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Collection Highlights
William Gray Purcell Papers
The Prairie School tradition is magnificently represented by the William Gray Purcell Papers (1814-1965). Purcell (1880-1965) and George Grant Elmslie's (1871-1952) highly successful partnership produced some of the finest Prairie School buildings in America. Present are drawings and other documents for almost every commission, plus those designed by both men before and after the period of their partnership. Also included are drawings from the firm of Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924) as well as correspondence and other papers of Purcell's grandfather, William C. Gray , a prominent 19th century Chicago newspaper editor. On this page you will find links to sources of information about the materials in this very popular collection from the Northwest Architectural Archives.Information available online
The William Gray Purcell Papers contain far more than just the architectural records of the firm Purcell & Elmslie (and its predecessors: Purcell & Feick and Purcell, Feick & Elmslie.) However, the only materials that have been made available electronically are those relating to the architectural works.
A complete commission list of the architectural works is available here in chronological order by "job number" as it was known in the firm. Documentation is not available for all jobs, but in any case in which there is a media type listed (e.g. "ink on linen," "job files," etc.) there are materials here in the archives.
As well, visual materials (photographs, sketches, stencil designs) that reside in the "job files" have been digitized and mounted here.
An electronic version of a summary finding aid (or inventory of available materials) has been produced from the draft versions of the William Gray Purcell Papers catalog. You will find a link to that finding aid here.
A complete commission list of the architectural works is available here in chronological order by "job number" as it was known in the firm. Documentation is not available for all jobs, but in any case in which there is a media type listed (e.g. "ink on linen," "job files," etc.) there are materials here in the archives.
As well, visual materials (photographs, sketches, stencil designs) that reside in the "job files" have been digitized and mounted here.
An electronic version of a summary finding aid (or inventory of available materials) has been produced from the draft versions of the William Gray Purcell Papers catalog. You will find a link to that finding aid here.
Finding aids are descriptive guides or inventories that have been created by the archivist to provide information about the contents of the collections.These inventories, or lists of the contents of our collections, are encoded in XML and can only be viewed
through Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 7.0, or Mozilla.