Historical Note
While in Chicago to advise and work on the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, architects Charles F. McKim, Daniel Burnham, and Richard Howland Hunt, painters John La Farge and Frank Millet, and sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Daniel Chester French, among others, met regularly. From their collaborative experience and discussions came the idea for an American school for artists in Europe. Charles F. McKim was especially enthusiastic. He strongly believed that collaborative experience should be available to future American artists, and perceived a real need for an American school in Europe--preferably in Rome, the very best place to study art, in his opinion.
By March of the following year, McKim was busy devising plans for the school and persuading like-minded architects and artists to assist. He proposed to finance the school by convincing institutions with traveling scholarships in the arts to send those students to Rome. Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and the Rotch Scholarship fund readily agreed to the scheme, and in ensuing years many others followed suit. In October, 1894, the American School of Architecture in Rome opened temporary quarters in the Palazzo Torlonia. The school consisted of its Director, Austin Lord, three fellows, and a visiting student; its "library" contained but one volume.
A move to the larger, more suitable Villa Aurora occurred in July 1895. Rent from two subtenants (the newly established American School of Classical Studies in Rome and the British and American Archaeological Society Library in Rome), along with a personal contribution from McKim, made this financially feasible.
The American School of Architecture in Rome was incorporated in the State of New York, 1895, and 10 shares of capital stock were issued. Despite substantial fundraising efforts in Chicago, New York, and Boston, severe financial problems continued. The American School of Classical Studies in Rome vacated the Villa Aurora in 1896--and with it went a sizeable portion of the School of Architecture's income. McKim frequently made up the deficit from his own pocket.
Eventually, it was decided that the American School of Architecture in Rome must be reorganized along the lines of the French Academy and that national sponsorship needed to be obtained through an act of Congress. In June of 1897, the American School of Architecture in Rome voted to dissolve itself and create the American Academy in Rome. The new institution would assume all assets and obligations, fellowships in painting and architecture were to be added to the program, and its Board of Trustees would include architects and artists. The Academy is not a school. Its fellows and visiting students, already professionally trained, go to Rome for further development and for collaboration and association with others. In the words of Director Gorham Phillips Stevens: "The object of the American Academy in Rome is not to afford opportunities for a few individuals to perfect themselves for the practice of their chosen professions. The ideal is to create an atmosphere in which a limited number of carefully selected artists and scholars may develop that synthesis of intellectual culture which will make them worthy to preserve and continue the great traditions of the past in order that the standard of art and literature may be handed on from year to year, constantly strengthened and improved."
Beginning in 1901, bills to make the American Academy in Rome a "national institution" were introduced in Congress on several occasions. A hearing was finally scheduled in 1905, and a revised bill that prohibited government funding and specified that U.S. officials may not be Trustees was signed into law. Serious efforts to create an Endowment Fund and secure better quarters were associated with the movement to obtain status as a national institution. The Academy was successful in meeting all of these objectives. In 1904, the Academy moved to the Villa Mirafiore (also known as Villa Mirafiori), which it soon purchased and renovated. The Endowment Fund raised well over a million dollars. Donors of $100,000 to the Endowment Fund, designated "Founders" of the American Academy in Rome, were: The Carnegie Foundation, Henry C. Frick, Harvard College, Charles F. McKim, J. P. Morgan, Sr., J. P. Morgan, Jr., The Rockefeller Foundation, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William K. Vanderbilt, and Henry Walters. Other categories of donors were "Incorporators" (a new Act of Incorporation was required at the time the American Academy in Rome was chartered as a national institution) and "Life Members."
The American School of Classical Studies in Rome, which had been established by the Archaeological Society in 1895 and during its first year shared the Villa Aurora with the American School of Architecture in Rome, entered into a consolidation agreement with the American Academy in Rome in 1911. Their merger went into effect on the last day of 1912, and ever since, the American Academy in Rome has consisted of the School of Fine Arts and the School of Classical Studies, administered by a common director. The School of Classical Studies is composed of fellows and visiting scholars who are graduate students, secondary teachers, or professors engaged in research in the areas of archaeology, ancient art, philology, and humanistic studies. Women were a part of the School of Classical Studies from its beginning, but were not permitted to participate in the School of Fine Arts until well after World War II. Beginning in 1923, the School of Classical Studies instituted Summer Sessions which appealed to secondary teachers, and attracted an enrollment that was largely female.
Originally, the School of Fine Arts offered fellowships in architecture, painting, and sculpture. Fellowships in landscape architecture were added in 1915; in 1920, a Department of Music was established, and along with it fellowships in musical composition. Fellowships in art history were established in 1947. Unmarried men under age 30 were eligible to compete for the fine arts fellowships awarded annually (except for landscape architecture, awarded every third year); the duration of fellowships ranged from one to three years at various points in the institution's history. In residence along with fellows of the American Academy in Rome, might be holders of various traveling scholarships: the McKim Fellowship, the Columbia Traveling Scholarship, the Perkins Scholarship, the Robinson Traveling Scholarship (Harvard), the Rotch Scholarship, the Julia Appleton Scholarship, the Traveling Scholarship and Stewardson Memorial Scholarship (University of Pennsylvania), the Cresson Scholarship (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), the Drexel Institute Traveling Scholarship, the Lazarus Scholarship (Metropolitan Museum of Art), the Lowell Scholarship (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Rinehart Scholarship (Peabody Institute, Baltimore). Visiting students, who remained for a much briefer period than fellows or recipients of various traveling scholarships, were admitted to all lectures and granted use the library, but resided elsewhere. The Academy opened an Atelier in downtown Rome for visiting students in 1927, which operated until financial considerations forced its discontinuation seven years later.
As the merger was being planned, J. P. Morgan, Sr., who was interested in both the American Academy in Rome and the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, began buying properties on the Janiculum, adjacent to Villa Aureilia. Villa Aurelia, built on the summit of the Janiculum in 1650, had been bequeathed to the American Academy in Rome in 1909 by Clara Jessup Heyland. Complications surrounding the gift of Villa Aurelia--including the will being contested by Mrs. Heyland's brother, and problems with unsettled tax assessments--were overcome in the interest of acquiring the outstanding building and its extensive grounds. Not long before his death in 1913, Morgan donated his neighboring land, and the American Academy in Rome continued to expand its Janiculum holdings through purchases and gifts from others. Morgan also agreed to provide a loan for construction of a new building. This building, designed by McKim, Mead, and White and known as the Main Building or Academy Building, opened in 1915; it served as the fellows' residence and work area, and included room for the library, offices, and space for exhibitions and other public events.
During World War I, the American Academy in Rome managed to remain open, although no new fellows arrived during the war years and the number of resident fellows and staff dwindled considerably. Most who remained were involved in some type of civilian war work, often with the Red Cross. In fact, Villa Aurelia was rented by the Red Cross in Italy for office space, and the Main Building was offered as a convalescent hospital, but the war ended before it could be put to that use.
After Italy declared war on the United States in 1941, the American Academy in Rome closed for the remainder of World War II. Those who had been awarded fellowships in classics just prior to the Academy's closing were given the option of using their stipends for study at home or waiting until conditions permitted travel to Rome. A very reduced staff stayed to care for the property and continue library cataloguing, coping with often severe wartime shortages of food and fuel. In addition, there were financial hardships. When bank accounts of enemy aliens were frozen and it was no longer possible to transfer funds from the United States, the Swiss Legation and Vatican arranged for loans to keep the Academy and its staff afloat. Funds that would have been awarded to new fellows during this period were put to use in other ways. In 1943, the American Academy in Rome made a grant to the Citizen's Committee for the Army and Navy, Inc. for competitions to award commissions to artists and art students throughout the country, funding more than 100 triptychs for chapels, as well as murals, medals, and sculpture. Seniors in American colleges and universities were eligible to compete for several scholarships for graduate work in classical studies awarded by the American Academy in Rome.
In 1945, the Academy was the site of Leave Courses on various aspects of Italian culture offered to servicemen. From the end of the war until the Academy reopened at the start of the 1946/47 academic year, G.I. Fellowships were offered to discharged soldiers wishing to study at the Academy, making the institution eligible to receive surplus equipment and rations. During this time intensive planning was underway for administrative changes and new programs.
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1893
While in Chicago to collaborate on the fine arts section for the World's Columbian Exposition, architects Charles F. McKim, Daniel Burnham, Richard Howland Hunt, painters John La Farge, and Sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Daniel Chester French, among others, met regularly and from their collaborative experience and discussions came the idea for an American school in Europe.
1894
American School of Architecture in Rome opened in temporary quarters at the Palazzo Torlonia with Austin Lord, Director, three fellows, and a visiting student.
1895
Villa Aurora leased with 2 subtenants, the American School of Classical Studies and the British and American Archaeological Society Library in Rome American School of Architecture incorporated and 10 shares of capital stock issued (2 each to McKim and Hunt, and 1 to Burnham, Kendall, Schermerhorn, Boring, Garland, and Dill) McKim visits Rome.
1896
Metropolitan Museum of Art, administrator of Jacob H. Lazarus Scholarship for the study of mural painting, agrees to send the winner to Rome American School of Classical Studies in Rome vacates Villa Aurora.
1897
American School of Architecture in Rome dissolved and reorganized as the American Academy in Rome; the assets (including the lease on Villa Aurora) of the American School of Architecture in Rome were transferred and its program expanded to include fellowships in painting and sculpture Samuel A. B. Abbott appointed first Director Rome Prize discontinued (for 9 years) due to lack of funds.
1898
Incorporated in New York State; trustees begin to focus on raising an endowment.
1904
Move to Villa Mirafiore (also known as Villa Mirafiori); occupied until 1914.
1905
Chartered by the Congress of the United States; a bill signed by President Roosevelt made the American Academy in Rome a national institution (receiving no government funding and barring U.S. officials from acting as Trustees).
1906
Purchase of Villa Mirafiore finalized; renovations begun.
1909
Villa Aurelia bequeathed to the Academy by Clara Jessup Heyland (used until 1932); there were protracted problems surrounding the acquisition of the property including a brother who contested the will and unsettled taxes.
1911
School of Classical Studies in Rome (established by the Archaeological Institute of America in 1895) and the American Academy in Rome announce their consolidation [the merger became effective on the final day of 1912].
1912
Lands on the Janiculum adjacent to Villa Aurelia, recently acquired by J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr., transferred to the American Academy in Rome.
1913
American Academy in Rome now consists of the School of Fine Arts and the School of Classical Studies. New York office moves to the Architect's Building, 101 Park Ave., remaining at this location until 1973. By this date, largely through the generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr., nearly all of the land bounded by Via Angelo Masina, Via Giacomo Medici, Via Pietro Riselli, and the Aurelian Wall on the Janiculum had been purchased and many improvements made to the properties near the Villa Aurelia. Construction begins on the new Academy building designed by McKim, Mead, and White and situated on the grounds of Villa Aurelia; financed through a loan from J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (after Morgan Sr.'s death, his son offered to cancel the loan at an amount equal to funds raised by the Academy for the purpose).
1915
First Fellowship in Landscape Architecture established; opening of new Academy building housing the fellows' residential quarters, work areas, library, offices, and spaces for public programs.
1917
Villa Aurelia rented to the Red Cross for office space, and the new Main building was slated to become a convalescent hospital, but the war ended before it could be put to use.
1919
New York office reorganized by Roscoe Guernsey, executive secretary; sale of Villa Mirafiore; Academic Council established in Rome.
1920
Department of Music and Fellowship in Musical Composition established.
1923
School of Classical Studies establishes summer sessions, largely attended by teachers.
1926
Second Fellowship in Landscape Architecture funded by Garden Club of America (later permanently endowed).
1927
Academy opens an Atelier in downtown Rome, providing studios for visiting students (operated until 1934).
1929
First Thomas Spencer Jerome lecturer appointed.
1941
Academy closes for duration of World War II; a skeletal staff remain behind to care for the property and continue library cataloguing; Italy declares war on the United States.
1942
After transfer of funds from the U.S. proved impossible and enemy aliens were prohibited from withdrawing their own funds from Italian banks, the Swiss Legation and Vatican offered assistance to the Academy by providing loans.
1943
Academy grant to Citizen's Committee for the Army and Navy, Inc., funded hundreds of triptychs; murals, medals, and sculptures also commissioned Academy awards scholarships in classical studies at American colleges and universities.
1945
"Leave courses," held at the Academy, consisting mainly of lectures by distinguished scholars still in Rome, instituted for U.S. servicemen.
1946
Regular program resumes at the start of the academic year.
1947
Fellowship in the History of Art established.
1965
Loan of printed matter for microfilming by the Archives of American Art (reels ITRO 2-3 and 11-13).
1973
New York office moves to American Federation of Arts building, 41 East 65th St. (until 1993).
1982
Gift of New York office records to the Archives of American Art.
1990
Gift of Rome office records to the Archives of American Art.
1993
New York office moves to Metropolitan Club, 7 East 60th St.
Scope and Content Note
The records of the American Academy in Rome measure 65.9 linear feet and date from 1855 to 2012. The collection documents the history of the institution from its inception in 1894 as the American School of Architecture in Rome, through the end of World War II, and chronicles the contributions the academy has made to America's cultural and intellectual development. Nearly one-half of the collection consists of an unprocessed addition received in 2014 containing records that mostly post-date World War II and include correspondence and subject files of officers and executives based in the New York office of American Academy in Rome.
Items predating the 1894 founding of the American School of Architecture in Rome are personal papers and memorabilia of individuals associated with the institution.
Series 1: Predecessor Institutions,
is composed of the records of the American School of Architecture in Rome, 1894-1898, and the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, 1895-1913. Records of the American School of Architecture in Rome include records of its Managing Committee, correspondence, financial records, and printed matter. Among the Managing Committee's records are notes and correspondence relative to the founding of the institution, minute books and reports; also, legal documents including records concerning its dissolution prior to being reorganized as the American Academy in Rome. Correspondence is mostly that of Vice President Charles F. McKim who handled administrative matters. Financial records include capital stock certificates, invoices and receipts. Printed matter consists of scholarship competition announcements.
Records of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome include records of its Managing Committee, Committee on Fellowships, publications, printed matter, and treasurers' records. The Managing Committee's records consist of the proposed resolution concerning its merger with the American Academy in Rome. Committee on Fellowship records are comprised of correspondence, reports, and fellowship applications. Publications records include correspondence and invoices. Printed matter includes general information, annual reports of the Managing Committee and Director, annual reports of the Committee on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, fellowship applications and examination questions, and the proposed consolidation agreement. Treasurers' records include the files of Alex. Bell and Willard V. King. Bell's sparse records consist of a budget, receipts for salary payments, an invoice, canceled checks, and correspondence. King's files, while more substantial than those that survive from Bell's tenure, are quite incomplete. They include correspondence, banking records, budgets and financial statements, investment records, invoices, and receipts for salaries and expenses.
Series 2: Board of Trustees Records,
is comprised of legal documents, minutes, and reports; records of Trustee committees; records of officers; and records of individual Trustees. Legal documents, 1897-1926 and undated, consist of by-laws and amendments, certificate of incorporation, and constitution and amendments. Minutes and reports of the Board of Trustees, 1897-1947 and 1957, including those of its annual meetings, are carbon copies rather than the official minute books, and are incomplete. Reports of officers are incomplete, as well. Also included are reports of Officers'/Trustees' visits to Rome, and reports of the Director and Secretary in Rome submitted to the Board of Trustees.
Records of Trustee committees, 1905-1946 and undated, consist of reports and/or minutes arranged alphabetically by committee; these, too are incomplete, with many committees represented by a single report. Committees represented are: Building Committee, Carter Memorial Committee, Endowment Committee, Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Library Committee, McKim Memorial Committee, Nominating Committee, Committee on Publications. Committee on the School of Classical Studies records consist of its own minutes and reports, reports of its Advisory Council and the Jury on Classical Fellowships. Committee on the School of Classical Studies also include reports of officers and staff of the School of Classical Studies to the Committee on the School of Classical Studies as follows: Director, Professor in Charge, Annual Professor, Director of the Summer Session, Professor of Archaeology, Curator of the Museum, Editor, Librarian, and Committee on the Welfare of Women Students. Committee on the School of Fine Arts records consist of its own minutes and reports, reports of its Special Committee on the Plan and Expense of a Department of Music in the School of Fine Arts, and report of Fine Arts Program, Triptych Project with the Citizens Committee for the Army and Navy, Inc.; also, reports of officers and staff of the School of Fine Arts to the Committee on the School of Fine Arts as follows: Director, Professor in Charge, Associate in Charge, Annual Professor, Professor in Charge of the Department of Musical Composition. In addition, there are minutes and/or reports of the Committee of Twelve and Subcommittee of Five and the Special Committee on Villa Aurelia.
Records of Officers. 1898-1957 and undated, consist mainly of correspondence files and reports, with large numbers of transcriptions and carbon copies. Included are records of: Presidents Charles F. McKim, William R. Mead, Charles A. Platt, John Russell Pope, and James Kellum Smith; Vice Presidents Theodore N. Ely, George B. McClellan, and Henry James; Secretaries H. Siddons Mowbray (Secretary/Treasurer), Frank D. Millet, C. Grant La Farge, William B. Dinsmoor, and H. Richardson Pratt; and Treasurers William R. Mead, William A. Boring, Leon Fraser, and Lindsay Bradford Office files of President Mead, Secretaries Millet and La Farge, and Treasurer Boring are the most complete; files of other individuals, the Vice Presidents in particular, are often quite sparse.
Records of individual Trustees, 1902-1946 and undated, consist of material relating to official Academy business that was created or maintained by each in his capacity as trustee. (Note: many of these individuals also served as officers or staff of the Academy, and their records documenting those functions will be found in the appropriate series.) Included in this subseries are the records of: Chester H. Aldrich, Gilmore D. Clarke, James C. Egbert, Barry Faulkner, Allan C. Johnson, William M. Kendall, C. Grant La Farge, Edward P. Mellon, Charles Dyer Norton, Charles A. Platt, John Russell Pope, Edward K. Rand, John C. Rolfe, James Kellum Smith, S. Breck Trowbridge, Ferruccio Vitale, John Quincy Adams Ward, Andrew F. West, and William L. Westerman. These records tend to be sparse; files maintained by James C. Egbert, Barry Faulkner, Allan C. Johnson, and Ferruccio Vitale are notable exceptions.
Series 3: New York Office Records,
consists of records of staff, rosters, printed matter, photographs, personal papers, Association of Alumni of the American Academy in Rome, and miscellaneous records.
Records of staff, 1919-1950 and undated, include the office files of Executive Secretaries Roscoe Guersney, Meriwether Stuart, and Mary T. Williams; Librarian George K. Boyce; and Endowment Fund Campaign Secretaries Phillilps B. Robinson and Edgar I. Williams.
The rosters, 1895-1939 and undated, are printed forms completed by fellows and students, with occasional attachments (usually correspondence or photographs). Included are the rosters of the School of Fine Arts, School of Classical Studies, and School of Classical Studies Summer Sessions.
Printed matter, 1905-[1981?] and undated, has been classified as Academy produced and produced by others. Items produced by the Academy, 1905-[1981?], include general information including act of incorporation and by-laws, fundraising brochure, constitution, Directory of Fellows and Residents, histories of the institution, newsletter of the Director, and printed items relating to special events. Printed matter specifically relating to the School of Classical Studies includes annual announcements, the consolidation agreement, a directory, fellowship announcements and applications, lecture announcements, newsletters, and brochures about summer sessions. School of Fine Arts printed matter includes annual announcements, concert programs, exhibition checklists and catalogs, fellowship announcements and application forms, history, and newsletters.
Printed matter produced by others, 1905-1940 and undated, consists of three scrapbooks of news clippings and photographs compiled by the American Academy in Rome, extensive clipping files, and articles from miscellaneous publications. All of these items are about the American Academy in Rome, or by or about individuals associated with the institution. Also included is a poster for Leave Courses offered at the Academy for U. S. servicemen.
Photographs, 1891-1941 and undated, are organized into the categories of works of art, people, buildings, places, events, and miscellaneous. Works of art are by visiting students and fellows, Frank D. Millet, collaborative problems, Rome Prize Competitions in Architecture, Rome Prize Competitions in Landscape Architecture, and Prix de Rome Competition exhibitions. Photographs of people are both of individuals and groups; among the groups are summer school students and fellowship winners.
Buildings depicted are American Academy properties. Among them are the "New Building," including interior and exterior construction views; studios; and Villas Aurelia, Mirafiore, and Richardson. Also included is a group of photographs of Academy architecture students measuring buildings in Rome and Florence. Places pictured are views of the Academy property and surrounding areas.
Photographs of events include cricket games, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July dinners, Architectural League exhibition, and inauguration of the Manship Fountain. Miscellaneous photographs are of an architectural drawing for a proposed building.
Personal Papers, Memorabilia, and Ephemera, 1855-1923 an undated, were donated to the American Academy in Rome or otherwise left on its premises. None are official records generated by the institution. Included are: Ernest Lewis' photograph album/scrapbook; Allan Marquand's papers; Charles F. McKim's memorabilia, photographs, printed matter, and artifacts; Charles R. Morey's correspondence; and Elihu Vedder's Bible.
Records of the Association of the Alumni of the American Academy in Rome, 1913-1945 and undated), consist of a small number of scattered records including correspondence, fellows' war/government service information (compiled by Sidney Waugh), membership lists, and a newsletter.
Miscellaneous records, 1899-1926 and undated, are writings and architectural records. Writings consist of published and unpublished manuscript material about the American Academy in Rome and its history, and article by H. Siddons Mowbray advising on ornamentation, and text and illustrations for the
Art and Archaeology
issue on the Academy. Also included are fragments of unidentified letters. Architectural records [oversize] include property and floor plans of Villas Aurora, Chiaraviglio, Ferrari, and Ludovisi.
Series 4: Rome Office Records,
consist of records of staff and personal papers. Records of staff, 1903-1947 and undated, include the office files of Directors H. Siddons Mowbray, George Breck, Jesse Benedict Carter, Gorham Phillips Stevens, James Monroe Hewlett, Chester H. Aldrich, Amey Aldrich [Acting Director, very briefly, perhaps unofficially], Charles R. Morey, and Laurance P. Roberts; and records of two members of the School of Fine Arts faculty, Frank P. Fairbanks, Professor of Fine Arts, and Felix Lamond, Professor of Music. Records of Carter, Stevens, Hewlett, and Aldrich appear to be fairly complete; records of early directors are sparse; those of Morey and Roberts appear to be missing significant portions; and those of Professors Fairbanks and Lamond consist of a few scattered items.
Also surviving are the personal papers of Director Gorham Phillips Stevens, 1912-1931 and undated), consisting of correspondence, financial records, and documentation of professional and charitable activities.
Series 5: Unprocessed Addition to the American Academy in Rome Records
was received in 2014 and consists of 31.6 linear feet of the New York office's records for officers, directors, and executives.
See Appendix for Trustee BiographiesMaterial on reels ITRO 2-3 & 11-13 were lent for microfilming at the Academy in 1965. Records of predecessor institutions, the Board of Trustees, and the New York office, including photographs and personal papers were donated 1982 by the American Academy in Rome, through Calvin G. Rand, president. An addition of Rome office records and personal papers of Gorham Phillips Stevens was donated 1990 by the Academy via Calvin G. Rand, President, and an addition of New York office records donated 2014 by the Academy via Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Director.
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