Frank Lloyd Wright Was Not An Elitist
Bernard Pyron
Frank Lloyd Wright was a complex man with many sides to his personality. Yet, unlike his last wife, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, he was not really an elitist.
Frank Lloyd Wright called his more affordable and compact houses "Usonians." In more than one period of his long career, Wright tried to design houses affordable by the middle class. The Prairie homes of 1901 to 1913 are larger than the Usonians, since they were designed for the Upper Middle Class. After Wright stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1913, he turned his attention to designing homes for the middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings.
Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction.
I do not think the mysticism of ,Olgivanna or his Unitarianism contributed to his Usonians, but his Wisconsin populist-progressivism did.
In a Google search I did not find much on Wright's Wisconsin progressivism. But Wright had two friends in Wisconsin, Robert LaFollette and William T. Evjue who were both populist-progressives. His friends generally held views which at least in large part agreed with his.
One day in the summer of 1957 when my first cousin A.C. Donaho was living with us on Middleton Beach Road In Middleton, northwest of Madison, we went to Spring Green and to the high school where Frank Lloyd Wright was sitting on the stage behind William T. Evjue, the editor of the Capital Times, who was giving a long winded political speech, probably on Wisconsin Progressivism. Progressivism was the Wisconsin form of the Populist movement of the Midwest, Texas and the South which went on in the late 19th century and later.
http://www.uwgb.edu/…/pd…/2003_lectures/lindemeyer_essay.pdf
"So, what ideas did self-identified Progressives share? First, they tended to be a very optimistic bunch that embraced education, technology, and science as a means to a secure and improve the future for everyone. Second, in the United States their optimism was strengthened by a strong belief in American exceptionalism and moral superiority grounded in (Protestant) Christian values. Not all Progressives were Protestant Christians, but there was an assumption among many that such traditions formed the basis of America's moral superiority." "During the 1890s, Populists had already complained about the concentration of industrial wealth into monopolies, but much of the Populists' vision was rooted in America's agrarian past. Progressives trumpeted the benefits of industrialization and urbanization, but called for regulated by government and controls implemented by experts."
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-035/
Born in Primrose township, Dane County, in 1855, La Follette worked as a farm laborer before entering the University of Wisconsin in 1875. After graduating in 1879, La Follette launched his political career Dane county includes Madison, Wisconsin. Robert La Follette developed his fierce opposition to corporate power and political corruption as a young man. Affiliated with the Republican Party for almost his entire career, La Follette embarked on a political path that would take him to Congress, the governorship of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Senate. His support for progressive reforms, rousing oratory, and frequent clashes with party leaders earned him the nickname "Fighting Bob." Robert Marion La Follette, Sr. La Follette (June 14, 1855 – June 20, 1925) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman, the 20th Governor of Wisconsin (1901-1906), and Republican Senator from Wisconsin (1905-1925). He ran for President of the United States as the nominee ofhisownProgressiveParty in 1924, carrying Wisconsin and 17% of the national popular vote. He is best remembered as a proponent of Progressivism and a vocal opponent of railroad trusts, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations. In 1957, a Senate committee selected La Follette as one of their five greatest Senate predecessors.
http://www.foxpolitics.net/politics.iml… Talk about Progressives, how can we neglect Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette? According to Ed Garvey, Mr. Progressive himself, La Follette is "the populist governor, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate from Wisconsin who founded the Progressive Party and spent his career battling the corrupting, impoverishing and anti-democratic influence of big moneyed interests over government and public policy." AGRARIAN POPULISM, FORERUNNER TO WISCONSIN PROGRESSIVISM
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/histryotln/reform.htm
"By 1890 the level of agrarian distress, fueled by years of hardship and hostility toward the McKinley tariff, was at an all-time high. Working with sympathetic Democrats in the South or small third parties in the West, the Farmers' Alliances made a push for political power. A third political party, the People's (or Populist) Party, emerged. Never before in American politics had there been anything like the Populist fervor that swept the prairies and cotton lands. The elections of 1890 brought the new party into power in a dozen Southern and Western states, and sent a score of Populist senators and representatives to Congress." In the epic contest that followed, Bryan carried almost all the Southern and Western states. But he lost the more populated, industrial North and East -- and the election -- to Republican candidate William McKinley This was the election of 1896 in which William Jennings Bryan, the Democrat, who had populist support, was defeated by WilliamMcKinley,whowasRepublican and supporter of big buisiness
.
http://wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/pdf/spring04_cooper.pdf
"Progressivism... arose from the confluence of two streams of reform. The first was agrarian. This was the continuation of Populism that the Democrats had appropriated in 1896 under the leadership of their presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan....The second stream of progressivism, urban reform, arose at the same time as its agrarian counterpart during the late nineteenth century, but from a source different than the Populists and Bryan Democrats. Urban reformers were usually groups of citizens who rallied behind insurgent mayors and against the political machines that controlled their respective cities. These reformers attacked the corruption of the machines overall, not as a temporary blight to be remedied by simply throwing out the rascals, but as part of a larger system that tied politics to dominant business interests." "The Great Lakes region rejected many Populist and Bryaniteprograms because they served only certain farmers and laborers, although Bryanandhisfollowers claimed to speak for them all. Their advocacy of publicly owned crop storage facilities appealed to farmers who grew non-perishable crops, mainly those who lived on the Great Plains and in the South. Few Wisconsin farmers fit that profile, and the state's growing number of dairy farmers had no use for such policies." APPARENTLY THE WISCONSIN PROGRESSIVISM THAT ROBERT LAFOLLETTE CHAMPIONED DREW MUCH MORE FROM URBAN REFORM ROOTS THAN FROM THE AGRARIAN POPULISM OF TEXAS, THE LOWER MIDWEST, PLAINS STATES AND SOUTH. Wright, however, had promoted the agrarian ideas of Thomas Jefferson which would seem to fit more with the agrarian populism of the plains states, the lower Midwet, Texas and the South. ROBERT LAFOLLETTE FRIEND OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.
Below: The i nterior of the almost finished Eugene Van Tamalen House of 1956. In 1956 when it was under construction it was west of Rosa Road and when the photo below was taken, we walked through mud to get to the house. Anchorage Road, which runs west off of Rosa Road, did not exist when we photographed the interior of the house in 1956.
Below: Another view of the interior of the Van Tamalen house taken on the same day as the view above.
Bernard Pyron
Frank Lloyd Wright was a complex man with many sides to his personality. Yet, unlike his last wife, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, he was not really an elitist.
Frank Lloyd Wright called his more affordable and compact houses "Usonians." In more than one period of his long career, Wright tried to design houses affordable by the middle class. The Prairie homes of 1901 to 1913 are larger than the Usonians, since they were designed for the Upper Middle Class. After Wright stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1913, he turned his attention to designing homes for the middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings.
Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction.
I do not think the mysticism of ,Olgivanna or his Unitarianism contributed to his Usonians, but his Wisconsin populist-progressivism did.
In a Google search I did not find much on Wright's Wisconsin progressivism. But Wright had two friends in Wisconsin, Robert LaFollette and William T. Evjue who were both populist-progressives. His friends generally held views which at least in large part agreed with his.
One day in the summer of 1957 when my first cousin A.C. Donaho was living with us on Middleton Beach Road In Middleton, northwest of Madison, we went to Spring Green and to the high school where Frank Lloyd Wright was sitting on the stage behind William T. Evjue, the editor of the Capital Times, who was giving a long winded political speech, probably on Wisconsin Progressivism. Progressivism was the Wisconsin form of the Populist movement of the Midwest, Texas and the South which went on in the late 19th century and later.
http://www.uwgb.edu/…/pd…/2003_lectures/lindemeyer_essay.pdf
"So, what ideas did self-identified Progressives share? First, they tended to be a very optimistic bunch that embraced education, technology, and science as a means to a secure and improve the future for everyone. Second, in the United States their optimism was strengthened by a strong belief in American exceptionalism and moral superiority grounded in (Protestant) Christian values. Not all Progressives were Protestant Christians, but there was an assumption among many that such traditions formed the basis of America's moral superiority." "During the 1890s, Populists had already complained about the concentration of industrial wealth into monopolies, but much of the Populists' vision was rooted in America's agrarian past. Progressives trumpeted the benefits of industrialization and urbanization, but called for regulated by government and controls implemented by experts."
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-035/
Born in Primrose township, Dane County, in 1855, La Follette worked as a farm laborer before entering the University of Wisconsin in 1875. After graduating in 1879, La Follette launched his political career Dane county includes Madison, Wisconsin. Robert La Follette developed his fierce opposition to corporate power and political corruption as a young man. Affiliated with the Republican Party for almost his entire career, La Follette embarked on a political path that would take him to Congress, the governorship of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Senate. His support for progressive reforms, rousing oratory, and frequent clashes with party leaders earned him the nickname "Fighting Bob." Robert Marion La Follette, Sr. La Follette (June 14, 1855 – June 20, 1925) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman, the 20th Governor of Wisconsin (1901-1906), and Republican Senator from Wisconsin (1905-1925). He ran for President of the United States as the nominee ofhisownProgressiveParty in 1924, carrying Wisconsin and 17% of the national popular vote. He is best remembered as a proponent of Progressivism and a vocal opponent of railroad trusts, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations. In 1957, a Senate committee selected La Follette as one of their five greatest Senate predecessors.
http://www.foxpolitics.net/politics.iml… Talk about Progressives, how can we neglect Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette? According to Ed Garvey, Mr. Progressive himself, La Follette is "the populist governor, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate from Wisconsin who founded the Progressive Party and spent his career battling the corrupting, impoverishing and anti-democratic influence of big moneyed interests over government and public policy." AGRARIAN POPULISM, FORERUNNER TO WISCONSIN PROGRESSIVISM
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/histryotln/reform.htm
"By 1890 the level of agrarian distress, fueled by years of hardship and hostility toward the McKinley tariff, was at an all-time high. Working with sympathetic Democrats in the South or small third parties in the West, the Farmers' Alliances made a push for political power. A third political party, the People's (or Populist) Party, emerged. Never before in American politics had there been anything like the Populist fervor that swept the prairies and cotton lands. The elections of 1890 brought the new party into power in a dozen Southern and Western states, and sent a score of Populist senators and representatives to Congress." In the epic contest that followed, Bryan carried almost all the Southern and Western states. But he lost the more populated, industrial North and East -- and the election -- to Republican candidate William McKinley This was the election of 1896 in which William Jennings Bryan, the Democrat, who had populist support, was defeated by WilliamMcKinley,whowasRepublican and supporter of big buisiness
.
http://wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/pdf/spring04_cooper.pdf
"Progressivism... arose from the confluence of two streams of reform. The first was agrarian. This was the continuation of Populism that the Democrats had appropriated in 1896 under the leadership of their presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan....The second stream of progressivism, urban reform, arose at the same time as its agrarian counterpart during the late nineteenth century, but from a source different than the Populists and Bryan Democrats. Urban reformers were usually groups of citizens who rallied behind insurgent mayors and against the political machines that controlled their respective cities. These reformers attacked the corruption of the machines overall, not as a temporary blight to be remedied by simply throwing out the rascals, but as part of a larger system that tied politics to dominant business interests." "The Great Lakes region rejected many Populist and Bryaniteprograms because they served only certain farmers and laborers, although Bryanandhisfollowers claimed to speak for them all. Their advocacy of publicly owned crop storage facilities appealed to farmers who grew non-perishable crops, mainly those who lived on the Great Plains and in the South. Few Wisconsin farmers fit that profile, and the state's growing number of dairy farmers had no use for such policies." APPARENTLY THE WISCONSIN PROGRESSIVISM THAT ROBERT LAFOLLETTE CHAMPIONED DREW MUCH MORE FROM URBAN REFORM ROOTS THAN FROM THE AGRARIAN POPULISM OF TEXAS, THE LOWER MIDWEST, PLAINS STATES AND SOUTH. Wright, however, had promoted the agrarian ideas of Thomas Jefferson which would seem to fit more with the agrarian populism of the plains states, the lower Midwet, Texas and the South. ROBERT LAFOLLETTE FRIEND OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.
Below: Eugene Van Tamalen
House, Pre-Fab of 1956, 5817 Anchorage Road, Madison, Wisconsin. Off
Rosa Road and at the south end of Crestwood which was a cooperative sub
division in the sixties. The Van Tamalen House was the first pre-fab
house constructed
from the Marshall Erdman Prefab Design Number One, which Wright and
Erdman thought could be built in 1956 for about $20,000. Five Wright
houses were buil from the basic Number One pre-fab design. The Arnold
Jackson House, which was also built in 1956 is on the South Beltline in
Madison is one of the five Number One Pre-Fabs, but it is built of rock
laid in the Wright style. I have been in the house but do not remember
much about it other than its view.
Vegetation
has grown up all around the Van Tamalen house since I took the photo
below in 1956. So, it is impossible to see the house now as it looked
in 1956.
Below: The i nterior of the almost finished Eugene Van Tamalen House of 1956. In 1956 when it was under construction it was west of Rosa Road and when the photo below was taken, we walked through mud to get to the house. Anchorage Road, which runs west off of Rosa Road, did not exist when we photographed the interior of the house in 1956.
Below: Another view of the interior of the Van Tamalen house taken on the same day as the view above.
No comments:
Post a Comment