Addison Hutton: Quaker Architect, 1834-1916 (review)

68QUAKER HISTORY who call themselves Friends, genuinely appreciative of all the branches while frankly disavowing the fundamentalism characteristic of some groups of Friends. Perhaps his most exciting literary achievement is the culmination of the almost life-long search for material about Robert Barclay. The story of the discovery of long-lost Barclay papers is fascinating. The result is Robert Barclay, which seems to be as nearly definitive as a biography can be when it is impossible to know what material may still lie overlooked in attics. For a decade ending in 1945, Elton Trueblood was Editor of The Friend (Philadelphia). It was my good fortune to serve as his assistant. He made The Friend a vigorous and interesting periodical; and demonstrated the capacity for generous and enduring friendship with colleagues which is one of his outstanding characteristics. In this autobiography Elton Trueblood continues to give his readers inspiration and encouragement. Moorestown, N.J.Richard R. Wood Addison Hutton: Quaker Architect, 1834-1916. By Elizabeth Biddle Yarnall. Philadelphia: The Art Alliance Press, [1974]. 112 pages. Illustrated. $10.00 This long awaited monograph of a most prolific and prominent Quaker architect will be welcomed by all those interested in either architecture or the Philadelphia Quaker community, particularly of Victorian vintage. Elizabeth Yarnall tells both a factual and a poignant story of the life and work of her grandfather Addison Hutton, whom she knew well and admired, and whose letters and diaries were among" her family records. George B. Tatum, a professional art historian, has contributed an invaluable introduction which is both knowledgeable and interesting and which places Hutton's work in the larger context of his time, place, and profession. Courtland Hubbard's many excellent photographs offer a high standard of architectural illustration as well as a broad representation of Hutton's accomplishments; one only wishes that more had been included. A generous index, detailed Notes and a List of Commissions round this book out as a substantial scholarly effort. Addison Hutton's many building designs are unrecognized but commonplace experiences for many of today's Philadelphia Quakers as well as their recent forebears. The main buildings at Westtown and George School, Barclay Hall at Haverford, Taylor Hall at Bryn Mawr and Parrish Hall at Swarthmore solidly serve our educational institutions. The many residences , demolished or extant, read like a Who's Who of Quaker families, including Morris, Wood, Whitall, Scattergood, Cope, Vaux, Scull, Strawbridge , Clothier, Biddle, Drinker, Evans and others. Among the world's people, the Ridgway Library is famous, as is the Arch Street Methodist Church and the Historical Society on Locust Street, all in Philadelphia. Hutton was born near Pittsburgh but came to Philadelphia in 1857 where he died nearly 60 years later. A self-educated intellectual, he grew up in a close-knit Quaker frontier community where his carpenter father was hard BOOK REVIEWS69 pressed to provide for the eleven children. Building houses with his father provided a practical education which combined with lessons in architectural drawing to enable him to secure a job as apprentice in the office of Samuel Sloan, a leading Philadelphia architect. By 1862 he was able to begin his long period of independent practice that happily coincided with the emergence and flowering of the profession of architecture. It was a time when low taxes and an expanding economy promoted private building on a lavish scale. Not only was a large quantity of building work produced, but as well architectural style ranged broadly from the romantic to the classic. Hutton's practice reflected this, with a Gothic picturesque sturdiness in the Evans and Lockwood residences and Barclay and Taylor Halls, and a more sophisticated classicism in the Ridgway Library and the PSFS building on Walnut Street. His practice was the history of American architecture in the latter half of the nineteenth century. A lifelong Friend, with membership at Twelfth Street Meeting in Philadelphia , Addison Hutton nevertheless enjoyed music and the arts in a day when such activity was more than frowned upon. His breadth of thought enabled him to serve equally well Quakers of both Orthodox and Hicksite persuasion. Through his many building works and the pen of his granddaughter , the genius of Addison...