Available for use in the Manuscripts Division reading room. Advance notice is requested.
There are no restrictions on the use of materials in this collection. Copies can be requested if the condition of the originals warrants it.
Joseph V. Vanderbilt papers (N 41), Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
The collection was donated to the Northwest Architectural Archives on December 8, 1982 by Eleanor R. Vanderbilt.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by commission name.
Joseph V. Vanderbilt was born in New York City in 1877. He studied for four years in the Beaux Arts ateliers of Emmanuel Masqueray and Claude Bragdon in New York and obtained additional architectural training with architects in New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C. He moved to Minneapolis and worked as a draftsman designer from 1910-1924. In 1924, Vanderbilt started his own practice, briefly affiliating with Carl Gage (1925-1926), and then formed a partnership with Carl Bard from about 1929 to 1962.
Vanderbilt designed buildings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, and Ohio, as well as several other states. He supervised the design of many buildings in Minneapolis, including Dunwoody Institute, Fairview Hospital, Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, the Francis Drake Hotel and the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company building. He retired in 1962 and died in 1966.
Carl Gage was born in Newport, New Hampshire, on November 26, 1881. He moved with his family to Minneapolis the following year and was educated in the public schools and the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. He worked successively for the Flour City Ornamental Iron Company, Minneapolis, and in the architectural offices of Thomas Holyoke (St. Paul), Ernest Kennedy, Edwin Hewitt, and Bertrand & Chamberlin (Minneapolis) before beginning his own practice in 1910. After 1910, Gage worked privately except for a brief association with Vanderbilt.
Carl Bard was born in New Carlisle, Indiana, in 1886. Although much of his early life is unknown, by 1920 he was working as a draftsman in the Minneapolis firm of Bell & Kinports. Between 1921 and 1929, he was employed by the Builders Exchange of Minneapolis, after which he formed a partnership with Vanderbilt that lasted until 1962.
The collection contains original drawings of floor plans, elevations, and details for about 75 churches, plus schools, residences, bus depots, banks, hotels, and government buildings in Minnesota and eight other states. The buildings documented include the Archbishop Dowling School, Minneapolis (1954); Broadway Motor Freight Terminal Building, St. Paul (1947); Church & School of All Saints, Minneapolis (1939); Elim Lutheran Church, Ogden, Utah (1946); First Congregational Church, Belle Fourche, South Dakota (1942-1943); Granite Falls Lutheran Church, Granite Falls, Montana (1949-1950); Linden Hills Branch Library, Minneapolis (1930); Marquette National Bank, Minneapolis (1925); Mayflower Congregational Church, Minneapolis (1935); Mt. Olivet Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis (1938-1939); Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Valley City, North Dakota (1939); St. Luke's Hospital Addition, Fergus Falls, Minnesota (1927); and Schatz Brau Brewing Company, Melrose, Minnesota (1933).
An unpublished finding aid with detailed contents is available in the Manuscripts Division.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.