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.
Parker Berry collection (N 109), Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
The collection was donated to the Northwest Architectural Archives by Ralph Rapson, University of Minnesota School of Architecture, 1984. The collection was originally a gift to the School of Architecture by Roger Berry, brother of Parker Berry, in May 1961.
Parker Berry was born in Nebraska in 1888 and grew up in Princeton, Illinois. He was educated in the local public schools and studied architecture at the University of Illinois (1907-1908), then moved to Chicago where he entered the office of Louis H. Sullivan (1909). He remained with Sullivan for most of the rest of his life. Berry died of influenza in November 1918.
Building designs credited to Berry are the Adams Building (Algona, Iowa), the First State Bank of Manlius (Illinois), the Interstate National Bank (Chicago) and the Adeline Prouty Old Ladies Home (Princeton, Illinois).
The collection consists of photographs of Parker Berry, of his buildings, including construction photos of the bank at Manlius, interior and exterior views of the Interstate National Bank and a house he designed in Princeton at age 16, views of the Chicago skyline taken from the Sullivan office in the Auditorium Tower (1910) and a photostat of a letter from Berry to his father (1912). There is also a letter from Roger W. Berry, brother of Parker Berry, to the chairman of the department of architecture at the University of Minnesota, dated 1961, regarding the gift of the collection to the department.
An unpublished finding aid with detailed contents is available in the Manuscripts Division.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.