Cement and Concrete, Creativity and Community, and Charles E
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Cement and Concrete, Creativity and Community, and Charles E. Peterson Author(s): David Gregory Cornelius Source: APT Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2006), pp. 17-25 Published by: Association for Preservation Technology International (APT)Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004677 Accessed: 08/09/2010 16:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aptech. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to APT Bulletin. http://www.jstor.org Cement and Concrete, Creativity and Community,and Charles E. Peterson DAVID GREGORY CORNELIUS Charles E. Peterson's research into A Simple Question the Journal of the Society of Architec- tural which he edited from the "lost history" of cement and In 1948 CharlesE. then a 41- Historians, Peterson, its in 1950 until the feature's concrete reveals as much about the architectwith the National inception year-old discontinuationin 1967. researcher as it does about his Park Servicein St. Louis, receiveda letter from A. J. Boase of the Portland subject. CementAssociation that contained this Peterson and McKee: "A Deep, information:"As far as we have been Involved and Confusing Topic" able to learn the first monolithic con- Peterson'smost importantmentor and crete built in the United States building colleague in the study of cement and was erectedin the 1849 in Wiscon- year concrete was HarleyJ. McKee (1905- sin. It is still in service.However the 1976), professor of architectureat cement used in that was not a job port- SyracuseUniversity, who became a land cement but a naturalcement and I valuable contact duringPeterson's years believe it was hauled from by wagon of editing AmericanNotes and re- New York State."1 mained so until McKee'sdeath. As he would continue to do through- In the day-longHistoric Structures out his Petersonhad formulated career, TrainingConference conducted for the a fundamentaland deceptivelysimple EasternOffice of Design and Construc- in this what was the question: instance, tion of the Park Serviceon July 28, firstconcrete in building America? 1961, toward the end of Peterson's addressedthis to the Having query tenurethere as supervisingarchitect for Port- recognizedexpert authority(the historic structures,McKee spoke and land Cement and received Association) contributedthe supplementarynotes its Peterson the next five reply, spent entitled "Cementand Mortar,1800- decades the refor- challenging answer, 1850."3 In 1962, at Peterson'surging, mulatingthe question, pursuingthe McKee contributedan AmericanNote the precedents,questioning terminology, on the early use of naturalhydraulic the receivedwisdom. torturing cement on the Erie Canal, in which the Peterson'sdrive for could knowledge importantengineer Canvass White never be containedwithin a single job (1790-1834) figuredprominently.4 The After the Historic description. founding same year Petersonleft the Park Service American from his BuildingsSurvey and establisheda privatearchitectural in the Na- relativelyinsignificant post practicein Philadelphia,supplemented tional ParkService in his atten- 1933, by adjunctteaching in the historic tions were divertedto win- temporarily preservationprogram, led by James the SecondWorld War in the ning Marston Fitch, within ColumbiaUniver- with the assis- Pacific, acknowledged sity's School of Architecture. tance of ChesterW. Nimitz. But back In the 1960s Petersondeferred to with the Park from 1946 to Service, McKee as a leading authorityon the 1948 in St. Louis and 1948 to 1962 in subjectsof early cement and concrete, Fig. 1 . Tower of barracks from southeast, Fort Philadelphia,Peterson's wars to preserve while not his own inter- Frederica National Monument (1741-42), St. selling growing nineteenth-centuryarchitecture from est short.5He exercisedthis balancein Simons Island, Georgia, May 1958. Photograph were harderto by Jack E. Boucher. Library of Congress, Prints mall-buildingpoliticians writing to an editor in 1966: "At the and the frustrations In those and Photographs Division, Historic American win, many.2 moment I am busy tryingto persuade Buildings Survey, Reproduction Number HABS years Petersonhad a scholarlybully ProfessorMcKee to do a resumeof GA, 64-FRED, 1-5. in the AmericanNotes section of pulpit Americanconcrete which (in my 17 18 APT BULLETIN: JOURNAL OF PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGY / 37:1, 2006 opinion) comes to us from the Mediter- 1961 McKee, having warned that the 1790 and 1880 in Britain,France and raneanand the Caribbeanwith lime early history of cementwas a "deep, America- of hydrauliclimes, natural concretein the very earliestdays, involved and confusingtopic which cements (emphasizingCanvass White), throughtapia, the gravelwall and other cannot be taken lightly,"figuratively and early portlandcements, but left "the things."6In November 1966 Peterson, read Petersonthe riot act: Dutch developmentsand the use of as he was occasionallydisposed to do, In my judgement, you are incorrect in referring Trassto CharlesPeterson, who has composed a circularletter, copied to to the material used on the Erie Canal as port- found a great deal of valuableinforma- and who have land cement. I have found it referredto by tion on that branchof the anyone everyone might as subject."14 useful informationof value to contemporaries hydraulic cement, water-lime, In his McKee was still him, water-proof lime, water-proof cement. Benjamin presentation announcingthat Wright, Chief Engineer for all of the New York battlingfor rigorousterminology. "For State in to the canal For our graduate seminar on Preservation and Canals, 1818, suggested historicalpurposes, the term 'cement', Restoration in the School of Architecturewe commissioners that they import Tarrasor which has a connotationto a Roman but did not follow his precise have had for two years a lecture on 'The walls cement, they recommendation. The material discovered and modern engineer,is too restrictive," of Buildings in America to 18 60. '...During this with Canvass White was thus McKee wrote. "At other sub- coming Spring Term it is hoped to explore this experimented by times, used in mortar as a substitute for tremendous subject in greater depth and a Roman-type stancesin the composition of concrete natural cement. It to me that White was lecture on early concrete by Professor Emeritus appears or mortarwere for its the same lines as Parker responsible ability Harley McKee of SyracuseUniversity is hoped following general James in - Parker called his material to set and hardenunder water."15 for. Eventually we may have a handbook and England (1796) Roman cement.10 McKee's as much as his finally, perhaps, an encyclopedia on Early definitions, assistedPeterson in advanc- American materials and construction tech- For Peterson,under McKee's tute- corrections, niques.7 his own researches.16 lage, the clear definitionof the terminol- ing With his lecturein March 1967 to ogy, for any given subject,became in- the students in Peterson'sseminar, Early creasinglyan essentialobligation of the Tabby, Tabia, Tabas . American Materialsand Con- Building historian.In his 1966 circularletter in For a 1952 in AmericanNotes structionMethods to McKee piece (up 1860), anticipationof the springterm at Col- Peterson "induced" choice of seven of (his word) provided pages supplementary umbia, Petersonwrote on the subjectof a Park Service Albert C. notes that summarizedBritish technol- colleague, cement and concretehistory: "One of to contributea brief but de- to and Vicat's 1818 Manucy, ogy up Aspdin the great difficultiesin discussingthis tailed article relatedto the as well as the Americannatural ongoing treatise, subjectis semanticin nature. On this stabilizationof the concrete ruins cement with Can- tabby industrybeginning Marion ElizabethBlake, [in] Ancient of the Britishfortress vass White in the same eighteenth-century year.8 Roman Construction...show red that the town of Fort Fredericain Much of the materialin the research Georgia use of words has been troublesomefor venturedinto the and course notes would find its into (Fig. I).17Manucy way nearlytwo thousand years."11Among and treacher- McKee'sstill invaluablebook amorphous semantically Early the excerptsfrom Blake selectedby ous of and American which constituteda topics tapia tabby:tapia, Masonry', Petersonwas the following: "The En- derivesfrom fulfillmentof Peterson's Manucy wrote, Spanish partial hoped- glish