Montgomery C. Meigs and the building of the nation's Capital / edited by William C. Dickinson, Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Dickinson, William C., 1922-

Herrin, Dean A., 1958-

Kennon, Donald R., 1948-

United States Capitol Historical Society.

Series:

Perspectives on the art and architectural history of the United States Capitol

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Meigs, Montgomery C. (Montgomery Cunningham), 1816-1892.

Meigs, Montgomery C.

United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.).

United States. Army--Officials and employees--Biography.

United States.

United States. Army.

Civil engineers--United States--Biography.

Civil engineers.

Buildings--History--Washington (D.C.).

Buildings.

History.

Washington (D.C.).

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 198 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Published for the United States Capitol Historical Society by Ohio University Press, [2001]

Summary:

At the age of thirty-six, in 1852, Lt. Montgomery Cunningham Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers reported to Washington, D.C., for duty as a special assistant to the chief army engineer, Gen. Joseph G. Totten. It was a fateful assignment, both for the nation's capital and for the bright, ambitious, and politically connected West Point graduate.

Meigs's forty-year tenure in the nation's capital was by any account spectacularly successful. He surveyed, designed, and built the Washington water supply system, oversaw the extension of the U.S. Capitol and the erection of its massive iron dome, and designed and supervised construction of the Pension Building, now the home of the National Building Museum. The skills he exhibited in supervising engineering projects were carefully noted by political leaders, including president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who named Meigs quartermaster general of the Union Army, the most important position he held during his long and active military career.

Meigs believed Washington, D.C., should be the reincarnation of Rome, the ancient capital of the Roman Empire. He endeavored to memorialize the story of the American nation in all the structures he built, expressing its principles in murals, sculpture, and monumental design.

Historians have long known Meigs for the organizational genius he displayed in fulfilling his duty as quartermaster general during the Civil War and for his unwavering loyalty to Lincoln and to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. This volume establishes his claim as one of the major nineteenth-century contributors to the built environment of the nation's capital.

Contents:

I. Meigs the Engineer

The Eclectic Engineer: Montgomery C. Meigs and His Engineering Projects / Dean A. Herrin 3

Montgomery C. Meigs and the Washington Aqueduct / Harry C. Ways 21

The Engineers and the Architects: Whose Profession Shall Build for the Government? / Martin K. Gordon 49

II. Meigs's Architectural Inspirations and Designs

Montgomery C. Meigs and Victorian Architectural Traditions / Pamela Scott 57

A Rich Repast of Classicism: Meigs and Classical Sources / Cynthia R. Field 73

The Pension Building: Function and Form / Linda B. Lyons 91

Commissary Sergeant's Quarters, Building 42, Fort Myer, Virginia / Michael Mills 112

III. Meigs the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Renaissance Man

The Shorthand Journals of Montgomery C. Meigs / William D. Mohr 123

Montgomery C. Meigs and Photography at the Capitol / Wayne Firth 127

Meigs the Art Patron / Barbara A. Wolanin 133

Montgomery C. Meigs, the New Age Public Manager: An Intrepretive Essay / William C. Dickinson 166.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0821413961

082141397X

OCLC:

45707699