Gothic Revival Architecture and American Religious Life from the Civil War to the Depression

FAIN: FT-12578-75

Peter W. Williams
Miami University (Oxford, OH 45056-1846)

Study will deal both with the architecture of the Gothic Revival from roughly the time of the Civil War to the Depression, and with the roots of that architecture in contemporary American social, religious and intellectual life. Will involve detailed examination of the work of such major Revival architects as Cram, Renwick, Goodhue and Upjohn (primarily in the Boston and New York metropolitan areas) together with a search for archival material which might illuminate the decisions of churches and colleges to opt for a Gothic mode of expression. Will complement P.I.'s ongoing investigation of the imaginative uses of Catholicism and the Middle Ages in New England thought and letters of this period.