DANIEL BURNHAM's Uncle Joe

Joseph Worcester 1836-1913

Daniel Burnham left Chicago in 1863 to study at Thomas Worcester's Swedenborgian School in Waltham Massachusetts. Here, he met Thomas' son, Joseph, who would become his teacher, mentor and lifelong friend.

Daniel's time with Joseph was short -- less than two years. But when Daniel returned to Chicago (after that little side trip to Nevada) he knew he wanted a career in architecture. But this post is not about Daniel Burnham. It is about "Uncle Joe."

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Joseph Worcester was born in 1836 in Waltham Massachussetts. He graduated Harvard studying divinity (and architecture and drawing at Lawrence Scientific School) where he had been strongly influenced by William Morris , John Ruskin, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emanuel Swedenborg.) In 1864 he left Waltham to visit the San Francisco Bay area (traveling via schooner, rounding Cape Horn) . He returned to stay --after a trip to Europe -in 1867.

The Swedenborgian Church under Joseph Worcester's leadership became the center of the Bay Area's arts community. Worcester's own views on architecture significantly advanced the Arts and Crafts movement in California . Names that fall within Worcester's Circle include Bernard Maybeck, A. Page Brown, Willis Polk, Julia Morgan, Phoebe Hearst, William Keith, John Muir, Frederick Law Olmsted.

Worcester sat on Boards that reviewed the architecture and master plans for Berkeley and Stanford. And, with Willis Polk, Worcester encouraged Daniel Burnham to submit a Master Plan for the City of San Fransisco. And if not for that Earthquake.....

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In 1888 ideas were afoot to match New York's Statue of Liberty at the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Daniel Burnham REALLY wanted that commission.

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In 1892, when Daniel Burnham was nearly buried in Chicago's Columbian Exposition, he still found time to correspond with "Uncle Joe" regarding the architecture of the new Swedenborg Church in San Francisco.

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Edward Bennett was from California, educated at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris with a gift from Phoebe Hearst (where he met Peirce Anderson) . Bennett worked with Burnham, Worcester, and Polk on the Plan of San Francisco.  Peirce got Washington DC.

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H.H. Richardson left Lawrence Scientific in 1860 -- where he might well have been Worcester's classmate. (Unconfirmed). Worcester's Papers at Berkely include photographs of Richardson's work at Trinity Church in Boston.

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Joseph Worcester's major life achievements were still in the future when he taught young Daniel Burnham, fresh from Central High. But a man of this intellect, optimism, confidence and creativity --and Faith -- could certainly have shown him "possibilities." 

Daniel may not have been "educated" in Waltham.  But he knew the way.

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DANIEL BURNHAM. The Civil War

              

               When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,

               And the great star early droop’d

               in the western sky in the night,

               I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

               O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;

               Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,

               And thought of him I love.

               Walt Whitman  1865

Walt Whitman.  Credit Novel House Inn.

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Every generation has its War. Mine was Viet Nam, though I never fought. My father's was World War II, though he never spoke of it. It was some years before I found that my parents belonged to the "Greatest Generation." And that there were personal stories in the words "Bataan" and "Corregidor" I only knew that I lived in a very comfortable suburban home with oak trees in the back yard, maples on the street and a sandy beach just over the hill. And that in the basement, in the storage room, on the top shelf, there was a Japanese ceremonial sword in a velvet box.

The lessons of war seem not to pass from generation to generation. They simply and quietly define those who learn them, live with them. And are lost by sons and daughters.

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Daniel Burnham volunteered to fight in the Civil War when he was 15 years old. How could he not? Chicago was alive with Union Patriotism and the Underground Railroad. His father's wholesale drug business was booming. (What better wartime business than drugs?) Talk of war was everywhere.   Ten thousand Confederate soldiers were imprisoned at Camp Douglas.  (Three times that amount were rumored at Andersonville.) And Lincoln, after all, was from Illinois.

Edwin Burnham, Daniel's father, "de-enlisted" 15 year old Daniel, by reason of age.   And by the time Daniel was of draftable age, Elizabeth, his mother, had sent him to Thomas Worcester's Swedenborgian School in Waltham Massachusetts.

I don't know if Daniel was in Chicago when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Or when Abraham Lincoln's draped coffin was carried from the Illinois Central Station on Randolph Street to City Hall.

But whether he saw it, or read of it, these tragedies, doubled by the Great Fire that soon destroyed his home town, would leave scarred memories for a lifetime.

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President Grant. The Panic of 1873. Railroads. The election of Rutherford B. Hayes. Western expansion. Reconstruction. For the next twenty years the Civil War and its denouement shaped the country. These are the years when Daniel Burnham honed his craft. And imagined possibilities.

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This is when Daniel Burnham "began."  And we should not be surprised, if we look closely, to see echoes from this time past in his  planning, architecture, aspirations and morality.

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I've completed the photography for a second look at D.H. Burnham and Company's  Fisher Building -- to be featured in future posts.  But, there is always "one more mystery."  Reviewing the varied work of Charles Atwood, the Burnham design partner credited with Phase I of the Fisher, I am unsure if Atwood was a versatile and prolific architect, in control of his work  -- or if assistants Peter Weber and Fred Dinkelberg repeatedly covered for him.  Right up to the end.  I'd be glad for any of your thoughts.  Contact me HERE with fact or opinion.  Thanks.

DANIEL BURNHAM. Central High

After leaving the Garden City Institute, Daniel Burnham was enrolled in Chicago Public Schools. He attended Jones to finish his elementary education, and went on to Central High, at the corner of Monroe and Halsted. At Central, Burnham made lifelong friends (and business connections) including Nevada prospecting partner Edward Waller. (We'll hear more about him when we blog the Rookery).Link here for the state of the CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS in 1879 and before. ( It looks like one of the Swedenborgian Snows may followed Daniel from the GCI to Central.) 

CENTRAL HIGH.  Halsted Street at Monroe. Credit CPS.



While researching Daniel Burnham (while researching anyone, for that matter) I look for things we might have in common -- Chicago, for example. But the Chicago of Daniel Burnham's youth bears little resemblance to my Chicago.  We are separated by 6 Wars and  Fire.  Chicago in the late 1850's was preparing for War with the South.  Stephen A. Douglas (of the Lincoln/Douglas debates) had recently donated a portion of his Oakenwald to the University of Chicago.
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OLD UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. Cottage Grove near 34th

Archival Photographic Files, [apf2-05352], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Look at those towers!  The Building was done by W. W. Boyington.  John Root couldn't resist a good tower either.... look at Lynn Becker's post describing Burnham and Root's Church of the Covenant. 

CAMP DOUGLAS AND THE OLD UC. 35th  near Lake Shore

Archival Photographic Files, [apf2-05364], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

By 1860 Camp Douglas had been established to train new Civil War recruits.  By 1861 the Camp had become more ominous....as a prisoner of war camp for captured confederates.  Link HERE for more on the Lincoln/Douglas debates.,

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I highly recommnend the University of Chicago Archival Photographic Files....but only when you've got some time!  Link HERE.

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We're in the process of proofing, refining and obtaining permissions for the publication of  our newest project.  Preview the work here.

MARTINY. 1893

The Parthenon Frieze

Photography by Gregory H. Jenkins AIA


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DANIEL BURNHAM. Swedenborg

In 1854 eight year old Daniel Burnham was enrolled in the Garden City Institute, a Swedenborgian Academy founded by Jonathan Scammon and administered by H. Orville Snow. Two years later the building burned and Daniel was enrolled in public school.

Burnham's Swedenborgian influence did not end with the Institute. Father, Mother, Uncle, Grandfather, Brother and Sister were signators to the Swedenborgian Church in Chicago. Daniel was further educated in Waltham, Massachusetts by Joseph Worcester, son of Thomas, founder of the Swedenborgs in Boston. And finally he was tutored by Harvard Graduate and Swedenborgian Thomas Brown Tilley.

Central to Swedenborgian belief is Divine Providence and the concept of Usefulness. Plus 17 volumes of far ranging philosophy and science recorded by Emanuel Swedenborg 1668-1772. And while all of this is very interesting stuff -- and especially in tune with nineteenth century transcendentalism -- the connections that Daniel Burnham formed through his Church look to be every bit as important to his Architecture as the religion itself.

Jonathan Scammon, founder the of the Swedenborgian Community in Chicago, became one of the wealthiest men in America and was instrumental in the founding of the Chicago Historical Society. And with William Ogden in building the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad.

Joseph Worcester, in addition to running the Swedenborgian School in Waltham was an amateur architect. Soon after Daniel left Waltham, Joseph moved to San Fransisco founding the Swedeborgian movement on the Bay -- which included Architect Bernard Maybeck, and naturalist John Muir. Worcester was particularly interested in the Arts and Crafts Style and was familiar with the works and writings of John Ruskin, Viollet le duc, and William Morris. Daniel and Joseph remained lifelong friends.

Thomas Brown Tilley introduced Daniel to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's nephew, architect WPP Longfellow -- with Swedenborgian interests and a considerable knowledge of Architecture. And, with a short leap of faith --I will assume that Daniel also met Henry  -- whose use of Swedenborgian philosophy in poetry is well documented.

When Daniel Burnham returned to Chicago in 1871 he had seen what he wanted to be, knew what it looked like, and had picked up enough "Architecture" to know that when he met future partner, John Root, working in Peter Wight's office, that John was "the real deal."   I'd call THAT an education

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Swedenborg followed Daniel throughout his life. Steinway Hall. Phoebe Hearst. The Women's Building. The Masonic Temple. The Chicago Plan. Commissions and people entertwined with Daniel Burnham and his uncanny nack for lifelong friendships.  More on this to follow.

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The Saloon Building

The early Chicago Swedenborgians shared the Saloon building with the Chicago City Council, the Unitarians, the Chicago Lyceum, the US District Court and the Chicago Daily Journal.  The building was owned by Jonathan Scammaon.

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A Special Thanks is due the Swedeborgian Library here in Chicago at 77 West Washington Street.  

Link HERE.http://www.swedenborglib.org/  ..... where I have much more to learn.

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PREVIEW THE EXHIBIT

MARTINY.1893

THE PARTHENON FRIEZE

Photographs by Gregory H. Jenkins AIA

DANIEL BURNHAM. 1854

Elizabeth, Daniel Burnham's mother, kept the family in Henderson, New York as long as it took to care for her ailing father, Holland Weeks. But after Reverend Weeks' death, the family was ready to leave the quiet shores of Lake Erie. Edwin, Daniel's father, saw safe opportunity along the Erie Canal in Rome, NY. But Elizabeth insisted on Chicago. Daniel's rich Uncle Dyer had preceded them by two years and had developed a successful law practice. (Note to self. Where was Dyer when Edwin was fleeced in a late 1853 deal to buy a Joliet stone quarry?)

The Burnhams arrived in Chicago in 1854. Just in time for a cholera epidemic. Most of the town still occupied undrainable swamp. But the seemingly impossible task of raising street levels by ten feet (and jacking up the buildings that faced them) had begun. Chicago's population had doubled since 1850. Filth and growth were palpable. The Rock Island Line had just connected Chicago to the Mississippi via railroad. -- making even faster growth possible. And what seemed an impossible turn of events, the Chicago River was closed at Clark Street. A ship had rammed the bridge.

And there were Germans. Speaking German. Everywhere.

It's dangerous territory for a Blogger to guess what might have impressed or affected 8 year old Daniel Burnham most during these years. Although it is safe to assume that the move was not easy. I would look for familiar things. Amid the strangeness and chaos and filth.

The symbol of stability and comfort would be the fine, white clapboard houses. With columns. Greek Revival. Like rich Uncle Dyer's house, left behind in Sackets Harbor. Or the Widow Clarke's house in Chicago and the dozens like it.

The Widow Clarke House

Photo Credit Due the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance

It should be no mystery why, later in life, Daniel would so easily accept the classic columns, (albeit improved, and presented in stone) or why he would so thoroughly understand the need for a City Beautiful.

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Both Daniel Burnham and the Widow Clarke House took their place on South Prairie Avenue.  Though, some 100 years apart.

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Researching this post, I discovered that it was NOT Horace Greeley who said "Go West, young man....."  It was Hoosier newspaperman John Soule in 1851.  The same John Soule who ended up Pastor of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church.  He died in 1891.

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PREVIEW THE EXHIBIT

MARTINY.1893

THE PARTHENON FRIEZE

Photographs by Gregory H. Jenkins AIA

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DANIEL BURNHAM. Youth

Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago surrounds us. Defines us. Many of us walk by or into Burnham buildings every day. His presence in Chicago is palpable. He seems quite close. Part of our immediate history. We are fooled. He is not.

Daniel Burnham was born on September 4, 1846.

His grandparents were active in the American Revolution. Saw the Louisiana Purchase. His father and mother were contemporaries of the War of 1812. Daniel's own birth date roughly coincides with the Annexation of Texas and the Mexican War.   In 1846 the United States of America consisted of 29 states. Iowa had just joined the Union.

1846. That was during the Tyler Administration, that took its place after the untimely death of William Henry Harrison (old Tippecanoe -- who saved Indiana from the Indians in 1811.) Before telephones, radio and railroads. Electricity. Rigid frame construction. Elevators. Skyscrapers.

Below is a time line of Daniel Burnham's youth.

1846 Daniel Burnham born in Henderson, New York. the sixth of seven children.

1854 Burnham Family moves to Chicago.

xxxx Daniel is enrolled in Snow's Swedenborg Academy

xxxx Daniel is enrolled in Central High School

1861 Daniel Volunteers to fight in the Civil War. Enlists in the Nineteenth Illinois Infantry.

1861 Edwin Burnham "de-enlists" Daniel.

1863 Daniel sent to the New Church School in Waltham, Massachusetts kept by Reverend  Joseph Worcester

1865 Daniel sent to Bridgewater, Massachusetts to be tutored by Harvard graduate, Tilley Brown Hayward.

1866 Daniel is introduced to architect William P. P. Longfellow.

1867 Daniel "chokes" at the Harvard and Yale entrance exams.

1868 Daniel returns to Chicago and works for William LeBaron Jenney

1868 Daniel prospects for silver in White Pine County, Nevada

1870 Daniel works briefly for John Van Osdel, H. B. Wheelock and Gustave Laurau.

1872 Daniel works for Carter, Wight and Drake

1873 Daniel forms partnership with John Root.

1876 Daniel marries Margaret Sherman

There is an interesting story associated with each of these dates. (And the times in between) (More on this to follow). An even more interesting story is how this 19th Century man moved so easily into our Twentieth.

ELIZABETH BURNHAM

In Daniel's early years, his mother, Elizabeth seems to be the Burnham family's moving force.  And living well into the 1890's she continued to play an important part of Daniel's life.

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BURNHAM AND ROOT meet the Harvey Girls.

How does the Chicago firm of Burnham and Root gain an 1885 commission for a hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico?  Well.  Maybe something like this.

With the founding of the Union Stockyards in 1865, Daniel Burnham's father-in-law, John B. Sherman, consolidated a working relationship with nine of the most important railroads serving Chicago. Among them was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. Although the financing for the CB&Q came from the east, Operations were located in Chicago. The President of the CB&Q was James C. Peasely. That's Chicago southsider James Peasely, member of the prestigious Calumet Club (an 1881 Burnham and Root Commission obtained primarily from some newly obtained Prairie Avenue connections). So with good personal recommendations (the Shermans), and a proven track record (the Calumet) Peasely could, with all confidence, award Daniel Burnham and John Root the CB&Q stations in Illinois and the company offices in Chicago.

During these years, two promising CB&Q employees would have shown up on the radar. William Barstow Strong, future president of the Acheson, Topeka, and Sante Fe Railroad. And Fred Harvey -- that's the Fred Harvey, founder of The Harvey Company -- who thought that railroad passengers deserved hot meals and a little respect. Peasely didn't think much of Fred's idea for hospitality services for the passengers. Strong, on the other hand, did.

FRED HARVEY

So as the ATSF rails were laid New Mexico, Bill might have called on Dan saying that Fred wanted to build a hotel......a nice one....one with Harvey Girls and all. And Dan said that he and John would like to draw it for him.  And Bill said that would be just fine.

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Fred Harvey later went on to hire Mary Colter, one of the first female architects in the country.  Burnham worked with Colter at the Harvey Concessions in Chicago's Union Station.  Colter was called a "chain smoking perfectionist"  Perhaps her most famous work is at the Grand Canyon.

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