Ralph Adams Cram (Ralph Adams Cram)

Ralph Adams Cram

Architect, Author. Inspired by the influential English critic John Ruskin, he became an ardent advocate of and authority on English and French Gothic styles. He produced many collegiate and ecclesiastical works in a neo-Gothic style. Winning the West Point competition brought national attention to him and in 1907 Cram was appointed Campus Architect, a position created for him by then University president Woodrow Wilson.  Church commissions followed across the country as far west as Denver, Colorado, south to Florida and north to Canada.  In 1911, he was appointed architect for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a commission the office holds to the present day.  The same year, he was commissioned to design a new Church for St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue in New York City. His last great works were the 1923-29 St. George’s Chapel with his friend John Nicolas Brown, the 1931 plan for the Cathedral and the 1938 Monastery for the Cowley ­Fathers next to Harvard Yard and the Campus for Boston University. He died after a brief bout with pneumonia, leaving behind 26 books and close to five hundred commissions, great and small. (bio by: MC)  Family links:  Spouse:  Elizabeth Carrington Read Cram (1873 – 1943)*  Children:  Ralph Wentworth Cram (1904 – 1973)* *Calculated relationship

Born

  • December, 16, 1863
  • USA

Died

  • September, 09, 1942
  • USA

Cemetery

  • Saint Elizabeth's Memorial Churchyard
  • Massachusetts
  • USA

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