Architect Richard Morris Hunt
American Institute of Architects Foundation
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Getting started with research
Books provide the researcher with an overview of a topic, while articles found in the university's databases can provide extensive background on a narrower topic. Explore the books listed below chronicling the life and people in the Gilded Age in Newport, along with the designers and architects of the mansions of Newport during this time period. Many of the titles listed as available in the Newport Collection are also available in the library's main collection, located on the third floor. For access to resources in the Newport Collection, located in the Archives, contact Archivist Genna Duplisea at archives@salve.edu.
Additional resources and strategies for getting started with your research are described through the following guides created by librarians.
- Explore the research guide that provides an overview of the university's Archives and Special Collections, along with a wealth of related resources.
- For an overview of the architectural heritage of the university's properties, peruse the research guide Architecture & Heritage: Salve's Seven Estates.
- Learn how to become a better researcher through the methods and resources described in the following guide, HIS 270: The Historian's Craft.
- UNV-101: Dive into Newport: A research guide focused on the City of Newport and its history.
Gilded Age
A Season of Splendor by Call Number: F124 .K56 2009Publication Date: 2008Covers the period from roughly the 1870s to 1914, when old-money bluebloods and patricians confronted the nouveau riche - railway barons, steel magnates, and Wall Street speculators - and forged an uneasy and dazzling new social order in New York City. Together, their extreme wealth, elaborate parties, marble mansions, excesses and scandals transformed the social, architectural, and sartorial landscape. Chapters 19 and 20 are devoted to Newport, and includes details of the lives of many former residents, architects and and designers associated with the estates of the university, including Emily and James J. Van Alen of Wakehurst, Jules Allard, the Burdens, Richard Morris Hunt, architects McKim, Mead, and White, and Mary and Ogden Goelet.- The Vanderbilt Era byCall Number: CT274.V35 A93 1989Publication Date: 1989Examines the lives of New York's 'acceptable' families, the privileged wealthy, during the period 1880-1920. The author uses his close connections to their descendants and other research to tell lively anecdotal histories of the business-dominated, pseudo-aristocracy in democratic America.
Newportraits by Call Number: ND1311.9.N48 N48 2000Publication Date: 2000In 1992, the Newport Art Museum assembled an exhibition of 223 portraits of Newporters painted over a period of three centuries. It presented not just a gallery of the Newport elite and some of its haute bourgeoisie, but also a showcase of the most famous portraitists and portrait styles throughout United States history. Includes portraits of Ogden Goelet, Mrs. Louis S. Bruguiere of Wakehurst, Noreen Stonor Drexel, William Watts Sherman and Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman, and James H. Van Alen and Candace Alig Van Alen.
Gilded by Call Number: F89.N5 D38 2009Publication Date: 2009Presents a history of Newport, Rhode Island and its social elite as it survived several ups and downs and provided summer housing for wealthy Americans like the Vanderbilts, Astors and others.- First Resorts byCall Number: e-book and in print (E166 .S87 2001)Publication Date: 200319th Century Newport is the focus of two chapters in this book, "The revival of Newport: the pilgrimage of fashion," and "The privitization of Newport: "coarseness and vulgarity are never seen here."
- This was my Newport byCall Number: F89.N5 E4 1944Publication Date: 1944Part one : historical. As it was in the beginning ; The dawn of American art ; "How shall a man escape from his ancestors?" -- Part two : literary and artistic traditions. Lawton's valley ; A child remembers ; Oak Glen ; The town and country club ; Some Newport artists -- Part three : society. The social invasion ; The summer capital ; "By their works..." -- Part four : sports. The birthplace of national championships ; The cradle of American sports -- Part five : naval and military. Early days of the army and navy ; Admirals all.
What Would Mrs. Astor Do? by Call Number: F128.47 .T53 2018Publication Date: 2018A richly illustrated romp with America's Gilded Age leisure class--and those angling to join it. The "old money" titans found themselves besieged by a vanguard of "new money" interlopers eager to gain entrée into their world of formal balls, debutante parties, opera boxes, sailing regattas, and summer gatherings at Newport. Into this morass of money and desire stepped Caroline Astor. Mrs. Astor, an "old money" heiress of the first order, became convinced that she was uniquely qualified to uphold the manners and mores of Gilded Age America. Wherever she went, Mrs. Astor made her judgments, dictating proper behavior and demeanor, men's and women's codes of dress, acceptable patterns of speech and movements of the body, and what and when to eat and drink. The ladies and gentlemen of high society took note.
Class and Leisure in Newport
- Class and Leisure at America's First Resort. Newport, Rhode Island, 1870-1914Kay Davis, a researcher and writer from the University of Virginia whose interests include the Gilded Age, examines the development of a leisure industry in America, specifically how Americans of all classes spent their leisure time in Newport, Rhode Island.
Art & Architects
- Richard Morris Hunt byCall Number: NA737.H86 B34Publication Date: 1980The definitive biography of the man who was widely regarded by his contemporaries as the dean of American architects and who was a seminal figure in establishing architecture as a profession in the United States. Covering all of Hunt's major commissions―including his famous fifth Avenue mansions and Newport "cottages"―the book provides a fresh look at the artistic achievements of America's Gilded Age.
Living Architecture by Call Number: NA737.R5 O38 1997Publication Date: 1997Fascinating, important, and lushly illustrated, Living Architecture is the first biography of nineteenth-century America's greatest architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and the first full-color treatment of his rich and marvelous work. Richardson designed the William Watts Sherman house.
The Decoration of Houses by Call Number: NK2110 .W5 1997Publication Date: 1997Edith Wharton, as an arbiter of taste and correct usage in the making of domestic interior rooms, worked with Ogden Codman, Jr., a revivalist architect, to produce this volume considered by many to be an "authentic classic."
Pioneers of American Landscape Design by Call Number: SB469.9 .P56 2000Publication Date: 2000Landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch designed the grounds of Wakehurst and Vinland estates.
Stanford White, Architect by Call Number: NA737.W5 W45 2008Publication Date: 2008Stanford White (1853-1906), a celebrated American architect of his day, was the visionary genius of the illustrious architecture firm McKim, Mead White. A defining figure of the Gilded Age, White lived an extravagant life, which ended prematurely in a sensational death.- Stanny: The gilded life of Stanford White byCall Number: NA737.W5 B27 1989Publication Date: 1989A biography of the famed architect Stanford White by Paul R. Baker, New York University history professor and researcher.
- Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White : Love and death in the gilded age byCall Number: HV6534.N5 M66 1976Publication Date: 1976
Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: art, architecture, scandal, and class in America's Gilded Age by Call Number: NA737.M4 B76 2010Publication Date: 2010Traces the story of the Gilded Age architectural firm, describing its partners' shared vision about the role of architecture in shaping America and establishing an architectural practice that would set an international standard.
John La Farge: A biographical and critical study by Call Number: N6537.L28 Y37 2012Publication Date: 2012The first biography of John La Farge since 1911 is authored by art and architecture historian and leading authority on La Farge, Dr. James L. Yarnall. This extensive critical biography of the artist, organized by periods of creativity and world travels, includes the Newport period, 1859-1873 and his early decorative work, 1873-1885. It is a story of admirable triumphs and shameful falls from grace, of intellectual brilliance coupled with inexplicable mediocrity, of innovative and important artwork blemished by technically challenged artistry. La Farge's stained glass windows are integral to the university's Our Lady of Mercy Chapel.
John la Farge and the Recovery of the Sacred by Call Number: N6537.L28 A4 2015Publication Date: 2015This collection offers a new look at American artist John La Farge (1835-1910) and his lifelong efforts to visualize the sacred. Most clearly reflected in his ecclesiastical paintings and stained glass windows, the latter of which appear in churches throughout the United States, La Farge's quest can be seen both in his representations of nature and still life and in his book illustrations.
