John Hancock Callender papers
Scope and Contents
The records of John H. Callender span the years 1911 to 1990, with the bulk of the material covering the decades of the 1940s and 1950s.
Included in the records are professional papers such as articles by and about Callender and the homes he designed, and scrapbooks and other personal material.
Dates
- Creation: 1911-1990
Language of Materials
English
Biographical / Historical
John Hancock Callender was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 18, 1908, the son of Alonzo Lee and Lola (Hancock) Callender. He was educated in the public schools of Kansas City before attending Yale University where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and from which he graduated with a B.A. degree in English in 1928. He then continued at Yale for two more years studying design. From 1935 to 1939 he attended New York University from which he graduated with a B.Arch.
In 1931 he went to work for the Housing Research Division of John B. Pierce Foundation researching the living habits of families, and designing and superintending the construction of low cost housing. He was an early advocate of prefabricated housing.
During his military service, 1943-1945, he was a consulting architect for the National Housing Agency, Staff Army Engineers, and supervised the remodeling of laboratories for the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Following the war he was in p rivate practice, specializing in private residences, before joining the faculty of Columbia University where he taught from 1953-1954. He then taught at Princeton University 1963-1973, and the Pratt Institute, 1970-1972. During the 1967/1968 academic year he was visiting professor at Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. He was the author of several books and many articles, and was the editor of Time saver standards for architectural design data, a standard reference for architects. He held membersh ip in the American Institute of Architects, serving as chairman of the small home committee from 1948 to 1950.
He married Mary Carnwath on August 5, 1933; they had one daughter, Janet. He died of cancer in Lansdale, Pa., March 30, 1995.
Extent
3.0 linear feet
Abstract
Correspondence, publications, articles by and about Callender and his residential architecture designs. Also personal papers including scrapbooks of a year spent as a visiting professor in Taiwan.
Arrangement
The records of John Hancock Callender were in no discernable order when received; therefore a series order was imposed during processing.
Series one is composed of papers relating to his professional career. Included are books and articles by Callender, articles about houses he designed, photographs and blueprints for several houses, and greeting cards which he designed.
The second series, Personal Papers, contains diplomas, military records, academic notebooks, personal photographs, two Yale University publications and two scrapbooks of his year at Cheng Kung University, one containing photographs, the other invitations and other mementos.
Articles on Callender houses were removed from the journals, which were discarded. Several Yale publications that did not contain information on Callender were also removed from the papers. This reduced the records by 2 cubic feet.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The records of John Hancock Callender were transferred to the University of Idaho Library by his widow, Mary Carnwath, via Gifford Pierce, professor of architecture at the University of Idaho, between September 1996 and February 1997.
- Title
- Guide to the John Hancock Callender Papers1911-1990
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Judith Nielsen
- Date
- ©1998
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is in English
- Sponsor
- Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Repository Details
Part of the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections and Archives Repository