1711 Emerson Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55403, USA

Elizabeth C. Quinlan House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance

The Elizabeth C. Quinlan house, completed in 1925 and finished with landscaping by circa 1930, is locally significant under Criterion C in the area of architecture within the statewide context of Urban Centers (1870-1940). Designed by architect Frederick Lee Ackerman in the Renaissance Revival style, the dwelling represents an excellent example of the Eclectic movement of the 1920s and of Ackerman’s high-end residential work. Ackerman was a founding member of the Regional Planning Association of America and an advocate for the replacement of capitalism with “technocracy,” a system in which prices are determined by work input, rather than business and financial interests. Although primarily known for his work in developing housing and communities for low-income residences, Ackerman made much of his living by designing houses and places of business for industrialists and people of considerable means. The Quinlan residence suggests ways in which Ackerman attempted to reconcile his apparently paradoxical political views with his means of earning a living by strongly encouraging the use offline craftsmanship, especially the work of master metal craftsman, Samuel Yellin. The house was created for Elizabeth C. Quinlan, entrepreneur and president of the Young Quinlan Company, the first ready-to-wear shop west of the Mississippi River. Quinlan lived in the house from 1925 until her death in 1947. The Quinlan Residence is a unique and refined interpretation of the Renaissance Revival style adapted to an American urban residential setting. The resulting design is a unique creation that reflects the client’s well-regarded style, and the ability of master designers and craftsmen to exhibit her tastes in her residence.

Elizabeth C. Quinlan (1863-1947) Elizabeth C. Quinlan was a co-founder of the Young-Quinlan Company, which, in 1894, was the first women’s ready-to wear shop west of the Mississippi River. Her highly successful department store, innovative practices and entrepreneurial work led her to become a leader of national recognition in the apparel industry and a pioneering business woman.

Quinlan was the daughter of working-class pioneers who settled on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. To help support her family, she began her 51 -year career in the clothing industry in 1879 at the age of sixteen. Employed as a clerk by Goodfellow’s Dry Good Store in downtown Minneapolis, she earned only $10 a week. By 1894, she became one of the company’s top salespeople, earning a higher salary than any man working there.

With fellow employee, Fred V. Young, Quinlan left Goodfellow’s to form the first women’s specialty store in Minneapolis. Before this time, women either made their dresses themselves or paid someone to make them. Despite the fact that she could not sew and had never made a dress in her life, Quinlan and her business partner opened their first store in the back of Vrooman’s Glove Company (located at 514 Nicollet Avenue). At a luncheon in her honor years later she would recall, “in 1894 the Young-Quinlan store opened. It was not very large and, in a few hours, we were practically sold out. For a while we thought we might have to close, because of too much success.”

Ms. Quinlan’s innovation of ready-to-wear clothing, “freed women from the tasks of sewing ... and permitted them to become a force in society,” as Mrs. Sumner T. McKnight professed on behalf of Minneapolis women in 1926. The popularity of the store among upper-middle class women quickly propelled the expansion of the store to larger quarters in the Syndicate Block Building.

After her partner, Young, died in 1911, Quinlan bought his interest in the company and became the sole owner and president of the Young-Quinlan Company (Elizabeth Quinlan’s sister, Annie Quinlan, ran the Young-Quinlan corset shop). For the next several years, the store and Elizabeth Quinlan flourished. As the store’s principal buyer, she traveled all over the world to keep current with fashions, particularly those in Paris, Florence and New York City. Despite her growing national reputation, she remained fiercely proud of Minneapolis. She received an offer to work in New York City for a salary of $50,000 annually - nearly double what Young-Quinlan Co. grossed. Reflecting years later, she mused that her decision to stay in Minneapolis was “the best day’s work I ever did.”

In 1926, Quinlan moved from her store site at 513 Nicollet Avenue to a five-story emporium erected especially for the Young-Quinlan Company at 901 Nicollet Avenue. The new building would advance both her business objectives and reflect her personal tastes. “I don’t want a store,” Quinlan has been quoted as saying, “there are millions of stores throughout this land. I want a beautiful home.” Indeed, her new emporium was designed by Frederick L. Ackerman, who had designed her own home Just two years before. The $1.25 million building was considered the largest women’s specialty shop in the country. The Renaissance Revival style building featured Kasota limestone trim, buff brick, brass framed display windows, and an underground parking garage with direct elevator access to each shopping floor.

Throughout her life, Quinlan was an important player in national and local civic work and a supporter of charities and cultural groups. She founded the Business Women’s Club in 1919, was an advisory board member for the Salvation Army, and in 1929 she served on the advisory board of the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal program that advocated raising the minimum wage, among other policies.’ As a side business, she even became the director of a taxicab company because she wanted “taxi service for women and children as safe as the streetcar system.”

Quinlan retired in 1945 from her noteworthy career, selling the store to Chicago’s Henry C. Lytton & Co." Through her career, her top professional tributes include a feature called “The Most Distinguished Business Women of the United States” in the March of Time documentary series sponsored by the Times Corporation (1927), and in 1935 she was described by Fortune magazine as the “foremost women’s specialty executive” in the United States and “among the top 16 businesswomen in the country.”

Elizabeth C. Quinlan died in 1947, leaving her assets to her nephew, William Lahiff, and eventually to the Elizabeth C. Quinlan Foundation, which continues as a legacy of her success.

A Symbol of Success: 1711 Emerson Avenue South At the height of her professional career, Elizabeth Quinlan commissioned nationally regarded architect Frederick Lee Ackerman to design a residence in the prestigious Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis. Completed in 1924, the residence at 1711 Emerson Avenue South is symbolic of Quinlan’s success and representative of her taste for elegance and high-fashion. It is a unique and refined interpretation of the Italian Renaissance Revival style adapted to an American urban residential setting. Completed for a cost of $47,000, it is an excellent example of how architectural styles of the past were extensively employed during the 1920s, particularly Mediterranean influences.

Before commissioning the construction of her own home, Quinlan resided with her sister, Annie, in the Leamington, a Minneapolis residence hotel at 10th Street and 3rd Avenue South, a few blocks from her downtown store. The Lowry Hill parcel was assembled in 1909, and the two-and-a-half lots remained un-built until 1924. Although the house was consistently referred to as the Elizabeth Quinlan residence since its inception, Annie was named as the owner of record until 1944, when she transferred the property to her sister. The house Ackerman designed was intended to be occupied by both sisters. Although constructed with two full living units, the larger upper unit was home to both Elizabeth and Annie. The lower unit was rented out to well-healed tenants, who in 1930 included Edward C. Haglin, president and treasurer of the prominent C. F. Haglin & Sons construction company.''' Quinlan once quipped that she might need to take over the lower floor for living quarters and turn the upper part into a small museum of her “finest things.”

Quinlan’s acquaintance with Ackerman was likely through his wife, Mary Linton Book walter,who spent her formative years in Minneapolis and got her start as a consulting decorator in the Minneapolis Handicraft Guild, of which she was a founding member. As a patron of the guild, Quinlan developed a relationship with Book walter that grew into a longstanding business association and friendship between two pioneering business women.

Correspondence on Project No. 235 from the Ackerman office suggests the active participation of not just the designers - Ackerman and Book walter - but of the fashionably inclined client, Elizabeth Quinlan. The drawings prepared by Ackerman were completed by December of 1923 when they were sent out for construction estimates. Nels Jensen was selected for the job. Although elegantly designed in a Renaissance Revival style, the house is relatively simple, with the significant exception of the decorative iron work displayed on the interior and exterior. For this reason, and perhaps because of the preferences of Quinlan, particular attention was paid to these design details and to the selection of their fabricator.

In May 1924, Bookwalter wrote to Quinlan asking her to visit the Jay Carlisle house at Islip, Long Island (designed by Ackerman, built in 1921) on her next trip to New York to see examples of iron work, which featured the work of master craftsman, Samuel Yellin, much admired by Bookwalter and Ackerman. With regard to the iron details, Bookwalter continued her letter cautioning “you must take time before making a decision on a detail of this sort, or you will destroy the whole character of your house which has little ornament in it and that ornament must be exactly right.”

The scheme for the Quinlan house was to fabricate different iron pieces by various artisans. Quinlan had initially arranged for Alderigo Martelli, a Florentine craftsman, to fabricate several iron pieces, including two gates, and several ofthe balconies. Both Ackerman and Bookwalter discouraged employing Martelli as the fabricator, even though his production costs, even with shipping from Italy, would be less than American fabricators. Of particular concern were the three curved iron balconies designed for the west and south exterior elevations of the house. These, Ackerman argued, require a precise curve to match the stone platforms upon which they would rest. The added costs of a complicated installation due to poorly made railings could easily offset the savings of the initial manufacturing. Quinlan acquiesced on this point, and Martelli was asked to provide shop drawings only for the simpler features, such as gates and radiator covers, that would not require such exacting fabrication. When Ackerman finally received Martelli’s drawings in August of 1924, he was “baffled” and became doubtful of Martelli’s ability to adequately execute any of the iron pieces. He told Quinlan that using Martelli would be taking a chance, adding “I have no idea whether the odds are for or against getting what we want.” Ackerman further discouraged Quinlan’s desire to use Martelli on the basis of lower costs alone by making a not-so-subtle analogy to her own business offline clothing. His letter read, “I pay for my clothes twice as much as I need pay were I to go across the street.... and yet 1 do not question the desirability of paying that much excess.”

Eventually, the most important iron work pieces went to Philadelphia-based Samuel Yellin, the craftsman preferred by Ackerman and Bookwalter. These pieces included the three curved exterior balcony railings and the interior minstrel balcony with acanthus bracket overlooking the second story living room. When a local Minneapolis fabricator, Challman & Co., failed to meet Ackerman’s exacting specifications for the curving interior iron stair railing, this too was given to Yellin. The piece was shipped to site in March 1925. Additional pieces, including the front doors, inside doors and grill registers, were created by the Minneapolis firm of Kienzle & Merrick Manufacturing Company.

The property at 1711 Emerson Avenue South served as the architectural prototype for another Quinlan-Ackerman collaboration, the Young-Quinlan department store at 901-915 Nicollet Avenue. The home and place of business share a number of stylistic similarities, including a Renaissance Revival inspired design, extensive use of dressed stone trim, an elegant but austere interior conveying the desired air of refinement and elegance. The showcase of the department store’s interior is the marble staircase sweeping upward to the mezzanine wrapped in wrought iron balustrades. Like her home, the five-story Young-Quinlan Department Store constructed in 1926 was largely influenced by Quinlan’s personal taste. It reflected what she believed was excellence in modem merchandising - elegance, luxury, and convenience. She described it as the “perfect gem” that was widely admired nationally and internationally.

The Young-Quinlan building has the distinction of being one of the first buildings in the country to be built with an underground parking facility that had an elevator go directly from the parking garage to the sales floors. This design created a modern planning solution for the new age of transportation. The Young-Quinlan building is eligible for the National Register and is designated as a Minneapolis landmark. Because the department store best represents Quinlan’s business achievements, the store, rather than her house, possesses significance associated with Quinlan’s own importance under National Register Criterion B.

Quinlan lived in her home with her sister Annie, who ran the corset department at her store. The two resided there - along with rental occupants on the first floor - until their deaths in 1946 (Annie) and 1947 (Elizabeth). Upon Quinlan’s death, the house and all of her assets were left to her nephew, William Lahiff. Lahiff lived in the house until 1979, when he donated it to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The Institute returned it to private ownership in 1981.

Lowry Hill Neighborhood
Thomas Lowry, founder of the Twin Cities streetcar system, and his father-in-law Calvin Goodrich platted the Groveland Addition in 1872. The area is bounded by Lyndale at the east, Fremont at the west, Franklin at the south and the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad tracks at the north, near the growing central district. The upland portion of the 75- block addition was intended from the beginning to be an exclusive residential enclave for upper-class families. Lowry established this trend by erecting his Second Empire style mansion on a five-acre parcel near Hennepin and Groveland avenues two years after platting the addition. With this, the area became commonly known as Lowry Hill. The Groveland Addition was among the earliest sections of land near the lakes to be platted and comprised the western edge of high-style residential development in Minneapolis.

By 1885, there were about 30 houses east of Humboldt Avenue S. between Groveland Terrace and Franklin Avenue. Development of Lowry Hill grew in the 1890s when improvements were made to Hennepin Avenue and to the land surrounding Lake of the Isles, Central (Loring) Park was purchased and improved, and an electric streetcar line was extended into Groveland Addition. Deed restrictions, such as large lot sizes, 25-foot setbacks, and minimum home construction value of $5,000, assured the neighborhood would be an enclave for wealthy residents. Much of the area was built out between 1893 and 1916 with houses designed in fashionable period revival styles of brick and stone masonry construction and brick veneer. Most houses in the area were architect-designed, whether commissioned directly by the client or through builders or contractors. Either way, the houses featured fine architectural detailing. Even some stock plan houses erected in the area were of some of the best examples.

While the Lowry Hill neighborhood witnessed its greatest growth into the 1910s, a number of open lots remained by the 1920s. The Minneapolis economy generally prospered into the 1920s, despite the decline of its major industries of milling and lumbering. The Lowry Hill area continued to be developed with high-priced homes for the city’s elite, either on vacant lots or where older houses were razed for new construction.

Elements of Styles
The style of the Quinlan house is most often referred to as Renaissance Revival, with strong suggestions of Italian, or Tuscan, influences. Quinlan herself viewed her home as being “rather peculiar in architecture... half Spanish and half Italian.’’^ Quinlan’s remark is both revealing and correct. Her collection of Renaissance-era antiques was predominately gleaned from both Italy and Spain, and she viewed her new home as a setting fit for her prized possessions. The blending of these two European traditions in the American setting was not uncommon in 1920s design, when architects’ academic familiarity with the Italian Renaissance would influence the design choices of a “Spanish” style, an idiom with which they were less familiar. The result was a blended style inspired by examples in Spain, Italy and even North Africa, that became known as “Mediterranean” architecture. This modified style is characterized by an open courtyard, a patio with gravel, brick or stone flooring, and a fountain at its center. The house was typically covered with red clay tiles on the roof, and walls of plain stucco punctuated by colorful awnings, wooden or wrought-iron grilles, heavy wooden shutters, deep revealed windows, and ornamentation reserved for important door and window openings.

Whether classified as Renaissance Revival, Spanish or Mediterranean, the Quinlan house’s style is closely aligned with the Eclectic movement of architecture, popular from 1880 to 1940. Eclecticism drew upon a variety of historical antecedents, including Colonial, Neoclassical, Tudor, Mission and even Pueblo styles, by creating relatively pure copies of the original traditions from different European countries and their New World colonies.

The Eclectic movement had its origins in the last decades of the nineteenth century as European-trained architects designed fashionable houses for wealthy clients. The trend gained momentum with Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, which brought to fruition a design ethic that remained true to historical interpretations of European styles. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, design preferences departed from the historically inspired styles when architectural modernism in the form of the Craftsman and Prairie styles was introduced and dominated American domestic design. The end of World War I, however, brought an abrupt close to the modem influences and a return to a style of domestic design suggestive of a more deeply rooted heritage, a trend that would persist until World War II.

The Italian Renaissance style was among the sub-categories of European styles mimicked in the American urban landscape. In contrast to the Italianate style popular during the Victorian Era, the Italian Renaissance style drew more authentically from its historical predecessors. Historians suggest that this is, in part, due to a greater number of architects and their clients visiting Italy and observing firsthand the origins of the inspiration or seeing authentic examples of European buildings through newly perfected photography. In addition, technological advances achieved after World War I made replication of the stone prototypes more affordable through techniques such as masonry veneering.
The simple hipped roof variant, of which the Quinlan residence is an example, is characterized by a flat, symmetrical facade, a low-pitched hipped roof with tile covering, an accented arched entryway, stone veneered quoins, pedimented windows, and a graduated treatment of windows on each story. Ackerman was specifically inspired by the small rural Tuscan house of northern Italy. Details such as the dressed trim of Mankato limestone, heavy wooden louvered shutters, stone balcony platforms with wrought iron rails and balusters, and red clay tile hip roof highlight its Tuscan source, while also conveying a sense of sophistication appropriate to Quinlan’s character and status. Quinlan’s own interest in European antiquities, heightened by her frequent travels abroad, goes hand-in-hand with the authenticity espoused by the advocates of the Eclectic styles.

Quinlan’s “half Spanish and half Italian” home was a repository for her growing collection of Renaissance-era antiques from those countries. Among the items with which she furnished the interior were an enormous Gobelin Renaissance tapestry, a 17th century Italian divan, red draperies from a Sicilian Cardinal’s home, a 16th century Spanish vargueno chest, an Egyptian prayer rug, and in Quinlan’s bedroom, aprie Dieu from the estate of the Countess of Toledo. Complementing the “medieval splendor” of the home’s interior were a number of modem elements, including alabaster vases by French designer, Ratteau, which won a prize at the Exhibition of Modem Art in Paris (Ratteau was the artist who designed “The Lady” relief panel that would be synonymous with the Young-Quinlan store). In addition, Quinlan installed a “startlingly modernistic” dressing room covered with mirrors decorated with woodland elves and nymphs, a dressing table with an illuminated glass surface, and an adjacent bathroom with under-water scenes of fishes and seaweed. For guests, an equally striking Art Deco powder room was designed by the Young-Quinlan company’s store designer, Frank Post, with walls decorated with angles, curves, stripes “and strange species of colorful garden flowers.” The woodwork was painted silver, and the sleek dressing table was lit through opaque glass surfaces with a half-moon mirror. The adjacent washroom has an elegant sink with a white swan base with bronze dauphin faucets (extant).

In whole, Quinlan’s “Florentine home” exemplified the intent and the spirit of the Eclectic movement. By seeking a setting equal to her collection of fine European antiques, Quinlan, with the design talents of Ackerman and Bookwalter, created a residence that, in the words of a contemporary, was a “subtle and sophisticated blending of the finest old things of the past with the smartest of the present day’s examples of contemporary modem art... all done after a manner that is at once charming, easy to live with, and entirely expressive of her own inimitable personality.

working within a dichotomy of styles drawing from both historical traditions and lurching toward the Avant grade. The rise of automobile-oriented suburbs and the houses that would populate the newly broken ground were inspired by a variety of historical periods, frequently using Italian or French Renaissance, English Tudor, or Gothic as their inspiration. Simultaneously, the hastening speed of America’s industrial society was leaning toward more modem and innovative design schemes for its factories. While the factory owners pursued modem design for their industrial endeavors, their homes were decidedly traditional, and served as a retreat from the pressures of the modem industrial age. The coexistence of radically modem design approaches alongside traditionally inspired motifs were executed not by architects specializing in one style over another, but by designers who were skilled at using multiple approaches. Or, as historian Leland Roth puts it, “architects during this period were of many minds.

Frederick Ackerman was among those multi-talented architects of the era who could skillfully place each foot in seemingly disparate worlds. He is best known for his involvement in the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), which worked for socially responsible planning, design, and financing. Within this group, Ackerman was widely regarded as among the most socially and politically radical, advocating alternatives to the capitalist system. In an apparent paradox, Ackerman made his living designing well-appointed private homes, hotels, museums, libraries and fashionable department stores for some of the greatest beneficiaries of capitalism using designs drawn from decidedly traditional sources.

Frederick Lee Ackerman received a degree in architecture from Cornell University and then continued his studies for two more years in Paris. From 1906 to 1920, he was in partnership with Alexander Trowbridge, his former instructor and dean of the College of Fine Arts at Cornell. While in this collaboration, Ackerman conducted a detailed study of England’s planning and housing movements prior to the American involvement in World War I. As a result, he became convinced of the need for high-quality and thoughtfully planned communities, instead of quickly erected temporary solutions. During the war, Ackerman became chief of the Department of Housing and Planning of the U.S. Shipping Board. In 1921, Ackerman returned to private architectural practice as a sole practitioner. He maintained offices in New York City until his death in 1950. Ackerman pursued a wide range of public and private commissions, while keeping a strong interest in public housing and planning.

In addition to his architecture practice, Ackerman was a distinguished writer and lecturer on housing and urban planning. He was a founding member of the RPAA in 1923 with Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, and Lewis Mumford. The RPAA shared a commitment to regionalism and the decentralization of congested urban populations. They also believed that new technologies - electric power, the telephone, and the car - were liberating agents, allowing homes and workplaces to escape the constrictions of the 19th century city. Ackerman was particularly interested in socially responsible planning, design, and financing of community housing. Among his contributions to city planning was the 200-house Sunnyside Gardens, one of the first “garden city” developments in the United States and where he served as architect. His interests in solving the housing crisis for low-income workers led to the government financed communities of Yorkship Village in Camden, New Jersey; Dundalk, Maryland; and Seaview in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The planning for these and other garden cities influenced the New Urbanism movement popular in latter part of the century.

Ackerman’s social values strongly influenced his most notable contributions as an architect. Among those who shaped his political views was Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), the noted economist and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) who coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” Ackerman likely first met Veblen at the New School of Social Research in New York City around 1919, and became a devoted follower of Veblen’s technocracy revolution.'*® Veblen’s critique of capitalism, or “the price system” as he called it, rejected the valuation of goods and materials by business and financial interests, and instead valued work as a defining characteristic of human achievement and satisfaction. Ackerman and Veblen both believed that revolution would not be led by the workers, as Marx imagined, but by the technicians. In place of capitalist leaders with questionable motives, he advocated for a system of technocracy led by disinterested technicians acting without commercial interests. Ackerman became an active member of the Technical Alliance, which was inspired by Veblen, and later a founding member of the Committee on Technocracy.

It was this technical approach to society as a whole that led Ackerman’s office to be involved with the publishing of Architectural Graphic Standards, an early and successful attempt to isolate constructional and functional design issues from aesthetic design. Completed in 1932 by Ackerman’s junior partners in his firm, Charles Ramsey and Harold Sleeper, Graphic Standards was inspired by Ackerman and shows his intellectual influence. The guide divorced technical architectural specifications from style by laying out standardized plans for specific design issues, such as university housing, and diagrams for routine details, such as automobile sizes. Upon publication. Graphic Standards was quickly dubbed the “architect’s bible,” as it has continued to be known in subsequent editions.

The economic and political theories espoused by Veblen were embraced by Ackerman and resulted in direct manifestations in his architecture. Veblen’s critique of conspicuous consumption led Ackerman to attempt to eliminate applied, decorative ornamentation in architecture. When practically applied in his private practice during the 1920s, Ackerman most frequently turned to the Georgian Revival style. While working with his clients within the “price system” that he abhorred, it was this style which he believed was the greatest achievement of the handicraft era, with its emphasis on individual workmanship and craft. This, in turn, tied to Veblen’s theory of valuing the work put into the product, rather than its final aesthetic value. In designing Colonial Revival houses, for example, Ackerman would specify the long-forgotten practice of using wooden downspouts. His intention was not to emulate the historic appearance, but to revive the materials and mode of construction with an emphasis on craft. The methods also reference both Veblen’s and Ackerman’s working knowledge of John Ruskin, William Morris and other thinkers of the Arts and Crafts social movement.

Ackerman’s work on the Quinlan house demonstrates the dual worlds within which he was living and working, and at first blush suggests little of his progressive social and political leanings. The high quality of the Quinlan house design, and the care and interest expressed in the correspondence with Quinlan, indicate Ackerman’s agility in working in a variety of traditional styles and with exacting clients of discriminating taste. Although he preferred to work in the Georgian style, Ackerman was able to achieve a high degree of authenticity of a Mediterranean-inspired style for both exterior and interior design of the Quinlan house. His letters with Quinlan suggest the great care he took with the design process, including the interior finishing, and his insistence on high quality materials and workmanship. His particular insistence in working with iron-worker Samuel Yellin, apparently at costs that caused Quinlan to balk, perhaps tips his hand in revealing his political persuasion. The value placed in Yellin’s craftsmanship suggests the work-value theory espoused by Veblen, and the high regard each had for the work of artisans. His letter of August 21, 1924 to Quinlan elucidates his tension between the “price system,” within which he works and for to which his clients are indebted, and his advocacy of a plan that values the work input: “I pay for my clothes twice as much as I need pay were I to go across the Street---- and yet I do not question the desirability of paying that much excess.”''® In the end, bringing the commission to the much respected Yellin may have been a small victory for Ackerman, who daily was required to reconcile the paradox of his political ideals with his means of making a living and the clients who support him. Many of Ackerman’s more personal political beliefs are expressed through his letters to colleagues, especially Clarence Stein, with whom he was also a neighbor. More details may never be known, as his own papers are no longer extant. His left-wing political views may be to blame. During a time when the U.S. Congress had begun investigations for communism and “un-American activities,” it is not surprising that his wife destroyed his letters following his death in 1950.'”

Mary Linton Bookwalter Ackerman (1873-1953)

Frederick Ackerman’s wife, Mary Linton Bookwalter Ackerman, was originally from Minneapolis. Before marrying she held an important role in interior decorating and design as one ofthe women who formed Minneapolis’ Handicraft Guild in April 1905. The Handicraft Guild was an organization central to the Arts and Crafts movement active in Minneapolis from 1904 to 1918. The guild was founded, led, and staffed primarily by women, making it historically significant to women’s art movements nationwide.''* After her involvement with the guild, Bookwalter moved to New York City in 1907, where she studied design and carpentry, helped to establish a code of ethics and rigorous training requirements for New York decorators, and received recognition for her innovative design work on the renovation of Harperly Hall at 64th Street and Central Park West.''® Following her 1911 marriage to Ackerman, Bookwalter diminished her career activity, although, as is evident in the Quinlan project, she remained active as a consultant. Both Ackerman and Bookwalter were involved with the design of the Quinlan house - he, with the architecture and she with the interior design.

Samuel Yellin: Master Craftsman (1885-1940)

Ironwork in the Quinlan residence was completed by several firms. Two Minneapolis metalworking fabricators, the W. E. Challman & Company and the Kienzle & Merrick Manufacturing Company produced most of the pieces, including stair railings, front and interior doors and register grilles. The most complicated and prominent pieces were turned over to the more expensive and skilled craftsman, Samuel Yellin. Yellin, who is recognized as a master iron craftsman, completed the exterior balconies, and an interior balcony with acanthus bracket. A winding interior stair railing was added to his commission after Challman failed to satisfy Ackerman’s and Quinlan’s exacting specifications. Correspondence between Quinlan and her architect, Frederick Lee Ackerman reveal Ackerman’s great respect for Yellin’s work. Despite the cost of his commissions, Ackerman persuaded Quinlan of the importance of quality iron work in prominent locations.

Yellin was born and trained in iron craftsmanship in Poland, and later settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Benefitting from the building boom in the 1910s and 1920s, he worked with notable architects all across the country and was recognized nationwide for his craftsmanship. His works include the hand-wrought fixtures and gratings in the Washington Memorial Chapel (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania), the Harkness Memorial Quadrangle at Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), Washington National Cathedral (Washington, D.C.), Grace Cathedral (San Francisco, California) and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York City, New York). At the time he was producing the Quinlan commission, he was completing the largest wrought iron commission in the nation -the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City -for which Yellin’s blacksmiths turned out 200 tons of decorative iron. He was granted awards for his contributions to the field of metal work from the Chicago Art Institute (1919), the American Institute of Architects (1920), and the Architectural League of New York (1922).

Yellin’s shop produced a handful of residential projects destined for Minnesota clients between 1919 and 1926. The first was for the Minnetonka home of John S. and Eleanor L. Pillsbury called South ways. For this residence, Yellin designed an exquisite grillwork gate with intertwining herons. Yellin would later produce additional pieces for the Pillsbury’s Spanish-style winter home in Palm Beach, Florida. Other Minnesota commissions ranged in size from a peep-hole cover for Minneapolis architect Wilbur H. Tusler’s Lake Harriet home to Paul Watkins’ lavish Tudor style home in Winona designed by Ralph Adams Cram, which included entry doors, lanterns, ceiling fixtures, window grills and wrought-iron flower boxes. Non-residential Minnesota commissions included churches in St. Paul and Duluth, an interior railing for the Golden Pheasant restaurant in Minneapolis (1920), and the Beaux-Arts style Federal Reserve Bank designed by Cass Gilbert (1924).

Today, the Elizabeth Quinlan House and George H. Christian Mansion (current home of the Hennepin County History Museum) remain as the only properties in Minneapolis that are known to contain significant installations of Yellin’s ironwork.