THEME: Americans at Work F-rm NO. io-3oo (Rev. 10-74) SUBTHEME i Science and Invention UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS NAME HISTORIC Robert A. Milllkan House AND/OR COMMON 5605 Woodlawn Avenue LOCATION STREET & NUMBER -NOT FOR PUBLICATION CITY. TOWN Chicago VICINITY OF STATE CODE COUNTY CODE Illinois 17 Cook 031 CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY OWNERSHIP STATUS PRESENT USE —DISTRICT _PUBLIC -^OCCUPIED —AGRICULTURE —MUSEUM X_BUILDING(S) •^PRIVATE —UNOCCUPIED —COMMERCIAL —PARK —STRUCTURE —BOTH —WORK IN PROGRESS —EDUCATIONAL ^PRIVATE RESIDENCE —SITE PUBLIC ACQUISITION ACCESSIBLE _ ENTERTAINMENT —RELIGIOUS —OBJECT _ IN PROCESS —YES. RESTRICTED —GOVERNMENT —SCIENTIFIC _ BEING CONSIDERED — YES: UNRESTRICTED —INDUSTRIAL —TRANSPORTATION XNO —MILITARY —OTHER: OWNER OF PROPERTY NAME Wilson E. McDermut STREETS NUMBER 5605 Woodlawn Avenue CITY. TOWN STATE Chicago VICINITY OF Illinois 60637 LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION COURTHOUSE, Cook County Recorders Office REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC STREET & NUMBER 5801 Ellis Avenue CITY. TOWN STATE Chicago Illinois tl REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS TITLE None DATE —FEDERAL —STATE —COUNTY —LOCAL DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS CITY, TOWN STATE DESCRIPTION CONDITION CHECK ONE CHECK ONE ^-EXCELLENT —DETERIORATED X-UNALTERED X_ORIGINALSITE _GOOD —RUINS _ALTERED —MOVED DATE- _FAIR _UNEXPOSED DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE At 5605 Woodlawn Avenue is a three story brick building. It is one of three houses in a row designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Tallmadge and Watson and built in approximately 1906 or 1907. Thomas F. Tallmadge (1876-1940) worked from 1898 to 1905 in the office of D. H. Burnham and Company. In 1905 he established an independent .ficrm .with Vernon S. Watson. Tallmadge and Watson designed primarily residential buildings and their best known house is the Linthicum House in Evanston, Illinois. According to Carl W. Condit, Tallmadge was influenced by his experience in Burnham f s office and the Arts and Crafts Movements.1 As well as the other two houses in the row, 5605 Woodlawn Avenue is characterized by a simple flat front broken by a two story stucco and beam projection rising above the main, recessed entrance. The almost wall to wall glass windows in the third story give the house a certain "Prairie School" flavor. The interior is characterized by a side hall plan. On the first floor are located a living room, dining room, and kitchen. There are four rooms and bath on the second floor and the third floor contains three rooms and two baths. The interior is neither ornamented nor detailed. Fifty-Six-Zero-Five Woodlawn Avenue is architecturally important as an example of the residential work of a firm of secondary importance in the history of architecture in Chicago. The house has undergone no significant alterations since its construction. Robert A. Millikan lived at 5605 Woodlawn Avenue from approximately 1907 or 1908 to 1921, th.e year he left Chicago to move to California. It was during this period that Millikan made his most important contributions to..physics.............. *A brief discussion of Tallmadge is contained in Carl W. Condit, The Chicago Schodl of Architecture, (Chicago, 1964), p. 208. 1 SIGNIFICANCE PERIOD AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW —PREHISTORIC _ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC —COMMUNITY PLANNING —LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE —RELIGION — 1400-1499 _ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC —CONSERVATION —LAW _XSCIENCE —1500-1599 _AGRICULTURE —ECONOMICS —LITERATURE —SCULPTURE — 1600-1699 —ARCHITECTURE _EDUCATION —MILITARY —SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN — 1700-1799 _ART _ENGINEERING —MUSIC _THEATER — 1800-1899 —COMMERCE —EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT —PHILOSOPHY —TRANSPORTATION X.1900- —COMMUNICATIONS —INDUSTRY —POLITICS/GOVERNMENT —OTHER (SPECIFY) —INVENTION SPECIFIC DATES approximately 1907-1921 BUILDER/ARCHITECT F. and STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE When a member of the National Academy1 of Science dies, the Academy in accordance with its procedures publishes a biographical memoir of the deceased scientist. L. A. Dubridge and Paul Epstein, two distinguished physicists, wrote the Academy's biographical memoir of Robert Andrews Millikan. After studying Millikan *s life and work, Dubridge and Epstein wrote, "Millikan was without question one of America's greatest scientists. He was, at the height of his career, not only the Nation's most renowned physicist but also a conspicuous educational leader and public citizen."-1 LIFE Robert A. Millikan was born March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois, the son of a minister. When Robert was five the family moved to McGregor, Iowa, and two years later to Maquoketa, Iowa, where Millikan grew up. He attended local schools graduating from high school in 1885. Before going on to college Millikan worked for fifteen months as a court reporter and then entered Oberlin College. At Oberlin he studied both science and the humanities. By his junior year he had so impressed his teachers that he was asked to teach an introductory course in physics. After completing his undergraduate study in 1891 Millikan remained at Oberlin for graduate work earning an M.A. in 1893, By the time Millikan's years at Oberlin came to an end, physics had become his vocation. Unknown to Millikan one of his Oberlin professors submitted his student records to Columbia University in the hope of securing a scholarship that would allow Millikan to go on for his PhD. Millikan learned of the honor when he read his name in the New York Times in the list of scholarship winners. Entering Columbia in 1893 Millikan, who at the time was the only graduate student in physics, studied under Michael I. Pupin, the distin­ guished physicist. During the summer of 1894 on Pupin f s recommendation • L. A. Dubridge and Paul Epstein,"Robert Andrews Millikan," National Academy of Sciences Bi6graphi.Gal Memoirs, 23, (New York, 1959), p. 241. (Continued) ^HLQMAJOR A. Dubridge BIBLIOGRAPHICAL and Paul Epstein, REFERENCES"Robert Andrews Millikan," National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, 25, (New York, 1959). Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, (New York, 1938) Robert A. Millikan, The Autobiography of Robert A. Millikan, (New York, 1950). ^GEOGRAPHICAL DATA ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY *- ess than one acre UTM REFERENCES A|I. 6| M5.oiM.5l I^ 3 a 3 7 a 4 I.I.I,. ZONE EASTING NORTHING ZONE EASTING NORTHING C| . I I I , I , , I I . i . | . I Dl . I II,!.. 1.1,1,, VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES STATE CODE COUNTY CODE STATE CODE COUNTY CODE FORM PREPARED BY NAME/TITLE James Sheire, Historian ORGANIZATION DATE Historic Sites Survey, National Park Service January 1976 STREET & NUMBER TELEPHONE 1100 L Street NW. 202-525-5464 CITY OR TOWN STATE Washington D.C. 20240 STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATION THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS: NATIONAL JL- STATE___ LOCAL___ As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service. FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVE SIGNATURE TITLE DATE Form No. 1 C/-300a (Rev. 10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OE THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM Robert A. Millikan House CONTI NUATION SHEET_________________ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE 2_____________ Millikan studied at: the drivers ityMDjf Chicago with A. A. Michelson, America's first Nobel prize winner in physics. When Millikan received his PhD. in 1895, he could look back with pride and say that he had studied under two of the country's leading physicists. Of Michelson- Millikan years later wrote, "I was much more impressed by Michelson than by anyone else I had thus far met." Supported by funds and introductions supplied by Pupin, Millikan spent 1896 studying in Europe. Upon returning to the United States he accepted an offer from Michelson to teach at the University of Chicago. Millikan was 29 when he joined the University of Chicago faculty and he immediately poured his young energies into his discipline. During his first decade at Chicago he consistently worked twelve hours a day, dividing his time among teaching, writing textbooks, and research. In 1900 Chicago sent him to Paris to set up an exhibit of the instruments with which Michelson had measured the speed of light. In 1902 he again returned to Europe, this time on his honeymoon, and he used the occasion to meet most of Europe's leading physicists. In 1908 Millikan began the electron experiments which made him famous and which he later called, "my oil drop venture." The University of Chicago remained Millikan's academic home until 1917. With the outbreak of World War I Millikan accepted a commission as major in the United States Army Signal Corps and moved to Washington, D.C. to help organize the National Research Council. During the war in addition to his many duties with the National Research Council Millikan was especially active in assembling a group of scientists to work in submarine warfare and he also acted as director of the meterological unit of the Army Signal Corps. At the end of the war he remained