Professional Documents
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Teaching History With Architecture
Teaching History With Architecture
STUDYING
ARCHITECTURE
AS A PART OF
HISTORY
Uncovering the pieces of history hidden in each building's story can be as exciting as a treasure
hunt. In fact it adds a layer of suspense and surprise, for the aim is not to find something we
already know but to lay bare facts and associations that may be utterly lost to current record or
memory. As in an archaeological dig, we can only make educated guesses about the nature or
the significance of what we will find; the actual discovery may lead us somewhere else
altogether. Being open to where the discoveries about a building and its history might lead is
essential to the study of local architecture. We might think we are researching a site of early
black settlement, only to find that the extant structure was built by a white merchant who
eradicated all traces of his predecessor's occupance. Or in looking into the chain of occupancy
of a sophisticated Federal Period store we find that it originated as a furniture factory powered
by horses. Those are the sorts of discoveries that change the way we look at things.
The unexpected findings described above are both actual discoveries, made by the author
during far-ranging historic neighborhood surveys in Quincy, Illinois. Few American cities its
size (40,000) contain a richer architectural heritage or so varied a set of historical resources. It
is, therefore, an ideal place to construct mini-examples of historical research through
architecture. These are offered simply as samplings of the kinds of historical issues that can be
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Bird's-eye view of Quincy, Illinois, in 1888 Large-scale lithographs such as this were a
frequent means of advertisement for up-and-coming cities. A crowded riverfront, signs of
industrial waste on the banks, and black clouds belching from every smokestack were all
selling points.
that downtown had to offer above immigrant's life. Hints of artistry in the structures echo
simple brick and frame shop fronts. then-current American styles, showing that the Germans
willingly assimilated some of the most visible aspects of
Photos courtesy of the their new culture. Staggered setbacks from the street,
Historical Society of
Quincy and Adams County
many so shallow as to put the house on the eventual
public sidewalk, point to a variety of prior rural and
urban living experiences. The great number of two-room cottages also reveals the limited
means of many of the immigrants, who often crowded large families into those two rooms.
The first building on the northeast corner of Fifth and Hampshire was a
crude split-log county courthouse that also served as school and church. In
1840, the year when Quincy became a chartered city, local land speculator
and merchant Timothy Kelly built a three-story brick block that sprawled
across the courthouse site. It was the largest retail building in the city as well
as the first structure of any kind to boast a tin roof. The city's need for
expanded office space as the century neared its close led to the replacement
of the Kelly Block by the five-story Dodd Block. With the exodus of business to the suburbs
after World War II, the Dodd Block was largely vacated. A realty company now occupies the
ground floor, which has been updated with aqua facings and Colonial Revival detailing.
EXAMPLE C: How a succession of buildings teaches us about a person and his work
A simple Federal Style brick building on Maine Street, one of the oldest surviving
Courtesy of
Paul Clifford Larson
26
masonry buildings in Quincy, housed the first furniture factory of Frederick Jansen. It was
powered by horses. A store building erected on the town square in 1854 shows that Jansen's
business soon expanded enough to separate production and sales operations. In 1874 a much
larger factory, this one powered by steam, was built just above the river; Jansen continued to
expand his store and warehouse on the square, first by erecting an adjoining building, then by
adding a floor to the original structure.
EXAMPLE D: How historic building patterns teach us about the ebb and flow of
subcultures
Quincy has had a sizable and vital black community since the 1850s, well before the Civil War
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and its aftermath drove thousands of African Americans across the Missouri border into
Illinois. Using city directories as a key (several years indicate black residents by "c" or "col"),
several areas of dense settlement on the north side can be identified. One clustered around the
local African Methodist church; another stretched out along an east-west axis on land
belonging to abolitionist Willard Keyes. Many houses in the area date to the 1870s, but unlike
the German immigrant-dominated south side, few or none can be traced to the first generation
of occupancy. This suggests that the early black population survived largely in makeshift
shelters. As those gave way to more permanent houses, the pools of black settlement tended to
disperse through a larger area.
The earliest standing artifact on the Henry Clark farm in Liberty Township (Adams County) is
a porch barn erected in 1889. (A porch barn is distinguished by a shed-roofed attachment to the
rear offering partial shelter to livestock.) That single structure housed cattle and horses,
provided the threshing and winnowing floor, stored hay and grain, and, in the winter, stored the
major farming equipment. Twenty-two years later, Clark's son erected a much larger barn in
which to store hay, reflecting an expanded operation and, possibly, the use of regional
terminals for grain storage. The farmhouse has been rented out for many years, a mark of the
contemporary trend toward farm consolidation.
These examples illustrate a few of the many ways that studying buildings teaches us about
history. Buildings can inform us about the culture that gave rise to them, the people who
constructed and used them, and the continuous adjustment of neighborhoods to new subcultural
groups and shifting economic realities. There is no better index than buildings to that rich
historical tapestry we identify as the American experience.
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remodelings have taken their toll on the structure, but it remains a vital component of northside
Quincy.
Courtesy of Paul Clifford Larson and the Gardner Museum, Quincy, Illinois
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An increasing number of cities, even quite small cities, now have historic preservation or
landmark commissions operating as a volunteer arm of city government. Generally placed
within planning departments, the commissions have files on many of the cities' buildings.
Copies of all historic site survey work and National Register nominations prepared with state
funds must be kept by the local commission. In addition, the local commission itself often
funds survey or registration work, and many cities now have locally designated buildings and
districts as well. Since much of the work summarized in the final reports and nominations
concerns historical contexts and developments, it is often useful to students of local building
history even if the building, site, or neighborhood they are researching is not mentioned in the
records.
Libraries and historical societies can be a very helpful resource, particularly for learning about
the events and situations surrounding a building's erection or evolution and something about
the people involved. In most Illinois counties extensive histories were published by
subscription during periods of economic upswing, such as the mid-1880s, the early 1900s, or
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the years following the First World War. Adams County, where Quincy is located, published a
history during each of those periods. Vanity biographies are generally a major component, and
some subscription volumes contain nothing but biographical blurbs and photographic portraits.
In the late 1880s a Wisconsin publisher issued a number of folios of photogravures featuring
cities in the middle states from Minnesota to Texas. Called either "[Name of City] Illustrated"
or "Picturesque [Name of City]," these are a superb source of archival images both of
individual buildings and of streetscapes for those cities enterprising enough to acquire that sort
of coverage. Just after the turn of the century, cities of all sizes began producing their own
pictorial brochures. Often published by the chamber of commerce or a local printer, these
provide excellent period views, though the quality of reproduction tends to be uneven. In
Quincy, such booklets date from 1914 to the 1950s; other downstate cities produced earlier
self-advertising pieces, but most of them discontinued the effort after the initial wave of
modernist enthusiasm ebbed.
City and county historical societies are also a rich source of documentary material such as early
photographs, county plat maps, insurance atlases (which provide ground floor outlines or
"footprints" of buildings at various periods), diaries, and
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Deed research offers a sound basis for constructing a chain of ownership for a property. The
county recorder's office holds copies of deeds as well as such other sorts of building-related
documents as mortgages and liens. Each county has its own system of providing access to
copies of the financial transactions concerning individual properties. In Adams County, a
general index by division or subdivision is the starting point; this points the way to a more
specific index volume providing a lot-by-lot listing of property transfers, mortgages, and liens;
the last stage is looking for the volumes and pages that actually contain copies of these
documents. Other counties have the detailed indexes in a huge catalogue or on computer, the
last stage (the volumes actually containing the property records) on microfiche, or a hybrid
arrangement that varies with the periods or city divisions being researched. The cooperation of
office staff is obviously a prerequisite for beginning the process, but most staff personnel
understand that helping the public is part of their jobs.
Construction documents such as blueprints and specifications are always treasured finds, as
much for the rarity of their survival as for their usefulness in research. Architectural offices
occasionally have
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working drawings of old buildings designed by their firm or a firm whose practice they
acquired. Few historical societies or museums retain this kind of document, as its friability and
large size make it difficult to store. In the Upper Midwest, the Burnham Library in Chicago, the
Chicago Historical Society, the Northwest Architectural Archives in St. Paul, and the Gardner
Museum of Architecture and Design in Quincy all have extensive collections of construction
documents, but in spite of the efforts of each institution to build a regional or even national
collection, most of their holdings continue to be of local buildings and architects.
A final important resource is people who presently occupy or own the building, live in the
neighborhood, or remember stories about the site or building under investigation. I have found
oral history to be particularly useful in pointing the way to additional sources of information as
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well as for the interpretive insights it offers. For public buildings, custodial personnel are often
more helpful than elected officials, just as long-term members of the office staff often take a
deeper interest in the buildings where they work than the businessmen, ministers, or teachers
they serve.
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1998|
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