Charles E. White Jr. Explained

Charles E. White Jr. (1876–1936) was a noted Chicago area architect who for a time worked in the Oak Park studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and who, both before and after that time, had a successful and influential career as an architect and a writer on architectural subjects. It is fair to say that White is an under-appreciated member of Wright's Oak Park studio staff.

Early years and education

Charles Elmer White Jr. was born May 18, 1876, in Lynn, Massachusetts, the son of Charles E. White Sr. and his wife Agnes Elizabeth Safford. Through his father, White was a direct descendant of American Revolutionary War soldiers William Loud and Michael Porter.[1]

While the "Book of Chicagoans" (1917) states that White took special classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Paul Sprague writes in "Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie School Architecture in Oak Park" that White graduated from the architecture program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1895, M.I.T.'s registrar's office has no record of him ever attending, either a regular or special student, much less graduating from the institution.[2]

Architectural practice

For approximately eight years, White worked in the East, chiefly practicing architecture with Walter R. B. Wilcox in Burlington, Vermont. At the age of twenty-seven, White then moved to Chicago in 1903 to work for Frank Lloyd Wright, at the time when other employees in the studio included Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts, and artist Richard Bock. The letters which White wrote to his friend Wilcox offer valuable insights into the building methods, working relationships and responsibilities of the Oak Park studio in what has been called Wright's "first golden age" when the Prairie Style was developed.[3] When writing about this time in his life, some architectural historians have mistakenly called White a "student" or "apprentice" of Frank Lloyd Wright; both terms are incorrect. White was an architect in his own right, having practiced architecture for nearly a decade in the East before the three years when he worked in the Oak Park studio.

By 1905 White launched his own practice in Oak Park. He designed and built his own studio and collaborated with Wright and Vernon S. Watson on the River Forest Tennis Club of 1906. His office was busy with many commissions in the years leading up to World War I.[4]

In addition to the practice of architecture, White wrote a number of influential articles about home building, ranging from matters of taste and design to construction methods. These were widely circulated in popular home magazines of the day. White was also a champion of fireproof hollow tile construction and helped to popularize it nationally. A gifted renderer, his architectural illustrations often accompanied his writings, which featured the work of many different colleagues, including, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marion Mahony Griffin, Walter Burley Griffin, and William Eugene Drummond, as well as his own designs.

During the Great War he served in the quartermaster corps.[5] In 1922 White formed a partnership with fellow MIT graduate Bertram A. Weber; Weber had worked in the office of noted Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (MIT class of 1892) prior to their partnership. The firm of White and Weber continued to practice in Chicago until White's death in 1936.[6] They designed the Art Deco United States Post Office (1933) in Oak Park, the Rectory of the Grace Episcopal Church, Oak Park, as well as the Haish Memorial Library in Dekalb, Illinois, an Art Deco Indiana limestone building on the National Register of Historic Places.

Personal life

White married the daughter of prominent Oak Park inventor Charles E. Roberts, Alice May Roberts (born December 13, 1876); they were the parents of Charles Safford White (1903–1984) and Elizabeth Whipple White (1906–2001).[7] A third son, James Roberts (no dates) is also named in The Book of Chicagoans, by Albert Nelson Marquis, 1911.

White died August 15, 1936, in Oak Park.

Selected work

Selected publications

Books:

Important articles:

References

  1. The Sons of the American Revolution Magazine, Volumes 1–4 By Sons of the American Revolution, p 35
  2. John W. Leonard, ed. "Charles Elmer White Jr.", The Book of Chicagoans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Men and Women of the City of Chicago (Chicago: A. N. Marquis and Company, 1917), 722; Paul Sprague, "Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie School Architecture in Oak Park," (Oak Park, IL: Village of Oak Park, 1986), 94.
  3. Letters, 1903-1906, by Charles E. White Jr. from the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, by Nancy K. Morris Smith and Charles E. White Jr.
  4. Charles E. White Jr., from The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest, by Marty Hackl
  5. U. S. Army register, Volumes 1–10, p. 253
  6. Journal of Architectural Education, Volumes 25–26, p. 112; Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
  7. History of Royalton Vermont, by Mary Evelyn Wood Lovejoy, p. 946
  8. Architectural Record, Volume 40, by American Institute of Architects, p 303
  9. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst, plate 63
  10. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst, plate 26
  11. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst, plate 32
  12. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst, plate 19
  13. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst, plate 93
  14. Web site: Cheney Mansion's History and Story - Oak Park . 2010-03-05 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110708141811/http://www.cheneymansion.com/cheney_history.htm . 2011-07-08 .
  15. Illinois Off the Beaten Path, by Lyndee Jobe Henderson, Bill Franz, Bob Puhala, in Travel, 2007
  16. Web site: The Prairie School Traveler - Oak Park. www.prairieschooltraveler.com. 14 December 2017.
  17. Web site: Archival Image & Media Collection. 14 December 2017.

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