Sticks and Stones · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Sticks and Stones by Lewis Mumford.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
H. H. Richardson
major
Also known as Richardson
Richardson built foursquare monuments of rough stone and round arch for the coal and steel barons, a mode Mumford reads as both artistic conviction and a new feudalism entrenching itself against the uneasy proletariat. His very strength became his weakness: masonry was being driven out by steel, and the difficulty of demolishing his buildings only hastened demand for frailer, more facile construction. He anchors the book's central argument about how commerce and industry defeated romanticism in the office-building.
Thomas Jefferson
supporting
Also known as Jefferson
Jefferson embodied the eighteenth-century gentleman who had read Horace and Livy with one foot in his own age and the other in the grave of Rome, and he had nothing but contempt for the free Georgian vernacular. After the Revolution, men who had plotted like Catiline and denounced like Cicero wanted a stage for their gestures, and Jefferson supplied the classical foundation. He marks the moment when the carpenter-builder's classical finish gave way to the architect's classical myth.
Horace Walpole
minor
Also known as Horace, Walpole
Writer and architectural enthusiast, cited for Gothic revival views.
John Ruskin
supporting
Also known as Ruskin
When Ruskin began his campaign, the Crystal Palace builders saw only two choices, and his defense of handicraft looked like a fugitive philosophy. Mumford argues that what seemed nostalgic turned out to be intelligent criticism once applied to the machine-system rather than the machine alone. Ruskin frames the book's question of whether machinery might yet lend itself to a more purposive, handicraft-like system of production.
Benjamin Latrobe
minor
Also known as Latrobe, Benjamin Henry Latrobe
Early American architect known for neoclassical public buildings.
Daniel Burnham
supporting
Also known as Burnham, Mr. Daniel Burnham, Mr. Burnham
Burnham's plans sought the dignity and decisiveness of the formal plan, but accepted improvements at the value placed on them by Big Business, as creators of land-values and commercial attractiveness. His weakness was neglecting the billboard, the skysign, the subway, and the tall building that undermined the plan even when achieved. He represents the moment the architect, cut off from serving the community, lost his leadership to commerce.
Charles McKim
minor
Also known as Mr. Charles McKim, Mr. McKim, McKim
Beaux-Arts architect, partner in McKim, Mead & White.
William Morris Hunt
minor
Also known as Morris, Hunt
American painter and architect, influenced by French styles.
Louis Sullivan
supporting
Also known as Mr. Louis Sullivan, the late Mr. Louis Sullivan, Mr. Sullivan
Sullivan belongs to the generation that studied at the École des Beaux Arts and sought a neutral mode consecrated by established canons of good taste, even as steel-cage construction placed a premium on the mask. His bitter diagnosis, that the growth of imperialism stifled a genuine modern American style, runs beneath Mumford's account of the 1890s. He is the conscience of the book's argument about what American architecture might have become.
Major L'Enfant
minor
Also known as L'Enfant
French-born architect who designed the plan for Washington, D.C.
Andrea Palladio
minor
Also known as Palladio
Renaissance architect whose villa designs shaped Western architecture.
Charles Dickens
minor
Also known as Dickens
Novelist whose descriptions of cities are referenced for social critique.
Bertram Goodhue
minor
Also known as Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Bertram Goodhue, Goodhue
Architect known for Gothic revival and early skyscrapers.
Lord Burlington
minor
Also known as Burlington
Patron of Palladian architecture in 18th-century England.
Geoffrey Scott
minor
Also known as Scott, Mr. Geoffrey Scott, Mr. Scott
Architectural historian and author of The Architecture of Humanism.
Christopher Wren
minor
Also known as Wren
English architect who rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire.
Robert Adam
minor
Also known as Adam, the brothers Adam
Neoclassical architect known for elegant interior design.
Frank Lloyd Wright
supporting
Also known as Franklin, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright, Mr. Wright
Wright's designs are the very products of the prairie, flat-roofed and horizontal, representing modern tendencies but for an entirely different set of human purposes than the factory or grain elevator. Mumford uses him to argue that the best modern work does not merely respect the machine but respects the people who use it. He is the counterexample to the lesser artists who glorified the machine in its nakedness.
Samuel McIntire
minor
Also known as McIntire
Woodcarver and architect in early Federal-era Salem.
Viollet-le-Duc
minor
Also known as Viollet - le - Duc, The sage Viollet - le - Duc once patly
French architect and theorist of Gothic revival restoration.
Thomas Hardy
minor
Also known as Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Hardy
Novelist and poet whose architectural background influenced his work.
Alexander Pope
minor
Also known as Alexander
Poet whose writings on taste and landscape are cited.
Fiske Kimball
minor
Also known as Mr. Fiske Kimball
Architectural historian and museum director.
Edgar Allan Poe
minor
Also known as Poe, Edgar Poe
Writer whose architectural imagery is analyzed for romantic decay.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
minor
Also known as Emerson
Transcendentalist philosopher whose ideas on nature and art appear.
L. H. Buffington
minor
Also known as L. H. Buffington
Architect who designed early skyscrapers in the Midwest.
Stanford White
minor
Also known as White, Stanford White
Beaux-Arts architect, partner in McKim, Mead & White.
Henry George
minor
Also known as Henry George, Mr. Henry George
Political economist whose land tax theories influenced urban reform.
Georges-Eugène Haussmann
minor
Also known as Haussmann
Prefect who modernized Paris with wide boulevards and parks.
George Perkins Marsh
minor
Also known as George Perkins Marsh
Early environmentalist whose work on human impact on nature is cited.
Patrick Geddes
minor
Also known as Patrick Geddes, Professor Patrick Geddes
Scottish biologist and urban planning theorist.
Henry Wright
minor
Also known as Mr. Henry Wright
Landscape architect and planner of garden cities.
Charles Bulfinch
minor
Also known as Bulfinch
Early American architect of the Federal style, designed Massachusetts State House.
Ralph Adams Cram
minor
Also known as Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, Cram, Dr. Cram
Gothic revival architect and writer on medievalism.
John Wellborn Root
minor
Also known as Root, J. W. Root
Chicago School architect, partner of Daniel Burnham.
Edward Bennett
minor
Also known as Mr. Edward Bennett, Mr. Bennett
Architect and city planner, co-author of the Chicago Plan.
Ebenezer Howard
minor
Also known as Mr. Ebenezer Howard
Founder of the garden city movement in urban planning.
Benton MacKaye
minor
Also known as Mr. Benton Mackaye
Forester and planner, co-founder of the Appalachian Trail.
Robert Dale Owen
minor
Also known as Robert Dale Owen
Social reformer and advocate for utopian communities.
Washington Roebling
minor
Also known as Washington Roebling, the younger Roebling
Engineer who completed the Brooklyn Bridge after his father's death.
Henry Bacon
minor
Also known as the late Mr. Henry Bacon, Mr. Bacon
Architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Bassett Jones
minor
Also known as Mr. Bassett Jones, Mr. Jones
Engineer and writer on architectural lighting and acoustics.
John Roebling
minor
Also known as John Roebling
Engineer who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, a key industrial symbol.
Napoleon III
minor
Also known as Napoleon III
French emperor who oversaw Haussmann's Paris renovation.
Abraham Lincoln
minor
Also known as Lincoln
President whose memorial and era are discussed in architectural context.
Norman Bel Geddes
minor
Also known as Lynn, Mr. Norman - Bel Geddes
Industrial designer and futurist, known for streamlined aesthetics.
