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.
McKim, Mead and White papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
Charles McKim was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on August 24, 1847. He studied at Harvard (1866-1867) and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1867-1870) and worked in the office of Gambrill and Richardson before beginning his own practice in 1872. He was joined in partnership by William Mead in 1877 and by Stanford White in 1881. McKim died in New York in 1909.
William Mead was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, on August 20, 1846. He was educated at Amherst College, graduating in 1867, and also studied architecture in Europe in 1871-1872. He studied architecture for a time with Russell Sturgis in New York before joining McKim's firm. Mead died in New York on June 20, 1928.
Stanford White was born in New York on November 9, 1853. He was educated at New York University and received architectural training with Charles Gambrill and H.H. Richardson. He traveled and studied in Europe in 1878-1880 and returned to New York to join McKim and Mead in partnership in 1881. White died in New York in 1906.
McKim and White functioned as the creative designers of the company and Mead was the business administrator and critic of their plans. The firm designed a large number of significant buildings including Madison Square Garden (1889), the Boston Public Library (1887), the State Capitol of Rhode Island, as well as many prestigious mansions on the East Coast.
The collection contains an incomplete set of blueline prints of plot
plans, floor plans, and elevations for the Minneapolis Museum of Fine Arts (now
the Minneapolis Institute of Arts), 1912. There is also a copy of
An unpublished finding aid with detailed contents is available in the Manuscripts Division.
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