Massachusetts
Ralph Adams Cram (1863-9/22/1942) Boston and New York (F.A.I.A.)
The son of a Unitarian clergyman, Mr. Cram was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and received his academic education and architectural training in New England. At the age of twenty-four he formed a partnership with Charles Wentworth and opened an architectural office in Boston. In 1891 Bertram G. Goodhue became a third partner in the firm of Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue, which after the death of Mr. Wentworth was changed to Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, and the firm operated under that name until 1910 when Goodhue withdrew to establish his own office in New York. In 1925, just prior to the death of Frank Ferguson, three younger architects were taken into partnership (Frank Cleveland, Chester Godfrey, and Alexander Hoyle) although officially the work of the firm was executed under the original name of Cram & Ferguson.
Mr. Cram was deeply religious, in his early practice he devoted much of this time to lecturing throughout the country on the subject of ecclesiastical art and architecture, with the result that Cram & Wentworth's first commissions were mainly for churches. He was firm in the conviction that English Gothic was the proper architectural medium for ecclesiastical buildings, also adapted that style later to a number of secular works. In 1903 Cram, Goodhue & Furguson won a competition against ten other architects for the rebuilding of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and with the completion of the Cadet Chapel there and the Church of St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue, national recognition came to the firm. While the latter edifice was under construction, work on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was brought to a close in 1907 by the death of George L. Heins of the firm of Heins & Lafarge, original architects of the church. At that time the choir had been completed following the Romanesque design which had previously been accepted by the Trustees, and the great crossing piers erected. Voiding the contract with Heins & LaFarge, the Church officials instituted a new competition to carry the work to completion. Mr. Cram, whose reputation as a Gothicist was already established, was invited to submit plans, and without undue delay, his design in the English Gothic was selected. Work was resumed, and after two decades, in 1930, prior to Mr. Cram's retirement from active practice, the entire nave westward from the crossing, the north transept, and two chapels, the Stuyvesant, and St. Martin of Tours were completed.
In 1909 he was appointed Supervising Architect of work at Princeton University, a position he held until 1931, also rendered the same service to Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley Colleges. He also designed War Memorials, outstanding examples of which were built in France at Belleau Woods and Fere-en-Tardenois. In the literary field of endeavor, Mr. Cram was known as a prolific writer, a frequent contributor to architectural magazines and the author of twenty bound volumes on religion, architecture, sociology and philosophy. Among these were: "The Decadent"; "The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain"; "Impressions of Japanese Architecture"; "The Gothic Quest"; "The Nemesis of Mediocrity"; "The Sins of the Fathers"; "The Ministry of Art"; and "Towards the Great Peace".
During a distinguished career he was awarded many honorary degrees. He was a member of all leading professional and cultural societies, including the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member and past president of the Boston Society of Architects, A.I.A., and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. While the firm of Cram & Ferfuson maintained offices in Boston. Mr. Cram practically retired in 1930, and spent most of his time at WhiteHall, the estate at Sudbury, Massachusetts, where he had built a Thirteenth century Chapel close to his home. His death occurred in his eightieth year at the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston following a brief illness.