Charles Howard Walker Explained

Charles Howard Walker
Birth Date:	9 January 1857
Birth Place:	West Roxbury, Massachusetts
Death Place:	West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Charles Howard Walker (January 9, 1857  - April 12, 1936) was an architect, designer and educator in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[1] He was associated with the architecture department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology^[2] and was affiliated with Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts.^{[3] [4]}

Biography

Walker was born January 9, 1857, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, to George S. Walker and Mary L. Damorell.^[5] In 1875 at the age of 18, Walker worked at the architectural office of Sturgis and Brigham, where he had opportunities to study architecture in New York, Europe, and Asia Minor.^[6]

In 1885, Walker partnered with Thomas Rogers Kimball and formed the firm Walker & Kimball. This partnership continued until 1899 when it ended after Walker and Kimball were architects in chief for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition and Greater America Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska.^[7] Walker practiced architecture solo until 1911 when he formed with his son, Harold D. Walker, the firm C. Howard Walker and Son. In 1925, architect Frederick S. Kingsbury joined the firm and was renamed to Walker and Walker and Kingsbury. Shortly after in 1930, the firm was renamed to Walker and Walker.

Walker was a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was associated with their department of architecture for forty-nine years.^[8] He also lectured at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Lowell Institute.

Walker was a member of the Boston Art Commission, National Fine Arts Commission, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Institute of Arts and Letters, American Federation of Arts, and the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Walker was one of six delegates for the United States at the International Congress of Architects in 1930 in Budapest.

Walker died April 12, 1936, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Designed by Walker

• Mount Vernon Church, Beacon St., Boston, ca.1892
• Trans-Mississippi Exposition, Omaha, Nebraska, 1898^[9]
• Bancroft Memorial Library, Hopedale, Massachusetts, ca. 1898
• Electricity building, St. Louis World's Fair, 1903^[10]
• Stony Brook Bridge, Back Bay Fens, Boston^[11]
• William Fogg Library, Eliot, Maine, 1907
• Rye Public Library, Rye, New Hampshire, 1910
• Stratham Historical Society building, Stratham, New Hampshire, 1912
  • originally the George A. and Emma B. Wiggin Memorial Library building

Further reading

By Walker

• Architecture of the Library. In: Handbook of the new Public library in Boston. Boston: Curtis & Co., 1895.
• Theory of mouldings. 1926.

About Walker

• American Federation of Arts. American art annual. MacMillan Co., 1905.
• Who's who in New England. A.N. Marquis & Company, 1915.
• William Emerson. Charles Howard Walker (1857 - 1936). Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 72, No. 10 (May, 1938), pp. 396–397.

External links

• WorldCat. Walker, Charles Howard 1857-1936
• Google news archive. Articles about C. Howard Walker.
• Flickr. Photo of nos. 493, 495, and 497 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston; "built in 1895, and designed by architects Arthur H. Vinal and Charles Howard Walker"
• Flickr. Bancroft Memorial Library in Hopedale, Massachusetts
• MIT Museum. Portrait by Emil Pollak-Ottendorf of 5 architects: William Felton Brown, Charles Howard Walker, Harry Wentworth Gardner, John Osborne Sumner, William Henry Lawrence.

Notes and References

1. Boston Almanac. 1883, 1884
2. http://webmuseum.mit.edu/detail.php?type=related&kv=19845&t=people MIT Museum
3. American Federation of Arts. American art directory, Volume 14. R.R. Bowker, 1918
4. New York Times. January 6, 1907
5. https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinamerica02marq/page/1185/mode/2up WALKER, Charles Howard
6. Book: Beattie, James A. . Proceedings of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Huang . Tzu-Ching . Benedict . Mason . . 1938 . LIXXII . Boston . 396–397 . Biographical Notices . 3.
7. Brochure series of architectural illustration. Boston: Bates & Guild Co., June 1898
8. Book: Brief Biographies of American Architects Who Died Between 1897 and 1947 . . Transcribed by Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. . 133–134.
9. http://digital.omahapubliclibrary.org/transmiss/buildings/architect3.html Omaha Public Library
10. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020274/1901-09-22/ed-1/seq-1/ Library of Congress
11. Sylvester Baxter. Boston park guide: including the municipal and metropolitan systems of greater Boston. Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1898