This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
These albums contain mounted black-and-white photographic prints documenting historic sites and structures along the East Coast of the United States, from the South to New Hampshire, created and collected by architect and historian John Mead Howells. These albums appear to have been created as reference sources for Howell's publications LOST EXAMPLES OF COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE (New York, W. Helbrvn, 1931), THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE PISCATAQUA (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1937), and THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE MERRIMACK (New York: Architectural Book Publlishing Company, 1941). However, many additional images may be found in these albums than were used in these publications. The images were taken during the second half of the 19th-century and the early 20th-century of historic buildings and sites constructed during the 18th- and 19th-centuries. Most images have annotations and caption information in typescript or in Howell's own hand. Howells collected most of the images from a variety of sources, including the Frank Cousins image collection at the Essex Institute, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, architect Ogden Codman, and the Historic American Buildings Survey. The remainder were taken by Howells himself.
These volumes are titled by Howells as follows: Vol. A: Southern States to Washington, D.C.; Vol. B. Southern States to Washington, D.C.; Vol. C: New York City and New York State; Vol. D.: New England General; Vol. E: Boston District; Vol. F: Salem and Newburyport; Vol. G: Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Architectural Heritage of the Merrimack.
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Columbia University is providing access to the materials in the Library's collections solely for noncommercial educational and research purposes. The unauthorized use, including, but not limited to, publication of the materials without the prior written permission of Columbia University is strictly prohibited. All inquiries regarding permission to publish should be submitted in writing to the Director, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. In addition to permission from Columbia University, permission of the copyright owner (if not Columbia University) and/or any holder of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) may also be required for reproduction, publication, distributions, and other uses. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of any item and securing any necessary permissions rests with the persons desiring to publish the item. Columbia University makes no warranties as to the accuracy of the materials or their fitness for a particular purpose.
John Mead Howells albums of photographs of historic East Coast architecture. Located in the Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
These volumes were originally donated by John Mead Howells to the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1932 and 1942.
Source of acquisition--Transfer to Avery Library from the Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accession number--2009.006.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Albums Processed AvR 02/01/08.
John Mead Howells was a New York-based architect, best-known for his design for the Chicago Tribune Tower (1923), done with partner Raymond Hood. Howells studied architecture at Harvard and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was in practice with architect I. M. Phelps Stokes before joining Hood. During the 1920s, Howells began a comprehensive study of colonial and early-American architecture in the Atlantic States and New England, resulting in the publication of three monographs on the subject between 1931 and 1941.
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