferton
College of William and Mary
College Yard
Colleges
F.S. Lincoln
Men
People
President's House
Students
Virginia
Williamsburg
Wren Building
Wren Triangle