Building America: The Life of Benjamin Henry Latrobe

by Jean H. Baker

Overview

An English émigré who became America's first professional architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe put his stamp on the built landscape of the new republic. Latrobe contributed to such iconic structures as the south wing of the US Capitol building, the White House, and the Navy Yard. He created some of the early republic's greatest neoclassical interiors, including the Statuary Hall and the Senate, House, and Supreme Court Chambers. As a young man, Latrobe was apprenticed to both a leading architect and civil engineer in London, studied the European continent's architectural and engineering monuments, worked on canals, and designed private houses. After the death of his first wife, he was bankrupt and emigrated to the United States in 1796 to restart his career. For the new nation with grand political expectations, he intended buildings and engineering projects to match those aspirations. Like his patron Thomas Jefferson, Latrobe saw his neoclassical designs as a way to convey American democracy. He envisioned his engineering projects, such as the canals and municipal water systems for Philadelphia and New Orleans, as a way to unite the nation and improve public health. Jean Baker conveys the personality of this charming, driven, and often frustrated genius and the era in which he lived. Latrobe tried to establish architecture as a profession with high standards, established fees, and recognized procedures, though he was unable to collect fees and earn the living his work was worth. Like many of his peers, he speculated and found himself in bankruptcy several times. Building America masterfully narrates the life and legacy of a key figure in creating an American aesthetic in the new United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190696474
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/02/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Jean H. Baker is Bennett-Harwood Professor of History Emerita at Goucher College. An eminent political historian and biographer, she is the author of Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists, James Buchanan, and Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography, among other titles.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Ch. 1 Itching Ears: The Early Life of Benjamin Latrobe Ch. 2 This New American Ch. 3 Capitol Projects: Latrobe in Washington, 1803-1813 Ch. 4 Beloved Mary and the Little Folks Ch. 5 Breaking Points: Pittsburgh and Washington, 1813- 1817 Ch. 6 Last Beginnings: Baltimore and New Orleans Conclusion Legacies Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

"Latrobe's work as an architect and designer had an indelible effect on the nation. And because of Baker's painstaking reconstruction of his life, we now know much more about the character behind those visions....Baker is at her best when she balances her attention on Latrobe's eccentricities with her scrutiny of the symbolic significance and design brilliance of some of his great achievements....Building America will be of great use to scholars tracing those important connections between public works and design, especially in its attention to the leading characters who fought among themselves to realize early national fantasies. By paying such close attention to Latrobe, Baker reveals a much more tangled and often-contradictory story of the early decades of the United States." — Carolyn Eastman, Journal of American History

"Both Benjamin Latrobe and his biographer Jean H. Baker will be remembered for their roles in "building America," one for his lasting contributions to architecture and engineering, the other for her mastery of readable and lasting biography." — Edward C. Papenfuse, Maryland Historical Magazine

"An absorbing narrative of a prominent contributor to the architecture of the American way of life....Both Benjamin Latrobe and his biographer Jean H. Baker will be remembered for their roles in 'building America,' one for his lasting contributions to architecture and engineering, the other for her mastery of readable and lasting biography." — Edward C. Papenfuse, Maryland Historical Magazine

"In an engaging and readable style...Jean Baker ably presents the often-overlooked story of America's first professional architect and engineer....Baker has given us an engaging portrait of a complex man, one who played a pivotal role in literally building the United States in its critical early years." — Jeanne Abrams, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

"This book should succeed Talbot Hamlin's Pulitzer Prize-winning doorstopper, Benjamin Henry Latrobe: Architect, Artist, Engineer (1955), as the definitive biography....Baker puts Latrobe's flaws, and his more endearing qualities as a father and husband, under the socially astute modern historian's microscope. The man said to be America's first architect and engineer (though many others performed those services at the time) is given credit for proclaiming that architecture was a sovereign profession—one that couldn't be trusted to mere 'mechanics'—that required training and deserved fair compensation....His legacy is one of an uncompromising and long-suffering champion for his profession and its vision and stewardship of the built environment." — Richard Korman, Architectural Digest

"Architecture, it has been said, is first shaped by human beings, and then shapes those human beings. In this lucid and important book, Jean H. Baker tells the engaging story of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the man whose buildings and designs have left an indelible and enduring mark on the American nation."-Jon Meacham, author of The Soul of America

"As America's first great architect and engineer, Benjamin Henry Latrobe transferred the founders' vision of the nation to its buildings-from homes to churches, banks, municipal waterworks, and the US Capitol. Jean Baker does an admirable job of revealing the man behind the monuments."-Donald A. Ritchie, Senate Historian Emeritus

"Setting his life against the backdrop of the vast opportunities in the new American republic, Jean Baker gives us a compelling portrait of the frequently brilliant, often mercurial, and deeply proud architect and engineer Benjamin Henry Latrobe."-Darwin H. Stapleton, editor of The Engineering Drawings of Benjamin Henry Latrobe

"The life of Benjamin Latrobe as told by Jean Baker adds a unique human story to the cast of characters who built the American Republic. A peer and friend of Jefferson, an admirer of Tom Paine, and the architect of the nation's Capitol, Latrobe was no homespun American like Ben Franklin. Despite his aristocratic airs, repeated financial blunders, and chronic headaches, Latrobe managed to build the domed monuments that sheltered and symbolized the infant republic."-Mary Ryan, author of Taking the Land to Make the City: A Bicoastal History

"To students of the early American republic, Benjamin Henry Latrobe looms large-he brilliantly undertook some of the most notable architectural commissions of the day, including the U.S. Capitol, the Baltimore Cathedral, the Bank of Pennsylvania, and other fine buildings. In this book, Jean H. Baker critically reviews the multitudes of documents and letters Latrobe left behind and evaluates both the professional successes that ensured his national legacy and the personal flaws that led to financial ruin. With this fresh look at Latrobe's life in the Old World and the New, Baker provides us with a compelling human story and solidifies her status as among the nation's most accomplished historians."-Antoinette J. Lee, author of Architects to the Nation: The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect's Office

"[An] insightful portrait of the early republic's greatest architect... A fluid, much-needed biography of a remarkable man."—Kirkus

"With this fine biography, historian Baker rescues Benjamin Henry Latrobe from obscurity and restores his reputation as the 'Father of American Architecture.'"
—National Book Review

From the Publisher

2019-10-27
The life and times of America's first professional architect.

Baker (Emerita, History/Goucher Coll.; Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, 2011, etc.) offers up another solid historical biography with this insightful portrait of the early republic's greatest architect. The last biography of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) was published more than 60 years ago, and, as the author notes, "little or nothing is remembered of his works." Baker clearly portrays Latrobe as instrumental in shaping not only the republic's buildings and physical landscape, but also "American habits and beliefs." He apprenticed in London at one of the city's most active architectural practices and was soon designing private homes for the wealthy. Unfortunately, Baker writes, there were also "disturbing signs of Latrobe's inability to manage his financial affairs," something that would plague him throughout his life. After he went bankrupt, he sought new opportunities in America's fledging republic. He designed Virginia's state penitentiary and the Bank of Philadelphia. In 1803, his friendship with Thomas Jefferson led the president to appoint him "surveyor of public buildings." Primarily tasked with designing the then-under-construction U.S. Capitol, including the House of Representatives and Senate wings and the Supreme Court's meeting room, he also designed the main gate of the Washington Navy Yard and the Washington Canal. Although he "abominated" slavery, slaves were used extensively in the construction of Latrobe's works. Budgetary issues resulted in his termination. While in Pittsburgh, working with Robert Fulton on steamboats, he was called back to Washington to supervise repairs to a Capitol that had been burned by the British during the War of 1812. Again, he was fired over budgetary problems. His final years were spent designing Baltimore's Basilica, a "technical marvel of the time," and much-needed waterworks to help New Orleans fight its yellow fever epidemics. Latrobe's designs, writes the author, "conveyed an inspirational message to his new countrymen about the worthiness of their great experiment."

A fluid, much-needed biography of a remarkable man.

Kirkus Reviews